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My work can be summed in this cool phrase: “in utero programming“. In utero means “within the mother’s womb”. The programming, just like a computer program, is the modification of the gene to reach certain outcome. I am not looking at genetic defect, which is inherited, but rather how our genes are modified by the environmental factors during pregnancy.

When we are still within our mother’s womb, our genes are very “plastic” and therefore are quite prone to environmental disturbance. There are thousands of this harmful factors, and not all of them are well studied. I am investigating 2 major public health problems that are seemingly unrelated: obesity and mental health problem such as anxiety and depression.

Guess what, they are actually very strongly linked, but why and how exactly I have yet to find out. What’s the effect of both obesity and mother’s mood problem to the unborn baby? How does the baby thrive when he/she is born? Will he/she do well learn to walk and talk at appropriate time? Will he/she be obese in the future, or easy to be stressed? We are yet to find out…

I am currently managing a clinical research, I plan to call about 300 mothers and children across Scotland to participate in HAPPY study. I am not joking, my study is called HAPPY study 😀 You can find out more about that through my university college blog!

I have 3 types of day: laboratory day, administrative day and clinical day. On laboratory day, I plan, prepare and execute experiment. Sometimes my protocol lasts half day, sometimes 2 days. Then I’ll take image/ map and analyse them.

On administrative day, I call mothers, give instruction to the nurses, prepare letter for GP, sign and sends letters to mothers, check my orderings, liaise with the Ethical committee because they always need to know what’s going on. And at the end of the day I pop in to my Boss office, discuss data and what we should do next.

On clinical day, I run HAPPY study in the Children’s hospital @ Edinburgh, supervise the nurses, analyse data, process blood and saliva samples, and make sure the child gets his/her little toy, crackers and juices!