University of Washington biochemist Vera Trainer, PhD, made a successful scientific career studying the effects of toxic algae on coastal economies and wildlife.
And while her work on research ships kept her at sea level, her life-long passion for hiking kept her spirits high exploring mountains all over the world.
Then, in 2023, she discovered she had ovarian cancer.
Trainer, who was in her early 60s, suddenly faced questions she had never considered:
Would she have to quit her job and become a full-time cancer patient, surrendering the life she had built between the mountains and the sea?
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“I still want to be seen as a scientist and a mom and the whole deal,” Trainer said. “I'm a person with many different traits and I don't want cancer to just identify me as sick.”
With the help of her Fred Hutch Cancer Center gynecologic oncologist, Barbara Goff, MD, Trainer found a way to treat the disease aggressively without losing the mountains or the sea or anything else that made her life her own.
Trainer spent nearly three decades as an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration studying the runaway growth of toxic algae blooms that threaten coastal economies and the health of marine animals and humans.
She developed rapid antibody tests that analyze seawater for biotoxins indicating the formation of harmful algae blooms. The tests, which can be performed on research ships or in remote labs, help coastal tribes and government scientists in Washington state share real-time data and issue warnings.
Her more recent research focuses on climatic factors that influence the development and intensity of harmful algae blooms.
In 2022, Trainer was inducted as a member into the Washington State Academy of Sciences.
And in January of 2023, she was hired as the marine science research lead for the UW Olympic Natural Resources Center and named director of the Olympic Region Harmful Algal Bloom program in Forks, Washington.
And then — at the height of her scientific career — her world turned upside down.
“My poor boss,” Trainer said. “I started January 3rd and then at the end of that month, I found out I had cancer.”
Her boss told her to do whatever she needed to do to get better and they would support her. It was good to hear, and she heard the same from friends and family — whatever you need.
But she didn’t know exactly what she needed yet.
“It's so overwhelming,” she said. “You just wonder, well, how am I going to navigate this? Who am I going to tell? How is this going to go?”
Most of all, she wondered what was happening in her own body, which felt like a major wake up call.
“I found out I had a tumor in me the size of one of those kid footballs, and it was for a month that I lived with it until I had the surgery to remove it,” she said. “So that messes with your mind too, to be honest. You just want it out as soon as possible.”
After the initial surgery, performed at a hospital not associated with Fred Hutch, there were more questions about what to do next.
Learn more about our targeted approach to the diagnosis and treatment of gynecologic cancer.
So, Trainer dug in and researched.
“I'm an academic, so I've done a lot of reading throughout my life,” she said. “The reading that I did stated that a strong will to live is also an important part of healing.”
She also knew as a researcher to seek more than one professional opinion about how to proceed, which is how she met Goff, who specializes in gynecological cancer at Fred Hutch and chairs the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at UW Medicine.
Goff said Trainer had been told that following the surgery she could take a less aggressive approach to making sure the cancer didn’t come back.
But Goff disagreed. There was at least a 50% chance the cancer would return.
“You're at higher risk of recurrence,” Goff told her. “You're at the pinnacle of your life; you've got everything to live for. I personally think I would be more aggressive rather than less aggressive with you.”
Trainer appreciated that Goff treated her as a fellow woman of science right from the start.
“The first time I met with her, she was very businesslike,” Trainer said. “She gave me some background of herself and then said, ‘Do you have any questions?’”
But Trainer had already done enough research.
“I would like you to be my doctor,” she said.
But they became more than doctor and patient; they became partners.
“She agreed with that philosophy and decided that she would go with me, and we would do this treatment together,” Goff said.
But would such an aggressive approach mean that Trainer would have to quit her job and devote herself fully to her treatment?
“It's really up to you — you have to live your life,” Goff told her.
How patients want to live their lives depends on their individual circumstances. For the partnership to work, the patient must say what they want and the physician must listen.
“Even if you have cancer and you're getting chemo, there are many things that can be done so that you maintain the highest quality of life possible and do the things that are most meaningful to you,” Goff said. “You have to talk to patients and find out what's most meaningful to them.”
Goff would do what she could to help Trainer keep living her life between the mountains and the sea, but much would depend on Trainer.
“It's important for patients to feel empowered to advocate for themselves, and sometimes when you get a diagnosis of cancer, you don't always feel like advocating for yourself,” Goff said. “You feel desperate, and you should always take a moment, take a deep breath and take a look at what your options are.”
Trainer had many questions, starting with what she should be eating while undergoing cancer treatment.
Goff’s answer: “Nothing from a box.”
So, Trainer researched how to make healthy meals.
“I was making my own smoothies and that took a lot of effort, but my family helped me,” Trainer said.
Goff also had an answer to whether Google should be trusted to interpret the results of positron emission tomography scans.
In a word, no.
“I just had a little something on a PET scan and I Googled it,” Trainer said. “It didn't help because when I talked to Dr. Goff, she said: ‘It's really not a problem and this is how we're going to handle it.’ She taught me not to Google anything because what you're seeing is already old. It's hard to really get the most up-to-date information.”
Trainer decided to focus on what she could change and not worry so much about what was beyond her control.
“What I can change is my mental state, is my diet, is my relationship to people, the amount of stress that I have in my body,” Trainer said. “I did a little bit of yoga and then I would just go for long, long walks. I would find big trees in the neighborhood, and I just hugged trees, which maybe sounds silly but it's just that that energy seemed to help. And I felt like, OK, then life is going to be good, whatever life there is left.”
Goff worked with Trainer to adjust the treatment schedule whenever possible so that Trainer could continue her scientific work.
“These things were really important to her and that we would make sure that the schedule was such that she could plan her chemo so that she wouldn't be sick when she needed to go to conferences or things like that,” Goff said.
The first big test of whether they could adjust her treatment schedule came in November 2023, when Trainer wanted to attend the main meeting for colleagues in her field — the International Conference on Harmful Algae — which would be held in Japan.
The meeting would take place in Hiroshima and Trainer was scheduled to give a plenary talk on her work for everyone attending the conference.
There are critical periods in a course of treatment when it’s not possible to delay, but in Trainer’s case, Goff was able to adjust the schedule so she could attend.
“I had just finished chemo, and I was on maintenance treatment, but my hair was really short at the time,” Trainer said. “I remember I had a wig for the conference. I would take breaks sometimes in the afternoon or whenever and either go for a walk or take a nap.”
She had never taken naps before, but now she felt like she had a good excuse to set the work aside for a while and listen to what her body was telling her.
Prior to the conference, Trainer spent four days hiking the Kumano Kodo, an ancient pilgrimage route with trails connecting sacred sites in the heavily forested Kii Mountains.
“My understanding is the older Buddhist monks would hike along the Kumano Kodo, so there are temples all along the way,” she said. “It was very cool.”
Trainer grew up hiking in the mountains and often included a hiking adventure when she attended the conferences, which are held every two years.
“I grew up hiking in the mountains,” Trainer said. “My mom is German, and so we would go and visit her family in the Alps.”
Trainer learned then that hiking is more than a pastime for the people of southern Germany and Austria. It is an immersive and restorative therapy for the body and mind that people continue into old age.
“We were sort of beneficiaries of that, and so I've always loved the outdoors and hiking,” Trainer said.
In 2024, just as Goff had predicted was likely, the cancer came back.
“I operated on her, gave her more chemotherapy, and I gave her more maintenance treatment,” Goff said.
Meanwhile, Trainer learned that at the next international conference in in Chile in 2025, she would receive the Yasumoto Lifetime Achievement Award for “a long and outstanding record of contribution to harmful algal research.”
The conference would be held in Punta Arenas, capital of the South American country’s southernmost region and the gateway to Patagonia and Antarctica.
“Dr. Goff, can I go to Chile?”
As usual, Goff didn’t mince words.
“Well, are you going to come back for your treatment?”
“Oh, yeah, I'll be back,” Trainer said.
The treatments were typically three weeks apart, so Goff nudged the calendar a bit to accommodate Trainer’s journey to the Southern Hemisphere.
With more than 100 publications and 7,000 citations (as of June 2024) to Trainer’s name, her performance levels placed her in the top 1% of her field.
The lifetime achievement award acknowledged Trainer’s efforts to connect scientists with the tribal communities directly affected by climate change and harmful algae blooms, a community-building approach that has been emulated in Alaska, Guatemala, the Philippines, the Cook Islands and Indonesia.
Trainer was grateful for the honor and grateful she could receive it in person.
“It’s like standing on the summit of a mountain, being surrounded by all of your colleagues acknowledging your work,” Trainer said.
When the conference ended, Trainer and her husband returned to the mountains, hiking a difficult trail in Patagonia.
“I didn't know if I would be able to, but I did,” Trainer said.
Goff was amazed when she heard the story.
“Literally, I had gone two weeks before her, and she did a much, much harder hike than I ever did,” Goff said. “She was in the middle of chemotherapy and I said: ‘Oh my God, you did that hard hike?’ It was really challenging and I was so impressed.”
The partnership between Goff and Trainer continues.
“I've always felt like we're working together,” Trainer said. “I always bake a cake when I see her and every time I go, I take her a book. She just seems so appreciative that I take her these small things, but she's given me my life. It seems like a pretty poor exchange, but I do what I can to show my gratitude.”
And Trainer continues to live a full life between the mountains and the sea.
“We're all going to die,” Trainer said. “So, to find your most enriching, best life, I think means, reaching out to family, finding a support group, working with your doctors, and being kind to yourself by not expecting too much, just doing what you can: eating a healthy diet, learning to meditate or doing something that allows you to just be with yourself in a calm way.”
She plans to attend the next International Conference on Harmful Algae in 2027.
“Next year it's in Aberdeen, Scotland, so I hope to hike in the Highlands,” she said.
John Higgins, a staff writer at Fred Hutch Cancer Center, was an education reporter at The Seattle Times and the Akron Beacon Journal. He was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT, where he studied the emerging science of teaching. Reach him at jhiggin2@fredhutch.org or @jhigginswriter.bsky.social.
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