Profile

I am 23 years old and come from just outside Glasgow. I did always enjoy learning at school, some subjects more than others, but never had a solid career plan (which is completely normal!). I only really got interested in Biology later in high school after always describing myself as more an arts and english-type person. But now in my Science PhD, being creative (from liking art) and having good writing, reading and critical analysis skills (from english) is actually really helpful!

I love living in Scotland and being close to my Mum and brothers. My boyfriend and I, now with our puppy Jura, enjoy going up North to hillwalk, kayak and explore the highlands. Binge-watching a good series on Netflix helps me relax at the weekend, alongside cooking nice meals and baking for my friends and family. Glasgow is an amazing city to see live music so I have been to my fair share of gigs and concerts and can’t wait to be back in the crowd at music festivals.

I am a PhD student, which involves returning to University after my first degree in Genetics to do a 4 year programme and eventually become a “Dr” in my field. Most of this involves one big research project in a lab. The PhD programme I am on also has “integrated learning”, which means I go to some lectures and tutorials and do bits of coursework over the years. For the majority of the time, I am in the lab or at my desk analysing data.

My big research project looks at human coronaviruses. You’ll have probably heard of COVID-19 by this point, which is the disease that results in some humans when infected with a virus called SARS-CoV-2, a member of the coronavirus family. Coronaviruses have been around a lot longer than when many people first heard of them in early 2020. In fact, if you’ve had a “cold”, then you’ll very likely have had a coronavirus infection, just a much milder version than the nasty and complex SARS-CoV-2!

Viruses are very clever pathogens. They don’t have much tools themselves, so during infection they manipulate many elements of the host cell itself to get inside the cell, replicate and then burst open and release new virus particles. The elements of the cell that get tricked to helping the virus are known as host factors.

My project tries to discover these host factors in human cells that help SARS-CoV-2 and other coronavirses. When we identify and understand the role of the host factors, we can use drugs to try and target them so to create new antiviral therapies. This is important because although the scientific community developed multiple vaccines that work to fight COVID-19, not everyone will get the vaccine and some people might still get sick and need treatment. And, unfortunately, coroanviruses are here to stay. So if a new coronavirus that the vaccine is not effective against appears, having antiviral treatments against a broad range of coronaviruses will be very important in preventing illness and death in vulnerable populations.