Profile

I live in Nottingham with my wife and two of my daughters, the third daughter already goes to University abroad. In my spare time, I play the guitar, do gardening, assemble and disassemble computers, read science fiction literature (roughly written between the 1950s and 1990s) and historical fiction (Steven Saylor’s Roma sub Rosa mistery series is my favourite series), as I like to temporally extend in both directions – the future and the past.

I would love to take out my dog for a daily walk, but unfortunately we have no dog. I would also like to walk on a beach, but Nottingham is as far away as you can be from any UK coast. I don’t watch TV, so have no favourite shows. But I do enjoy the Simpsons! So what is there left to do: I play table tennis competitively, but have done lots of other sports in the past: athletics, volleyball, handball, judo, swimming. I have tried Yoga, but fell asleep. That one is not for me!

But truth is, most of the day is dominated by my work. Luckily for me, I like my work!

A lot of information on our group’s work is available on  https://nottingham.ac.uk/research/groups/allergy-and-infectiousdiseases/index.aspx.

The work is centred on understanding how infectious organisms interact with the human body, at the cellular and molecular level. I am interested in how some bacteria and parasitic worms are able to adapt to very harsh environments (e.g. Helicobacter pylori in the stomach) or are able to evade the host immune system for many years (e.g. Schistosoma mansoni).

Another line of work in the lab is focused on understanding allergy, and developing new better tools for allergy diagnosis. We are working on replacing skin prick tests with more accurate and less unpleasant tests, that allow us to test hundreds of different allergens at the same time using only a small drop of blood. Those of you who have an allergy and have been tested by skin prick testing know that the procedure used currently is not ideal! It brings discomfort and the results, particularly when dealing with suspected food allergy, are far from being reliable.

Although it may appear at first sight that parasites and allergy are not related, truth is that they are two sides of the same medal. Allergy is caused by certain antibodies which will be produced by white blood cells called Immunoglobulin E (IgE), and it is this IgE which causes all the unpleasant symptoms of allergy: the itching, the sneezing, the redness, and in the worst case they can cause death – think of allergy to peanuts. The same IgE antibodies however are protecting against infection with parasites, and also seem to play a protective role against some cancers.  So IgE has two faces: a destructive one, which causes disease and discomfort in many people, and a protective one.

This dual relationship however is a problem and one of the reasons why we still don’t have a vaccine against worm infections. A protective vaccine would be one that causes IgE levels in the vaccinated person, but at the same time the vaccinated person would be more likely to suffer from allergy.

How to get out of this situation is something we would like to understand. Can the positive, protective effect of IgE be separated from its negative, dangerous effect? If yes, how?

What I appreciate most in my profession is the freedom I have on a daily basis . I don’t have fixed working times so my day can start any time between 8 and 10.30 in the morning, with an open end. Truth is that (many? most? some?) scientists never stop working, they will keep thinking about their work and problems to solve when cycling or driving back home and carry on work  once they get there- sometimes to the dismay of their partners! Sometimes (on a bad day, when everything goes wrong) I will finish at 5 pm, but rarely before that time.

Of course there are specific occasions such as lectures, meetings etc. which need to be attended punctually so in those days I am as precise as a Swiss clock.

During the day I will spend a lot of time behind the computer, writing scientific publications, grant applications, reports, letters, and lots of e-mails. I get about 50-70 e-mails every day of which about half are relevant and need to be read or actioned, the remainder lands in the trash bin as spam. I have regular 1:1 meetings with the members of my group (currently 14), and every two weeks we have a longer lab meeting (about 3 hours) where we discuss general laboratory issues and every students gives a short update about their research progress. I also meet with my tutees, these are undegraduate Pharmacy students in Year 1 to 4 of their 5-year Pharmacy degree, and I follow them throughout their whole study, so get to know them quite well.

And then there is a good deal of administration; committe meetings, staff meetings etc., all of which is necessary but rarely very funny.

In rare moments, I will find the timeto read some scientific journals and explore some new ideas, but these moments are rare and far apart unfortunately.

What I enjoy most is interacting with lots of people from all parts of the world. Apart from Australia, I think that I have worked with people from every continent and countless countries. Currently members from my group are from: Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Greece, Spain, Iraq, Italy, but I also had lab members from China, Canada, Germany, France, Ghana, Scotland, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Hong Kong, in no special order. And yes, also people from the UK! This is great fun but sometimes it can be challenging because of cultural differences, which can affect perceptions and expectations.