Dr. Elizabeth Tunbridge
Associate Professor Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford
Supernumerary Fellow University College, Oxford
Postdoctoral Researcher Department of Pharmacology, University of Oxford
PhD in Neuroscience University of Oxford
As she was finishing up secondary school, Dr. Liz Tunbridge began preparing to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming a veterinarian. She had already applied to six undergraduate programs in veterinary medicine when she woke up one morning with the jarring realization that this was no longer her dream career. Her sudden insight was not precipitated by any particular event in her life; her subconscious thoughts on the matter had just suddenly surfaced. In the aftermath of that fateful wake-up call, Liz scrambled to switch some of her applications to the broader field of biology. Years later, now an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford, Liz is happy she followed her gut feeling and changed her career aspirations. The first to admit that she is not much of a “planner”, Liz feels that being constantly open to new ideas and having flexible goals is quite important, particularly in the field of science.
There was no “aha moment” that led Liz to neuroscience from her undergraduate degree in molecular biology – it was more of an “aha year”. During her time at the University of Bath, Liz spent a year doing neurodegeneration research at what was then SmithKline Beecham (now GlaxoSmithKline or GSK), a London-based pharmaceutical company. This hands-on experience in a laboratory was transformative for Liz, and she became hooked on research. She went on to do a joint master’s-PhD program in neuroscience at the University of Oxford. As part of her master’s training, she branched out from her background in molecular biology, dabbling in neuroimaging and cognitive testing and working with humans for the first time. These diverse experiences were vital in teaching Liz the value of using a broad range of techniques to attack an experimental question; to this day, she takes an unusually broad approach to neuroscience.
While her approach to science has been amazingly multidisciplinary, the big-picture questions motivating her career’s work have remained surprisingly consistent. As a PhD student, Liz found the mysteries of psychiatric illness particularly profound because the functions altered in these disorders – mood, personality, perception – are at the root of one’s identity. She became fascinated with the idea that variations in certain genes had the power to affect brain function, thus altering these “identity” characteristics. Liz’s PhD thesis work focused on the gene catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT), which codes for an enzyme that breaks down dopamine. She worked with both postmortem human samples and rodent behavioral assays to further understand how the expression and activity of COMT can affect brain function. Importantly, during her PhD, Liz was proactive in setting up collaborations both within and beyond Oxford. This collaborative spirit undoubtedly shaped her career. As she was finishing her PhD, she and some of these collaborators applied for a project grant from the Medical Research Council. The grant was based on her PhD work, and she was included as a co-investigator on the grant – an unusual opportunity for her current career stage. On the same day of her PhD defense, Liz found out that the grant had been funded. It was the best day of her scientific career.
Today, Liz is still broadly interested in the mechanisms that link particular genes with brain function. She has recently shifted her attention from COMT to a family of voltage-gated calcium channels that are robustly linked to several psychiatric disorders. While she might be focusing on specific genes, her goals reach far beyond those individual genes. She hopes that her work can help create a pipeline through which other researchers can more quickly and efficiently test genes of interest to gain knowledge about psychiatric illness and probe the genes’ potential as treatment targets. Because Liz is focused on the clinical translation of her basic science work, she has continued to foster collaborations to be able to work at every level of analysis, from molecular to cognitive. As the best scientific questions push the edge of knowledge, Liz believes that the best science is done at the edge of one’s comfort zone, where one must seek expertise in whatever methods needed to answer the question at hand. This perspective has led Liz to maintain the collaborative approach to science that she took during her PhD work.
One of Liz’s recent collaborations is not with another scientist, but instead with an artist. Throughout the past few years, Liz and artist Eleanor Minney have held a series of workshops with patients in one of the wards of the National Psychosis Unit. Workshop participants share their experiences with psychosis, some through discussion and others through the art they create at the workshop. Since Liz is a basic scientist, this opportunity to learn from patients firsthand through casual conversation has been incredibly new and meaningful.
While her art-science collaborative project is particularly unique, it is not the only way in which Liz has been active in her community. She first got involved with science communication as a postdoctoral researcher; she was often asked to give short talks to the public as part of science events such as Café Scientifique. Eventually, Liz began to focus on events more geared towards engaging a public that might not otherwise seek out science. She and members of her research group once set up a booth at Science Museum Lates, a rowdy, adults-only, after-hours event series in London’s science museum that attracts large crowds of young people. While guiding people through the process of extracting DNA from a strawberry using high proof rum and pineapple juice, Liz and her team casually chatted with them about research. Liz has since used this model of communication in smaller, more intimate settings to create a fun opportunity for the public to feel connected to science and to inspire casual dialogue. A highlight of Liz’s science communication career was giving a TEDx talk, “Would there be mental illness in a utopia?” as part of the TEDxWhitehall series. She was also awarded the Vice Chancellor’s Award for Public Engagement with Research from the University of Oxford in recognition of her efforts to bring science to the public.
When she is not in the lab or extracting strawberry DNA with rum, Liz might be boxing, cooking, or at a dance show with her daughter. A boxing class is a perfect way to relieve workday stress, and cooking provides an antidote to the precision of molecular biology – she relishes the freedom to add a little bit of this and a little bit of that in order to achieve the perfect dish. In a sense, Liz’s approach to cooking is not too dissimilar from her approach to her career. When asked what she would say to a younger version of herself just starting out in academia, Liz says she would not meddle – she believes strongly that the little missteps she made along the way were important learning experiences, shaping the scientist she has become. Looking back, she would let her younger self add “a little bit of this and a little bit of that” until the dish – her career – became a smashing success. And indeed, it has.
Listen to Cristiana’s full interview with Liz on January 16th, 2020 below:
