Dr. Dom Olinares recaps his journey from the Philippines to analytical chemistry, his path to resilience, and why LGBTQIA+ acceptance and inclusion supports better science. Dom shares his experience working on COVID-19 research and the opportunities for open information sharing to facilitate scientific progress.

Read the episode transcript.

Meet the guest

Dom is a Research Associate in the Laboratory of Mass Spectrometry and Gaseous Ion Chemistry at The Rockefeller University. In his daily laboratory work, he weighs biomolecules, specifically protein assemblies, to determine what they are made of and establish what they do. His current research involves characterizing the replication machinery in the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the infectious agent behind COVID-19 that enables the virus to proliferate. Determining the molecular architecture of this viral copy machine will provide clues in developing better anti-viral drugs. Dom grew up in a rural and agricultural town in Cagayan Valley, the largest producer of rice and corn in northern Philippines. He received his B.S. in Chemistry from the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines and his Ph.D. in Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Cornell University. Dom lives in New York City with his husband and two cats.

Dom's research work can be found through his ORCID and through Google Scholar.