What do you do your PhD in and what is your main research topic?

My project is about vitamin D production in skin through UVB radiation and why the elderly tend to have lower vitamin D levels. The main study available on this topic is fairly a old paper published in the 80s with limitations and inconsistencies in its methodology (MacLaughlin and Holick, 1985). For example, they used skin from amputated legs, which we can assume is not really representative of an average healthy person’s skin. So, my aim is to shed more light on this topic through well-designed and controlled experiments. We will be taking small skin biopsies from a specific area of the body, the lower back/upper buttock, as it is a part of the body which does not get much sun exposure, therefore not affecting our results. We will then measure levels 7-dehydrocholesterol (7-DHC), which is a precursor of Vitamin D, and compare two data sets (young vs old age group).

Is yours a new approach, then?

I am developing an assay, more than an approach. I use HPLC (High Pressure Liquid Chromatography) and MS (Mass Spectroscopy) to do this. I am using skin samples, processing them in a specific way and then running them through the HPLC-MS system to determine the quantity of 7-DHC. However, to do this, I initially need skin samples from healthy volunteers. So I will be carrying our clinical research study where I will be able to collect skin biopsies. This involves writing and designing the study and obtaining ethical approvals. So in my PhD, I am involved both in lab research and the clinical aspects, which I think is a unique combination.

Do you collaborate with other research groups?

Yes, we do. I have two main supervisors. Prof. Ann Webb is based in the University of Manchester. She is a physicist specialising in solar radiation, but also a dean of graduate education. Prof. Lesley Rhodes is based in Salford Royal Foundation Trust Hospital. She is a dermatologist, but is also heavily involved in skin research. We also collaborate with another research group from University of East Anglia, and I often work in a lab based near Liverpool. It is good to see and be part of nice collaborative environment between different research groups and universities.

What motivated you to enter this field?

Oh, gosh, this is such a complex question! There are so many factors and I can talk about my motivations for a long time. Sometimes it is easy to forget about what brought me here, as routine and day-to-day life gets in the way, but it is good to remind myself once in a while.
I think there was a moment when I was 25 that I said to myself: I’m going to be 30 soon. I have a background in pharmacology, drug discovery and some dermatology/skin knowledge [Which I obtained during my internship at university spin-out Curapel and later at my job in medical devices company.]. Let’s use these skills and learn more about skin. I find it fascinating how light affects our skin and that up to 80% of aging is caused by light (Flament et al., 2013). Theoretically, if you lived in a dark room and never got exposed to UV light, you would look 30 forever! Though you might have problems with bones due to lack of Vitamin D. My PhD research is a fascinating topic full of contradictions.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

It would be nice to do something that can help people. Make people aware that sun can be bad in large doses and leads to skin cancer (mostly melanoma), and that artificial tanning beds are very dangerous (banned in some countries such as Brazil or Australia). Most of those beds don’t even emit UVB radiation, which is needed in small doses to produce Vitamin D, but UVA which only ages skin and brings no benefits. One session in tanning bed increases your chances of skin cancer by 20%! (Skin Cancer Foundation, 2012).
Yes, you may look tanned today, but your collagen is being damaged after excessive UV exposure leading to premature skin ageing (wrinkles, skin elasticity, etc.). It is a quite interesting social concept, as here in Europe everyone wants to be tanned, while in Asia, everyone wants to be fair. It is unfortunately the influence of marketing which aims to create artificial demand for skin tanning or lightening products. It would be great if this was finally challenged and more people would care about health rather than what is ‘the mainstream’.

What is your dream society?

I think my dream society would be a place where everyone has some and is able to use critical thinking skills, especially before making decisions that affect all of us. Looking at the world today I notice that a lot of people base their knowledge on what they are told by one newspaper or one TV station instead of questioning it and trying to get to the facts rather than opinions.
I believe that understanding the world we live in is a duty for us, as thinking conscious beings. Otherwise we are only creatures, like any other animal, that live only for the sake of it and not bring anything good to the society or human civilisation as a whole.
My dream society is a place where people understand the world around them, they are kind, tolerant and non-selfish.

What motivates you to get up in the morning?

I personally like to achieve aims, whether they are small or big. I cannot carry on very well without an aim. For example, tonight I am going to cook ‘this and that’. It is a small aim of course, but I like to wake up and know I have something to do. The long term aim is obviously to finish my PhD and then get a job in a research industry. So, that’s it, having aims motivates me to get up in the morning. Not at all times (laughter), but the majority of the time.

What would you tell your past and future self?

This is a very hard question! You know, my mom told me once something really great and I keep thinking about it whenever I start to regret the past. She said that there is no point regretting things we have done in the past. As in that moment, with all the facts and information we had, we have made the best decision we could for ourselves. We are (mostly) logical beings; therefore we always make the best choice we can at the time. That is a great advice I am very grateful for. For the future, I do not know. We will see what the future brings.

What do you do your PhD in, and what is your research topic?

I work in the field of neuroscience, I work with neurons. My specific research, my project, is about neuro-regeneration, so we are trying to find a way to make damaged neurons to work again.

How and why did you get interested in this topic?

Well, neuroscience in general, the brain in general, has always been very interesting to me, since I was studying biology at high school and then deciding to do biology at university. With everything that I was studying – you know, how the body works -, I realised that it comes from the brain, and we know so little about it. I have always been very curious about it and I said (to myself) I want to go and know more about it, and that is when I started looking for a PhD position in neuroscience.

Can you tell me a little bit more about your research topic?

Yes, so I work with neuroprogenitors. Progenitors means that they are kind of cells who are not neurons yet, but they have the potentiality to become neurons. As these kinds of cells are very interesting for neuroregeneration in general, we are trying to find different approaches to make these cells work again. In my case, we are trying to grow these cells in different areas of the brain to see if they actually work so they can be, in the future, transplanted. This is the main aim of the project.

Is yours a new approach?

Not really, because these kinds of cells are already being transplanted in animals, but it is very difficult to know the destiny of these cells. When you do such a big thing, when you just put cells in the animal brain, you do not really know what it is going to happen, or what these cells can do, so my approach is actually a step behind. We are looking (at this process) in vitro, so we have everything under control and we can actually see what is going to happen and see if these cells need a little help or something else to be functional in vivo later on.

How is your research going to affect society?

Oh well! Ahah. I’m not saying this because it is my project, but I am a very fond of it and I am happy that it is working and that I am having nice results, from my point of view. I hope this kind of approach and these results in general can be good for the future of regenerative medicine. So it could be really helpful to see and to state that these kind of approaches works or not in the future.

What motivated you in particular to enter this field of study?

Besides the interest that I always had in the field of neuroscience, I found this position here, in Trieste, in SISSA, and my professor is working with nanotechnology, so she is actually interfacing neurons with nanomaterials. I was attracted by the idea that these kind of things can be the future, so that is why I was really willing to come to this specific lab.

What makes you get up of bed, what motivates you in the morning?

Honestly the idea of finishing this project. Because PhD can be very long and can be very frustrating when you do not get good results, and when you have your deadline and other stuff. So now I am in that part of the PhD project where you are actually almost done, so when I get up, and it’s not that I am overthinking my project, but the idea to go there (the lab), to have nice things done, to finish the work and then have a publication, and maybe to go on and move to a different project in the same field. So yes, trying to finish this chapter and then go on is what motivate me.

How do you see yourself in 5 years? What would you like to do?

Well, this is the most difficult question. I have no answer to that, because of the way I am. I am not very thoughtful about the future, I am not making plans. That is me, and that is research. I mean, academia is like this, you never really know. I am going to finish here and then I have no idea if I am going to stay in Italy, or if I am going to move to US or to just stay in Europe. Or, if I am going to get married. I actually don’t have any idea. If you ask me what I would like to do, I would love to be a University professor. I would love to keep doing research, to have my class and to have kids.

What makes life meaningful?

I think the most important thing in life is family, friends, love. I mean, I love my project and I love my work, but work is not life, so people.

What does the world and the society need right now in your opinion?

Humility. I think that now people start to be very pretentious, very arrogant. They pretend to know, they pretend to be stronger than the others, they put themselves before the others and there is no communication. So I really think that everyone of us should step back and listen to the others. Also empathy (is something the society needs.) We should empathise more, because people are very selfish, in my opinion.

What does science need right now?

I think that science needs to get less involved in politics and bond less to money. Because, you know, researches are very much related to money, to grant, and so on. Every kind of topics can be more or less interesting to study depending on the impact and on the money.
I think research needs to discover again the curiosity about pure research and to trust young people more, because they have a more free mind. If you talk to people and professors that have been in research for many years, they think the same old way, because they know how things are working; but instead, young people may not know how things work, but their way of thinking could be a good approach to go to a different direction. So I believe science needs to be more free from the society and to discover the curiosity to study again.

Would you like to say anything else?

Yes, I would say something to young researchers and to biology lovers like me. I’m always thinking if I had the possibility to go back when I was finishing high school and decide to study biology or economics or law or languages, I would change and not do research. Research is hard and future (in research) is very weak, you know? You never get enough money to build your dream house. So I would change it for something more useful, or more understandable by society. But then, if I think about myself 10 years ago and if someone would have said to me “even if you love biology you should do economics”, I would have said No.
I would tell people and students, young girls and boys that love biology, that they can go for it, because it will be worth it if you like doing it, but it is going to be very hard. So weight what you want to do, if you love to study more than having a nice life (kids and family or whatever) then, do it. But think about it.

What is your research project?

The area I am looking at is focused on dementia in an ethnic minority, and I’m specifically looking at British South Asians, because I am South Asian myself. What we are seeing right now is that dementia is one of the leading causes of death; it is in the national dialogue a lot, everyone knows someone with dementia. When it comes to British South Asians, there is a high susceptibility of being diagnosed with dementia, which is due to a variety of reasons. For example, we have a lot of risk factors, so people with diabetes and heart problems are more likely to be diagnosed with dementia. British South Asians happen to have a high rate of this problems. We also have lifestyles and belief systems that do not allow us to receive education on dementia as much as other ethnic minorities, and when we do see problems, like people showing up signs of dementia, we prefer to keep the issue within the family because of stigma and the belief that only family needs to take care of family and we do not want outside intervention.

So, my research project is very specific and focuses on memory clinics. Memory clinics are places where you go, referred by your GP, if you think you have dementia. When you go to these memory clinics, they do lots of tests, assessments and interviews to officially diagnose you. What we see is that although British South Asians have all those high risk factors, they do not show up to memory clinics, even when they get a GP referral; or, when they do show up, they drop out before the full assessment is done.

So, my project is to understand why this is happening, why are they not accessing this service even though they need it, and what can I do to fix this. We are hoping to create some sort of tool kit which will have training for memory clinic staff, educational material, diagnostic tests for dementia that focus on British South Asians, and improve their access to memory clinics.

Is yours a new approach?

It isn’t essentially a new approach more than it’s building up on all the research done in different areas. For example, we have seen that the same issue happened in primary care services, and this kind of approach improved access to GP. The same happened with other mental health problems, and this kind of approach improves interventions for depression, anxiety and so on. But when it comes to dementia, this is quite new. It is basically recycling an old method for a new problem.

Do you collaborate with other research groups?

Essentially, the research project is taking place in the Centre for Primary Care Health here at the University, so they technically own the project. My specific research team is supervised by Dr. Waquas Waheed, a psychiatrist here at the University, and he is leading the first ethnic minority research in primary care division in the UK. So, here is where the research is based. But, we are hoping to eventually collaborate with other research groups as well as with NHS trusts to get our work in the system.

How did you get interested in this field?

To be honest, I kind of fell into it. I had never imagined that I was going to do research and I would be working on dementia. Obviously, dementia is a topic that is coming up a lot, and as I said, everyone knows someone who has dementia – I know someone who has dementia -, so it becomes almost personal in a certain way.
I guess I became interested in it because everyone was talking about it, and when it comes to ethnic minorities, I am an ethnic minority, and I see the struggle of British South Asians when it comes to mental health in general. So, I wanted to get involved in ethnic minorities even if it was not dementia. It just happened to be dementia.

What does science need right now?

I think science needs better representation, because science is something that seems very unapproachable to the general public, something which is very exclusive, and therefore not fair. Something, you know, elitist. Or it seems that scientists are trying to scare everyone because it gets misportrayed all the time; we make little steps in science and the media latches onto it.
We tend to overestimate knowledge and underestimate intelligence. Not everyone knows the things that we scientists know, but that does not mean they do not have the capacity to understand it if we just explain it to them.

What is your ideal society?

I think I would like a more open minded society. To thrive as a society, I think everyone should be open minded and a critical thinker. Having an open mind exposes you to the idea that you may not know everything and there is so much more to learn. There are so many different ways to be and not one way is right.
Critical thinking is something that makes you question what everybody is saying. I can see different cultures and religions, but no one questions, everyone just does. But if you know why you are doing things, that is very important.

Is there anything that you would like to change about science right now?

There is not a lot about science that I feel needs to be improved, probably because I have not been exposed to the bad side yet, but I do think that even within our community of scientists there is still exclusivity. Little cliques in different fields, a hierarchy where the uppers are always with the uppers and the lower students hang out with the lower students. Maybe that line needs to blur, and those divisions need to fade. One science is not better than another.
Because I focus on mental health and psychology a lot, I hear a lot of flack about how it is not a hard science and it is not real research. And I think we do not need any of that kind of talk, because it prevents collaborations and cooperations. It is really unnecessary.

Is there a story you would like to share with us?

Today during my first year interview viva, they (the examiners) were reading my report and kept saying that I wrote ‘We did research’, and ‘We got results’. We, we, we… and they said, “You need to say I”, and I thought that does not sound proper. “You need to take ownership that this is your own research project”, I was told. And I kept thinking, Yes, this is my project and I should say I, but I feel this is not a solo effort, because it goes way beyond. There is you, your supervisor – Dr. Waquas Waheed, in my case -, all the people in your department you run into and say “Oh, you are an expert in this, can you teach me this, can you teach me that…”. The project would not be possible without them.
There is the family and the support that I have. I know that those people (the examiners) don’t care, but I have a very, very supporting family: a dad and a mum who always valued higher education and the importance of having a career. I have a brother who is like my best friend, who will come in the middle of the night when I am really upset with ice cream or food or to take me out to see a movie. I have a fiancé who, when I am really upset, will transcript data for me, or help me find the different software I need, or simply listen to me rant about the project. I have friends who have now left University; they have their own lives and families and careers, but they will still run to help me when I need them. So, I do not think I can emphasize enough how we keep getting told (phd) is a solo effort, but it really should not be.

Thank you!