Improving how we study neuroscience through a PhD
Dr Erin O'Callaghan discusses her experience in biomedical sciences at the Department of Anatomy & Physiology - and life after graduate research.
Today, it is Dr Erin O’Callaghan’s job to ensure global pharmaceutical and biotechnology company GSK promotes its medicines ethically. Her PhD in biomedical sciences helped her build strategic thinking and science communication skills. She learned initiative and resilience by being a world pioneer in applying new gene therapy technology.
Erin was one of the first people in the world to use new gene technologies and techniques in high blood pressure research.
“You're going into a project where there's an unknown space, and you have the potential to find new knowledge that no-one else knows,” Erin says.
Erin completed a PhD in Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences at the University of Melbourne in 2012. Under the supervision of Professor Andrew Allen in the Central Cardiovascular Regulation Laboratory at the Department of Anatomy and Physiology, School of Biomedical Sciences, Erin said she had “wall-to-wall equipment, machines and doodads” for her to experiment with.
I really liked that hands-on learning – being able to think about how you might use the equipment in different ways to ask different questions or to measure different things in your experiments.
Professor Allen says each PhD student is unique, bringing their own interests, personalities and drives to the laboratory - and his job as supervisor is to help students thrive.
"This privileged position has challenges though as the supervision occurs within boundaries set by the need to fulfil obligations to external funding agencies and run a productive, internationally competitive research laboratory. All of this occurs on a foundation of educating the students in rigorous scientific method, paying attention to the quality of experimentation and equipping them for a future career in whichever direction and discipline they may wish to pursue."
Using viruses to understand how brains work
“We were trying to advance the field of how we could study neuroscience – and not just neuroscience within the brain, but how it affects the body and physiology,” Erin says.
Her PhD used a new technology to study neural pathways that contribute to regulating blood pressure and kidney function. The technology used viruses to deliver microRNA-based gene therapies. MicroRNA controls gene expression – how the information in a gene is used by a cell.
We were targeting a very specific gene in a very specific cell type, in a very specific part of the brain.
Professor Andrew Allen’s research group, where Erin did her PhD, were world leaders in this work.
“You often get a lot of failures and you don't really understand why things aren’t working,” Erin says.
"Technically difficult experimental methods, always comes with a high rate of failure. This is very hard to accept, but it is often through our failures that the really important learning and advances occur," Andrew Allen said.
While it isn’t always the scientist’s fault when the science doesn’t work in retrospect, Erin wishes she had put less pressure on herself.
“I think cutting myself some slack would have helped by making sure that I let go of things sooner to be able to move on in other aspects of research."
The community approach with people who are going through similar things that you're going through helps...and being in the trenches together, you form some really strong friendships
How a PhD can help build international professional networks
International conferences are another way graduate researchers can form lasting connections.
During her PhD, Erin attended a Gordon Research Conference in her field, funded by a travel scholarship from the University of Melbourne.
Many international conferences host thousands of delegates but at smaller conferences, like the Gordon Research Conferences, delegates get the opportunity to interact more.
“You're actually eating your breakfast, your lunch, and your dinner with these eminent scientists who are driving your research field." The experience gave her insight into how senior researchers live and work.
An award from Hypertension Australia gave Erin another opportunity to travel and for three months she collaborated on research at the College de France.
Where will a PhD in biomedical sciences lead?
A PhD prepares graduate researchers for roles that require strategic thinking and a PhD in biomedical sciences is especially useful in the pharmaceutical industry.
“You need the ability to think critically, to communicate your views, to communicate science well. You need to have the initiative and the resilience to drive projects to completion,” Erin says.
You need the objective approach where you know when to can a project or proceed with a project that is independent of your emotional involvement in it.
Her supervisor Professor Andrew Allen’s international networks helped Dr O’Callaghan land a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Bristol.
“I got to be in the room for the first-in-human use of deep brain stimulation for the treatment of hypertension,” Erin says.
At Bristol, Erin and colleagues developed a new kind of pacemaker for people with heart failure. She co-founded Ceryx Medical, which owns the rights to the device.
Dr O’Callaghan was somewhat familiar with the commercialisation process thanks to a graduate certificate in commercialising research she completed at the University of Melbourne. The University still offers similar programs to set graduate researchers on their path to entrepreneurship. But she had mostly been involved in the early stages of medical device development and became curious about what the later stages looked like.
After six years at Bristol, Erin returned to Australia and started a new career at global pharmaceutical and biotechnology company GSK, as a Medical Science Liaison. Today, she is a Scientific Advisor at GSK’s vaccines division.
“I make sure that the information that the company uses to inform doctors complies with the rules and requirements of the Medicines Australia Code of Conduct. The code makes sure companies can't promote medicines in an unethical way."
These science communication skills have a grounding in her PhD too. Dr O’Callaghan had many opportunities to present her research at the University of Melbourne through initiatives like Visualise Your Thesis.
You do have to challenge yourself to do these things. Being part of a PhD is having opportunities regularly to develop skills...one of the good things that I did was to put my hand up for every opportunity.
Learn more about a PhD in Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences
Learn more about PhD in the Department of Anatomy & Physiology
This article was first published by the University of Melbourne on 13 August 2024.