Katy is a research fellow and lab manager in the Lyons lab. Her latest paper on NKCC1 in the peripheral nervous system was published in the Journal of Cell Biology on Tuesday. You can also read our lay abstract of the article.
What is your elevator pitch for your work?
I say that I’m a biologist studying the disease of multiple sclerosis (MS). MS is a chronic disorder, for which we have medications to treat the early immune side of the disease, but not the progressive, truly debilitating side of it. I want to understand why MS progresses the way it does, in order to find treatments to reverse it. What appealed to me about the Lyons lab was the translational aspect of the research: after my PhD, which was in a more niche area of neuroscience, I realised that I wanted to do research that could have a direct impact on patients’ lives.
What’s a typical day like for you?
There isn’t really a typical day in my job, which is why I like it. I have several roles: I’m working on my own project, but I also help to manage the lab. Each day will always include some managerial tasks, such as restocking or ordering, and some benchwork. Other than that, the essentials of a day in the lab are setting up fish and collecting eggs, meetings — we have a lot of meetings —, lab lunches and chats with colleagues.
What would you say is the worst part of your work?
I spill tank water on myself in the fish room on a regular basis. Then I smell like fish for the rest of the day [laughs]. In science generally, one of the worst things is when an experiment that you’re excited about, and that you’ve been working on for ages, just isn’t working. Often, you don’t know why and that’s incredibly frustrating.
Do you have a favourite aspect of your job?
I love those spontaneous, unplanned moments when a casual chat turns into a fascinating science conversation. We often chat amongst ourselves in the lab, but Dave [David Lyons] might come through from his office, and the conversation sometimes goes off on a tangent which yields some great ideas for experiments, and which you would never have thought of by yourself. Or when someone has intriguing results, or a beautiful image on a microscope, so we all crowd around and get excited about it. For me, those are the best moments in the lab, because it’s the sharing of the cool bits that’s fun.
How did you get to where you are now?
My dad is a physicist, so I grew up with science around me. He was always up for in-depth discussions of interesting questions, and had a critical, scientific way of thinking about those questions. At school, my favourite subjects were maths and art. I know, not the most obvious combination [laughs]. I didn’t have any biology training whatsoever until my last year of high school, when I was able to crash the human biology class. That completely changed what I wanted to do; I applied to all the Scottish universities to do a Biomedical or Biological degree. In the end I chose Aberdeen, and I worked in labs every summer holiday to build up some experience and get an idea of the work that different groups carried out.
After that, I knew that I wanted to do a PhD in neuroscience. I contacted individual Principal Investigators (PIs) whose work I thought was interesting, including Peer Wulff, whose project stood out from the others. In order to investigate the mechanisms of learning and memory, his lab used virus particles to inactivate sets of neurons in rodents — effectively removing a component of the circuit — to see how it affected the animals’ behaviour. I had never worked with rodents before, but as time went on I found it harder and harder to work with them because I would get attached, and on top of that, by the end of my PhD I had developed allergies to them. I don’t regret choosing that project, but I knew that I didn’t want to work with rodents anymore, and I wanted a job which I felt could have more of an immediate, day-to-day impact.
To figure out what I wanted to do long term, I decided to leave the bench to try something quite different. I had no experience of medical writing, but I took a job based in Glasgow because I liked the idea of making science more accessible. I enjoyed medical writing, but I didn’t have any control over what I was writing about, so I didn’t get to work on neuroscience-related topics very often. I missed neuroscience, and in particular being able to get to grips with a single topic, to take time to think of new questions and their implications. After just half a year of medical writing, I knew I wanted to get back to the lab.
Trying to get back into science after taking a break was a gamble. I didn’t have the publication record that others had, and I was looking to change to a new model organism, and to a new field that I had no experience in. I applied for a position that Dave and Don Mahad had jointly advertised because I had the experience with rodents that Don was looking for, but hoping to work with zebrafish in the new model system that Dave was offering. Dave took me on, and six years later, I’m still here. I enjoy working with fish, but I would also like to get more involved with human cells and organoids, because I think they complement the in vivo zebrafish system very well.
What is the funniest or most memorable thing that has happened to you while working in science?
So many funny things happen in our lab, but the most memorable was Dave’s 40th birthday. We filled his whole office with balloons, which involved an incredible team effort. We blew up hundreds and hundreds of balloons — we even had a balloon oligodendrocyte — not knowing if or when he would come into the office the next day. Marion [Baraban] acted as our mole: she saw him on the bus and gave us a warning that he was coming. Jason [Early] set up a motion activated recording system to capture Dave’s reaction as he rounded the corner. Dave was so excited about it, he tried to walk into his office and was encased in balloons, which he refused to pop. His office smelled like rubber for days [laughs]. It was one of those brilliant moments when a plan comes together perfectly, and I don’t think we can ever top that.
David Lyons, overwhelmed by a perfectly executed plan
What advice would you give to a young scientist?
One recommendation is to find out what you really care about. If you’re not interested in what you’re working on, then you’ll lose your motivation and you won’t be able to do it long term. Find something where, even after years and years of doing it, you’re excited about going into work… at least most days. And if something looks like a challenge, like something you don’t think you can do, then that’s probably what you should be trying to do. You’ll make the most progress when you push yourself out of your comfort zone.
Another piece of advice is to find people that you work well with. Dave hires people who fit in well with the current lab members, not just based on CV. I think personality isn’t valued enough in science, and many people see science as an individual profession, but the way people interact with others is so important. We work with so many people, within the lab, within the centre, and around the world, that we have to be team players.
And finally, don’t be so critical of yourself. There is a tendency in science to compare ourselves to others, and to feel like we’re failing unless we’re giving amazing presentations to hundreds of people or have a stack of publications to our name. But as scientists, we’re not trained to be amazing public speakers or to prepare presentations, and the people we’re comparing ourselves to have often had a thirty year career in science.
Just remember: you might not be at that point yet, but you will get there.
Find out about Katy’s recent research.