Choosing to leave my comfort zone

In April 2025, I moved from Zurich to Heidelberg to start a postdoctoral position at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ). On paper, it looked like a natural career progression. In fact, it was the result of a deliberate decision I had made during the final years of my PhD. I wanted to study brain immunity more comprehensively. My doctoral work on neurodegenerative diseases had allowed me to study the brain’s resident immune cells. However, because neurodegenerative diseases involve only limited infiltration of immune cells from the bloodstream, they were not the ideal model to investigate how these cells enter the brain and shape disease. Brain cancer, where peripheral immune cell infiltration is a defining feature, offered exactly that opportunity.

By then, I had completed my PhD, published my first papers, secured funding, supervised students, and spent years building expertise in neurodegeneration and neuroinflammation. I thought I was ready for the next step.

What I was not prepared for was how it would feel to become a beginner again.

Becoming a beginner again

For almost six years, my scientific identity had been closely tied to neurodegeneration research. I knew the literature, the experimental models, and the major unanswered questions. I had become comfortable being the person who could answer questions rather than ask them.

That confidence disappeared surprisingly quickly. Within weeks of joining a cancer immunology laboratory, I found myself surrounded by concepts, technologies, and biological questions that were largely unfamiliar. Instead of studying neurodegeneration, I was studying brain tumors. Instead of focusing on resident immune cells such as microglia, I was investigating immune cells entering the brain from the bloodstream. Instead of analyzing molecular snapshots of diseased tissue, I was learning how to observe immune cells moving through living tumors in real time.

For the first time in years, I found myself asking what felt like embarrassingly basic questions. Questions that everyone around me seemed to know the answer to. Questions I would have expected a first-year PhD student to ask.

I remember leaving meetings with pages of notes filled with acronyms, techniques, and concepts that were completely new to me. Although nobody expected me to know everything, I often felt frustrated by how much I still had to learn. Progress felt slower than I wanted. Tasks that appeared routine to my colleagues sometimes required days of reading and preparation on my side.

The value of not knowing

At first, this was uncomfortable. Academic careers reward expertise. We spend years becoming specialists. Publications, grants, conference talks, and job applications all reinforce the value of knowing more and becoming increasingly recognised within a specific field.

What they rarely prepare us for is the experience of no longer being the expert.

Yet something surprising happened. The further I moved away from my previous expertise, the more I realized how much scientific growth depends on discomfort.

As researchers, we often talk about innovation. We encourage interdisciplinary projects and celebrate scientific breakthroughs that connect different fields. But genuine interdisciplinarity is rarely comfortable. It requires accepting uncertainty and acknowledging gaps in our knowledge. It means being willing to ask naive questions and risk appearing uninformed.

Looking back, some of the most valuable moments in my scientific career occurred precisely when I entered unfamiliar territory.

Connecting different worlds

My PhD focused heavily on spatial transcriptomics and computational biology. Today, I combine those experiences with intravital microscopy, tumor immunology, and spatiotemporal analyses of immune-cell behavior. The connection between these fields was not obvious when I started. Yet many of the ideas I now find most exciting emerged because I was forced to look at biological questions from a completely different perspective.

The transition also changed how I view expertise itself. Early in our careers, expertise can feel like the ultimate goal. We want to become the person who has the answers. But science evolves rapidly. Techniques change, new fields emerge, and important discoveries often occur at the boundaries between disciplines. In such an environment, adaptability may be just as valuable as expertise. 

The ability to learn may matter more than the ability to know.

Mobility beyond geography

This is particularly relevant in an academic system where mobility is often encouraged. Researchers move between institutions, countries, and disciplines. Such transitions can be challenging. They involve leaving established networks, rebuilding confidence, and sometimes sacrificing short-term productivity. These costs are real and should not be underestimated.

At the same time, mobility offers opportunities that are difficult to obtain otherwise. It exposes us to new ways of thinking, different scientific cultures, and unfamiliar approaches to solving problems. It forces us to question assumptions that may have become invisible within our own field.

The art of being a beginner

For me, moving from neurodegeneration to cancer immunology was not simply a change of topic. It was a reminder that science is fundamentally about curiosity rather than expertise.

The most exciting questions often lie beyond the borders of what we already understand.

As researchers, we spend much of our lives trying to become experts. Yet perhaps one of the most important skills we can develop is the willingness to become beginners again.

Because sometimes the fastest way to grow is to leave the place where you already know all the answers and put yourself in a room where you have to start asking questions again.