copy
Emily Martyn is a 2023 Crick doctoral clinical fellow intake in Philippa Matthews’ lab.
During medical school and my early career as a junior doctor I became interested in infectious diseases, due to the wide variety of interesting pathogens and the combination of patient-facing and laboratory-based work.
However, it was only after I stepped away from the conventional clinical training pathway to join the Meningitis Research Team at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda, that I realised I wanted to be a clinician scientist.
The experience of being part of the research team running randomised controlled trials investigating treatment for patients with HIV-associated meningitis opened my eyes to the importance and potential benefits of research to patients. I learned how research can inform global practice, while also helping to answer interesting mechanistic questions, for example by using clinical samples in nested studies. The possibilities seemed endless, and I was hooked.
Careers are often influenced by the people you meet along the way. When I met Professor Philippa Matthews, I was inspired by her goal to translate scientific research into clinical benefit for people living with hepatitis B virus (HBV), a chronic liver disease that affects billions of people worldwide.
I joined her laboratory for nine months as part of my NIHR- academic clinical fellowship, during which time I mainly worked with the University College London Hospital Find & Treat team who specialise in reaching people with multiple barriers to accessing healthcare e.g. people who experience homelessness or people seeking asylum, groups often disproportionately affected by HBV (PMID: 38159579, PMID: 36757862).
My Crick doctoral clinical fellowship in the Matthews’ lab gave me a fantastic opportunity to build my laboratory experience, while maintaining my interest in clinical research. My project focuses on two major global causes of chronic liver disease: chronic hepatitis B and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD: excess liver fat plus at least one cardiometabolic risk factor e.g. high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity and dyslipidaemia).
I am interested in using a combination of clinical and laboratory methods to investigate the impact of MASLD on people living with HBV, which could lead to improved liver-disease risk stratification.
The highlights of my PhD so far include learning a wealth of new skills, including lipidomic analysis with the support of the metabolomics STP; working with an amazing team to design and implement a liver screening outreach study for Mongolian community in London (Mongolia has one of the highest rates of chronic viral hepatitis in the world); the freedom to pursue my interests; and meeting some fantastic colleagues and lab-mates.
Perhaps the biggest challenges have been going from being a relatively senior doctor to a very junior scientist and adjusting to the different pace of research compared to clinical medicine. My two pieces of advice for clinicians considering applying to the Crick doctoral fellowship and/or pursuing a clinical academic career are: talk to lots of researchers in your field of interest and perseverance is key.
Social media:
