Profile

Hi my name is Chelsea and I’m originally from Australia but have been in Glasgow since 2020. By day I’m a medical researcher but love playing tennis and going to the gym in the evenings. I’m a big marvel fan and love gaming, painting and cooking in my spare time.

I became interested in science from a young age as I was always curious about why things were the way they were. Particularly diseases and how the human body worked really fascinated me. This lead me to do a bachelors of medical science at the University of Sydney. I also really enjoyed singing and acting as hobbies. At University I enjoyed joining social clubs and going out with my friends and was the first place where I felt like I could be completely myself. I decided to try medical research and loved it so much I stayed on to do a PhD where I studied virus manipulation of the immune response.

During my PhD I also found that I loved drawing and painting and was a great way to relieve stress as well as physical activity. When my first paper was published I got a science art tattoo to commemorate it and ever since have loved tattoo culture and design.

Our immune response has evolved to detect and eliminate foreign intruders (e.g viruses and bacteria) which could harm us. In the case of cancer our own cells mutate and grow rapidly which causes harm to the tissue its taking over. Our immune response can also recognise unhealthy cancer cells from our normal cells, however the cancer cells also develop tricks to hide from the immune system to ensure it can continue taking over.

Scientists like me are currently working on ways we can help the immune system recognise and eliminate cancer cells. Both innate and adaptive arms of our immune response have so called “checkpoints” which function to switch off our immune system once the threat has gone away. Cancer cells can induce these checkpoints causing immune cells to become tired and unable to perform their jobs properly. I use checkpoint inhibitors which stops cancer cells from being able to make immune cells tired to ensure these immune cells can destroy the cancer cells.

Cells like us need particular food sources in  order to do their job properly, immune cells in particular love glucose. The cancer cells can suck up all the glucose for themselves which leaves the immune cells hungry and unable to do their job. I am also trying to figure out ways to make more glucose available to immune cells and take it away from the cancer cells to improve immune cell function and subsequent cancer cell elimination.

I always try to make sure I get a good 8 hours sleep the night before to make sure I get a productive gym session in before I head to work. I walk to work and listen to my favourite music to pump myself up for the day.

In the morning sometimes I have lab meeting or journal club where we discuss cool science and come up with ideas to test if not I’m in the lab running experiments. For lunch we always have a good chat and sometimes treat ourselves to a coffee and cake from the cafeteria. In the afternoon I mainly focus on experiments this could include testing immune cell functions or ability to kill cancer cells.

I also organise social events for our postdoc society to promote mental well being and a good general energy in the institute. This includes events such as movie nights and trivia nights. After work I usually relax at home do some painting and cook dinner. If I’m feeling particularly stressed I do some yoga to chill out before going to bed.