Sarah is a Wellcome Trust Tissue Repair PhD student. She recently released a new paper, titled “New oligodendrocytes exhibit more abundant and accurate myelin regeneration than those that survive demyelination.” You can also read our lay abstract of the paper.
Congratulations on publishing your first first-author paper, during a global pandemic no less! How are you managing at the moment?
I’ve been trying to schedule my time, and set myself goals for each day. I start every morning with a walk to get outside. I call it my ‘walk to work’, even though I’m not going anywhere in particular. Virtual meetings, like our lab lunches and lab meetings, have also been very useful in helping me to stay connected with other scientists and get feedback, which was an essential part of writing this paper.
David Lyons works hard to keep up his lab’s morale during lockdown.
What is your work about?
I’m interested in how our brains repair themselves. Our brains are amazing: they are highly complex information processing centres, able to receive and send electrical signals through nerve cells. My research focuses on the insulation around these nerves, called myelin. I’m investigating which cells are best able to repair myelin after it is broken down in diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS), and how we can target this process of myelin regeneration to develop new treatments. I have this image of my research as a cog inside a much larger wheel, constantly moving closer to the goal of helping people with diseases like MS. That knowledge, and that hope, is what brings me into work every day.
What were you investigating in this paper?
Myelin is made and repaired by cells called oligodendrocytes. Our research for this paper looked at how different oligodendrocytes contribute to myelin regeneration. Using zebrafish, we were able to look at individual cells, and follow them up over time. In particular, we were able to compare oligodendrocytes that survived myelin damage, and oligodendrocytes generated after myelin damage.
“... working in a brilliant team, with people that you admire and learn from, makes science so much better.”
How did your collaboration with Anna Williams’ lab come about?
Science is really a team game. We were so lucky to collaborate with Dr Lida Zoupi and Prof. Anna Williams in this paper. While going through our data, we noticed that the myelin made by surviving oligodendrocytes was often in the wrong place on nerve cells. We wanted to know whether this was something that also happened in humans, so we collaborated with Anna Williams’ group to look at myelin in the brain tissue of people with MS.
Was there a particular result or eureka moment that stuck with you?
There were quite a few of them, which mostly came about as a result of working in a great team with fantastic collaborators. I cannot emphasise enough how much working in a brilliant team, with people that you admire and learn from, makes science so much better. My colleagues would often walk past my desk and see my microscope images of surviving and newly-made oligodendrocytes, sparking fantastic conversations and helping us to come up with ideas for many future experiments.
How did you get to where you are now? What led you to this topic in particular?
As a child, I was always encouraged to be inquisitive and think outside the box. In school, I particularly loved learning about how complex our bodies are, so I followed this up by studying cellular and molecular medicine in Bristol (a beautiful city, if you ever have the opportunity to visit).
As part of my undergraduate degree, I interned at Johnson & Johnson for a year, working on antibiotics used in the cements for bone replacements. That was my first full time job, and it was incredibly fun to work in such a goal-oriented and fast-paced setting. It was a lot of responsibility, I was living in a completely new place, and I was definitely jumping in at the deep end, but I loved it.
My favourite part of my degree was a regenerative medicine module I took in my final year, so when it came to choosing a PhD, I knew that I wanted to be on the Wellcome Trust Tissue Repair programme in Edinburgh. Through the programme, I did a few rotations in my first year to try out different labs and to work on different systems in the body, but I decided to do my main project on remyelination in Dave’s [David Lyons’] lab. I remember that the first time I came to visit his lab everyone stayed to talk to me about their research, even though it was snowing like crazy outside. Dave and I chatted for hours, and mapped out so many different possible projects that I could work on that it was tough to choose just a single one. I was fascinated by how much we could do with zebrafish to investigate myelin. They stood out to me as a powerful model organism in which to answer the questions I wanted to ask.
What is the worst part of your job?
I wouldn’t say there is a worst part, rather there are challenging parts. One of the most challenging aspects is accepting that science doesn’t always happen at the pace you’d like it to, or in the way you expect. But questioning why that is the case is a fascinating aspect of our job, and can lead projects in really exciting directions.
A hobby the Lyons lab members have in common
Given how much you want to accomplish, is it hard to maintain a healthy balance of lab work and other activities?
It’s important to give yourself the time and space to focus on work, but also to enjoy meeting up with friends and have hobbies outside of work. I try to schedule my day in the lab, be fully engaged and use the time that I am there as effectively as I can, and to intersperse this with lovely things to look forward to outside of the lab. In my case, I love signing up for courses and trying new hobbies.
What advice would you give to someone considering a PhD?
One of the most important things I’ve learned so far is to seize opportunities. You might get the chance to write for a science magazine, or put yourself forward for the three-minute thesis competition, or strike up a conversation with your lecturer at the end of a class to ask if you can do a summer project or a rotation in their lab. All of these things are brilliant opportunities, which can help you figure out what you’re passionate about. Once you find your passion, go for it! When you do, “kid, you’ll move mountains!”