I was delighted to receive the BALR summer studentship award this year. I had the opportunity to spend 8 weeks working in pulmonary research at Dr Bettina Schock’s lab in the Wellcome-Wolfson Institute for Experimental Medicine (WWIEM) at Queen’s University Belfast. This was my first time working in medical research and truthfully, I was not sure what to expect. Looking back, this experience has sparked my desire to get involved in more research in the future. I really enjoyed being hands-on in the lab, learning about cell culture, conducting experiments and analysing data. I received continuous support and supervision from Dr Schock throughout, however there was also a degree of autonomy which I enjoyed. I was able to plan and take responsibility for my own experiments, which helped me learn and grow a lot. I found the work to be challenging but also fascinating. All in all, I can definitely say it was worth the hard work!
My project was titled ‘Dapagliflozin in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF): Investigating its effects on fibrosis and inflammation’. Previous work has indicated that a drug called Dapagliflozin, a glucose lowering drug currently used in patients with diabetes, inhibits the release of pro-inflammatory and pro-fibrotic mediators from airway epithelial cells, but its direct effect on fibroblasts is not known. I was looking at the effectiveness of Dapagliflozin in controlling collagen deposition (fibrosis) and immune responses (inflammation) in cultured pulmonary fibroblasts from patients with IPF. I could show that Dapagliflozin treatment dose-dependently reduced the deposition of extracellular matrix from cultured fibroblasts (both healthy controls and IPF). In healthy control fibroblasts this was also associated with reduced IL-6 release (hypoxia +TGFβ1), but the effect of Dapagliflozin on IPF fibroblasts was less clear.
I learned basic laboratory techniques like Western Blotting, ELISAs, cell culture and many more which will undoubtedly be useful for me when I pursue more research in the future. Not to mention I have also developed my reasoning, organizational and presentation skills. Through this studentship I have also been able to attend many meetings/conferences at the WWIEM where I could network and learn about other fascinating research projects!
It was a great privilege to work towards improving quality of life for the millions of people struggling with IPF around the world and is an experience I will never forget. I thank everyone involved - BALR and Pulmonary Fibrosis Northern Ireland (PF-NI) for sponsoring my project, the team at WWIEM, my supervisor and my fellow summer students for allowing me this fantastic opportunity and for all their support!
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