Life as an early-career researcher: interview with Amy Dawson

Amy Dawson talks to Francesca Lake, Managing Editor. Amy Dawson is a postdoc-toral researcher using microfluidic technology to develop a dual-flow device for the maintenance of human intestinal tissue in a known orientation. The dual-flow maintains the two surfaces of the intestine separately with the aim focused on the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and establishing the interaction of the tissue with the commensal bacteria present in the gut. This is part of a collabora-tive study with Scarborough General Hospital and the Østfold Hospital Trust, Nor-way. Dr Dawson studied a BSc, MSc in biomedical science and a PhD in chemistry at Keywords: early career • IBD • inflammatory bowel disease • microfluidics • tissue culture Q Can you tell us a little about your career path to date? I worked at the University of Hull for nearly 10 years. I started with a degree in biomedi-cal science, followed by a masters in research in biological science looking at the presence of cardiac stem cells and if they differed through aging. I then moved into chemistry and studied a PhD in microfluidics. The project was based on making channels in a piece of filter paper that could then be used to measure iron levels of patients serum/plasma samples to detect anemia. This then led to my postdoc-toral research associate position working in microfluidics and the m aintenance of human intestinal tissue on a chip. Q What are you working on at the moment? My current project is looking at IBD such as Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis. Currently, there is no cure, only treatments that can maintain remission for prolonged periods of time; however, this is not applicable to everyone and sometimes the only treatment option available is major surgery to remove the affected parts of the intestines with the addition of a colostomy bag or stoma, which in some cases can be temporary , however in a lot it is permanent. To look into IBD, we use as animal or cell culture models, which fail to fully replicate the disease we see in humans. My research is aimed at taking tissue from human patients undergoing a bowel resection – we then cut 5-mm biopsies to put into our dual-flow microfluidic system, which keeps the tissue in a known orientation (lumen surface to serosal surface) with continuous perfusion of nutrients into the tissue and simultaneous removal of waste products, mimicking …