Profile

I’m 25 and live at the coast, close to Newcastle. I’m a big foodie and love cooking and eating out (when we’re allowed!). I really like to travel and love a busy city break, my favourite place I’ve been is Lisbon in Portugal. In my free time I like to listen to podcasts and watch TV – particularly crime dramas and true crime.

My lovely sea view at sunrise.

The research centre that I work in looks at how taking supplements (like vitamins) and what you eat can improve your brain performance. For my PhD I look at a compound called Resveratrol which is found in grapes and red wine and see what effect taking that has on brain function, gut health and different things within your blood. To do this, I run intervention studies where participants come into the research centre, they take the supplement (or a placebo) that I give them and complete a number of tests to measure these outcomes. These are quite large studies with 100+ participants and require them to come into the research centre multiple times over a few months. Once they’re complete I analyse all of the data to see if taking resveratrol had any effect on the different outcome measures. After this I write up the results to be published and also for my PhD thesis.

My PhD project is funded by a company called Evolva (based in Switzerland) who make the supplement that I’m investigating.

Veri-te resveratrol – the supplement that my PhD studies look at

Typical day running an intervention trial

I normally get into the research centre for about 7.45am, ready for my participants to arrive for the day. Typically I have 2/3 participants who come in for 8am, I’m a trained phlebotomist (someone who takes blood samples) so the day starts with collecting blood samples. The participants also provide urine and stool samples (so that we can look look at gut health).

As the participants come in without eating, I make them toast for breakfast and a hot drink. I take them down to the computer lab and they complete a range of tasks that look at cognitive performance (this lasts about an hour). After this they have their supplement of resveratrol or placebo and I give them enough to take home to last them for 3 months. The participants are there until ~3.30pm and complete another 2 cognitive assessments during this time. I also make their lunch and take more blood samples before they leave. Normally 2 of the participants complete extra assessments, where I use equipment to measure blood flow in their brain (this is done with two sticky pads on their forehead, nothing scary!).

Throughout the day, I send lots of emails to try to recruit more participants into the study and also work on writing up sections of papers. Once the participants have left for the day I process the blood samples, enter the data I’ve collected into Excel documents and continue with recruitment tasks. Normally leaving the research centre at about 6/7pm.

Processing blood samples in the laboratory

Measuring blood flow in my Dad’s brain when he participated in one of my studies

Me in the laboratory during a photoshoot for the Uni newspaper

Typical day writing up

At the moment I’m working from home writing up my thesis. I get up ready to start work for 9am and spend my whole day working on writing sections of the chapters of my thesis, ready to be sent over to my supervisors for comments. It involves lots of reading of scientific papers and books and lots of rewriting sections – it’ll be about 70,000 words in total once it’s finished.