Profile

I’m a Ph.D. student, just after completing my first year of research. I’m with the Alimentary and Pharmabiotic Centre in University College Cork, who are all about the micro-organisms that live in your gut (We call them your microbiota). Research is showing that our microbiota has an effect on almost everything about us, including physical and mental health, allergies and even our brain chemistry, and we can affect all these things by controlling our microbiota.Right now I’m mostly involved in research into how our gut microbiota can influence kids developing allergies as they grow up. It’s still too early to say anything for sure, but there are some interesting links between the bacteria in our gut and things like asthma, depression and more. My first goal is to collect and analyse gut samples from both healthy people and people suffering from various allergies or diseases, and see if there’s any pattern. It might be that having a certain combination of bacteria living in your intestines makes you more likely to get asthma or depression, it might not. We won’t really know for sure until we have a look.To do that, I’m going to turn the DNA from each sample (this could be a tiny snippet of someone’s intestine, but most often it’s a tube containing someone’s poop. It’s a good thing I love my work…) into computer data through a fancy-sounding process called “metagenomic sequencing”. Then I’ll run that data through gigantic worldwide databases to figure out exactly what species of bacteria are living in these peoples’ guts, and what chemicals these bacteria produce. From there I can work out if there’s any major differences in gut bacteria between one group of people and another, which could explain why, for example, one group has more asthmatic people in it than another. All of this from studying someone’s poop.SCIENCE!Later on in the Ph.D. I may well be looking into ways to take advantage of what I find by developing probiotic foods that can help restore balance to the gut bacteria of people with health issues like those I mentioned above. We’ll have to see what comes out of the current experiments before planning that, though.

What I do varies a lot depending on the project I’m working on. Right now, I’m extracting DNA from biopsy samples of kids’ intestines so I can see what bacteria grow in the mucosal layer (the layer of your intestine that does most of the absorbing of nutrients from your food). This is a rare treat for me, as the samples are usually someone’s poop instead of biopsies, but for the next couple of months, my typical day goes like this:- Arrive at the lab, check emails over coffee to see if any results came back or my supervisor has any new work for me. And, because I am a shameless geek, sneak a look at the day’s video game news.- Set up my workbench with the tools and chemicals I need to process today’s batch of biopsy samples. The samples themselves are stored at a cool -80 degrees Celsius, so I’ll take them out to thaw too.- Spend a couple of hours extracting the DNA. It mostly boils down to putting a tissue sample in special solutions which break down cell membranes and proteins, but leave DNA unharmed. We can then squeeze the solution through specially designed filters which catch DNA while letting everything else through. Then we wash each filter a few times to make sure there’s only DNA left, before running another chemical through which causes the DNA to detach, leaving us with a little tube containing almost pure DNA from the sample.- Break for lunch. This usually involves more coffee. I believe coffee is a very important part of being a scientist.- Back into the lab. If there are a lot of samples to get through, I’ll go back to DNA extraction. Otherwise, I’ll take samples from earlier in the day (or days before) and start getting them ready for our sequencing machine. This involves using PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) to make copies of the DNA in each sample, and filtering out the human DNA with microscopic magnetic beads that stick to the DNA we don’t want, and then drawing them out of the sample with magnets. I am not kidding. This part of the job is *awesome*.-By this time the day is usually over. So I put my samples in the fridge for the next day, or if they’re ready for the sequencer, in a -20 degree freezer until the whole batch can be run in one go. Then I tidy up my workbench, write up my day’s work in my notebook, and head home. For more coffee.Probably the most valuable machine in the university.-If I’m not exhausted from the day’s work, I’ll usually play some video games. I’m a big fan of tabletop role-playing games too, so every now and then I’ll write one of those to run for friends on a weekend.