By Emily Ford
eford@salisburypost.com
KANNAPOLISóMarie Olenych left family, friends and a job she loved in Tallahassee, Fla. so her husband could play with million-dollar microscopes.
Well, not exactly play. Although Dr. Scott Olenych, the new microscopy expert at the N.C. Research Campus who is installing millions of dollars in micro-imaging equipment, said he does sometimes feel like a kid in a candy store.
“It’s wonderful to come to a place where you have the best and newest of everything,” Scott said. “It’s totally exceptional.”
Officially titled an embedded consultant, Scott works for Carl Zeiss MicroImaging Inc. and will spend the next two years training scientists at the Research Campus to use dozens of cutting-edge Zeiss microscopes and imaging systems in the Core Laboratory Building.
Because his job is complex and his name is hard to pronounce, sometimes he’s just called “the Zeiss guy.”
Campus founder David Murdock and the David H. Murdock Research Institute announced the multi-million dollar deal last year, the largest single transaction Zeiss has made with any institute.
Basically, the Murdock Research Institute, which owns and operates the Core Lab at the Research Campus, has one of everything, including a few Zeiss instruments available nowhere else in the country.
“We have every capability here,” Scott said.
He will help researchers design their experiments to take full advantage of equipment some may never have seen before.
“I’ll help them push the envelope a little bit,” he said. “The limiting factor isn’t the researcher anymore. It’s the researcher’s knowledge of the instrument.”
After learning about Scott’s opportunities in Kannapolis and then visiting the former mill village turned biotechnology hub herself, “I couldn’t say no,” Marie said.
She left her job directing a domestic violence and rape crisis center and moved to Kannapolis during the holidays, joining Scott in a second-floor apartment in the Village.
“It was fabulous, a bow on every streetlight, twinkling lights on every tree,” she said. “Carriage rides, the paradeówho couldn’t fall in love with it at that time of year?”
Marie now also works at the Research Campus as a temporary project manager for Dr. Sangita Sharma, a researcher with the UNC Nutrition Research Institute.
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Married for 13 years, Scott and Marie met at Florida State University. She earned a masters degree in early childhood education, and he earned a doctorate in molecular biological science.
She plays tennis, he runs.
On their first very cold day in Kannapolis, they bundled up and took a walk.
But Scott admits that when the temperature falls below freezing, he drives two blocks to work.
“A true Floridian,” he said.
Scott and Marie enjoy cooking Indian food and took monthly lessons for three years. Their favorite concoction is paneer, a cheese made on the stovetop by curdling heated milk with lemon juice.
Although she eats turkey on Thanksgiving, Marie otherwise has a vegetarian and seafood diet.
Scott calls himself a “flexitarian.” He complies with Marie’s diet at home, but when he’s away, he eats whatever he wants.
A black-and-white longhaired cat named “Pete” shows his disapproval of guests in the apartment with loud meows. Scott and Marie have an ongoing discussion about whether to get a dog.
Marie says yes, a rescued greyhound. Scott says no. He’s afraid the dog would chase Pete.
The couple patiently repeat their unusual last name.
“Olenych,” pronounced “oh-len-itch,” is Ukrainian, although Scott jokes that people often try to make him Irish by spelling it “O’Lenych.”
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In the Core Lab, Scott recently welcomed the Murdock Research Institute’s first paying customer.
Dr. Daniel Lupu, a scientist with the UNC Nutrition Research Institute, uses the Zeiss microscopes to study how a high-fat diet affects mouse brain cells.
He is the first researcher to officially rent time on the machines.
Academics will pay around $50 per hour to use the equipment, while scientists from private companies will pay more, Scott said. An average experiment takes about four hours.
When a scientist sits down at a microscope, Scott wants the machine to work perfectly and the researcher to understand exactly how to use it.
“They have spent months preparing their experiment,” he said.
Sending an embedded consultant to Kannapolis was part of the deal when Zeiss sold the equipment to the Murdock Research Institute. Although Scott works for Zeiss, he serves the institute.
He wears many hats in the Core Lab.
While the campus advertises for someone to manage the microscopy lab, Scott fills that role. He conducts workshops and seminars and gives tours.
He installs the equipment and brings it online, then maintains it.
When researchers needed help setting up a cell culture facility, Scott stepped in.
“He just happened to be an expert in that too,” said Chris Freson, the Zeiss manager who spent two and a half years piecing together the Murdock Research Institute deal.
“He couldn’t be a better self-starter, and we really need that here,” Chris said. “There aren’t a lot of rules. It’s a pretty untraditional setting.”
That interested Scott. But it also made him think twice about coming to an untested biotech complex where things seem to be happening backward.
“Usually, the place has scientists first, and then they buy the equipment,” Scott said. “They’ve got the cart before the horse.”
Although risky, the bold if-you-build-it-they-will-come attitude attracted Scott to the Research Campus.
“Here, it seems that everything is possible,” he said.