Tag Archive for: Behind the Science

Behind the Science: Politics of Women’s Hormonal Disorders

Authors: Alex Lukey and Arrthy Thayaparan (Blog Coordinators) || Interviewing: Shruti Buddhavarapu, B.A., M.A., University of British Columbia 

Published: August 27th, 2021

There is no single definition of polycystic ovarian syndrome, or PCOS. But what we do know is that this complex disease is one of the most common hormonal disorders in women of reproductive age.

In this month’s article for our Behind the Science Series, author and researcher Shruti Buddhavarapu discusses her master’s work on the medical and gender politics of PCOS in India.

How did you become interested in women’s health research? How did you decide to research PCOS in India?

I started showing PCOS symptoms around the age of 14-15 but it took another 10 years before I officially received a diagnosis. The journey from first noticing my symptoms to finally finding a method of managing the symptoms that aligned with my views was brutal. Women are constantly gaslit in the doctor’s office. We have to toe the line between trying to be “The Good Patient”, and fighting the condescension of a system that naturally distrusts our symptoms and our accounts of those symptoms. I was also hugely disappointed by the number of doctors who asked me to come back to them when I wanted kids—not if. It was as if PCOS only mattered because it threatened my ability to reproduce.

My research on PCOS uses critical discourse theory and analysis which have been important tools for me all through academia. This methodology looks at what the language we use tells us about the social context we’re in. It assesses the ways in which the words we use (consciously and unconsciously) create and maintain social inequalities and systems of power.

Now it seems natural that I’d apply those skills to expose the professional, political and personal networks that underpin an individual experience of a particular medical syndrome. 

How would you explain your research in simple terms?

My PCOS research studied the language and knowledge around illness and health. The paper I published in the Journal of Medical Humanities was a modified version of my Master’s research. I look at the lived experiences of folks with PCOS, especially in India. Which is to say, outside of medical discourse and doctor prescriptions, what does it mean to live with PCOS in the day-to-day? I wrote about how the lack of a known cause for PCOS allows for there to be convenient assumptions on womanhood and femaleness from those who benefit from patriarchy. It used to be common to tell women with PCOS that they invited the syndrome upon themselves due to a “Westernized lifestyle and diet.” I’ve heard this many times from doctors myself. Add to it the horror that women with PCOS may be infertile, which really threatens this nationalist idea of the pure, untarnished, un-Westernized and thus fertile and healthy Indian woman. This scare-mongering and moral policing of folks with PCOS serves no one. It focuses entirely on the wrong thing — the potential of women as mothers as opposed to individuals.

What do you think is the most important impact of your research?

Back in 2015, when I wanted to perform a critical discourse analysis of folks’ experiences with PCOS through their notion of femaleness/femininity, I was surprised to find a huge lack of material. Most academic writing on PCOS was medical with only a handful of sociological articles. So I was creating the literature I wanted to cite. I try to push the boundaries we take for granted in medical literature by bringing attention to the unrelenting but often invisible biases that are present in medicine. 

Why do you think we need to focus on women’s health in research?

I think there’s an urgent (mind you, it’s been long overdue, like centuries overdue) need for science and research to reflect the spectrum of a variety of lived experiences.

Basically, we need to democratize research. We need queer, non-binary, trans experiences to show up in our research, and we need them to be researchers. For too long, science has been the repository of colonial violence, centring a white, cis-male experience. Did you know that the Ferriman-Gallwey index (to measure hirsutism—a condition that results in “excessive, male-pattern” hair growth in women) was built on a caucasian model of “hairiness”? So for a long while, women of colour were judged on a scale that just didn’t factor in their genetic histories. 

Why is your work and women’s health research important and needed in India?

While PCOS is something that affects folks worldwide, India has one of the highest rates of the syndrome. There are ties linking this to the alarming rates of type 2 diabetes in India. (There is a close connection between PCOS and insulin resistance—often a precursor to diabetes.) 

In many ways, I want to say my research is important in India because this is where I live, and I cannot separate my location from my politics. But it also intuitively is where I need to be with my research because such a large population has PCOS in India. 

Did you face any challenges conducting your research or increasing awareness of your findings?

In my case, the biggest impediment to my research was the lack of previous research. But I knew this while going in, so I was prepared for it. 

Since one of my key arguments was that there was so little of it to go around (outside of scientific discussions), it only served my argument’s larger purpose. With my thesis, I wanted to say: “Here’s all the research we have so far. It is pitiful and has a history of being biased towards patriarchal ideas of womanhood. We need to change our language about PCOS to make it accessible to everyone, without bias.”

What are you working on now?

I recently published a creative non-fiction memoir about rootlessness, chronic illness and growing up and dating as a woman in urban India. It’s called “The Weight of a Cherry Blossom”. I’ve also been involved in a couple of pop-culture projects as a PCOS specialist/researcher—Buzzfeed, Mid-Day, Mumbai Mirror, Firstpost and A Sense of Place on Roundhouse Radio Vancouver. 

For Firstpost, for instance, I wrote a series of reimaginings of popular classics, such as Alice in Wonderland and Jane Eyre, where the protagonists have PCOS. It is tongue-in-cheek and irreverent but was a wonderful way to open conversation about PCOS. I would like to write more about the networks of chronic illness, capitalism and notions of productivity in the workplace. 

What makes you excited about the future in women’s health research?

That it’s changing! So radically, so exponentially, so determinedly. When I started research on PCOS in 2015, there was very little material in and outside of academia on the topic. Now, the number of youtube channels, IG accounts dedicated to illness discourse and women (always inclusive of trans folk) and non-binary folks’ health is so affirming. There’s so much more information coming from folks with lived experiences and women’s health researchers to the general public. 

Where would you like people to connect with you?

I’m happy to chat/connect on shrutirao1988@gmail.com or shrutirao.com! 

Behind the Science with Cindy Kalenga

Authors: Arrthy Thayaparan and Alex Lukey (Blog Coordinators) || Interviewing: Cindy Kalenga, BSc, PhD/MD candidate, University of Calgary

Published: July 26th, 2021

Pursuing women’s health was a no-brainer for Cindy Kalenga. Finding answers to concerns faced by the women in her life, her community, and even by herself was the obvious choice when she decided on her path as a M.D./Ph.D. candidate at the University of Calgary’s Cumming School of Medicine. 

For this month’s Behind the Science, we speak with Cindy to learn more about her research journey as a future leader in women’s cardiovascular health and as an advocate for the inclusion of minorities in the sciences.

How did you become interested in the sciences and the work you do now?

I think I’ve always had an interest in science, I completed my undergraduate degree in biomedical science at York University. I then moved to Calgary where I started working for the Primary Care Network assisting family physicians with chronic disease management. I focused mainly on things like diabetes, hypertension and mental health. 

After working for a year, I decided to pursue a graduate degree. I was interested in cardiovascular sciences as it had some overlap with my previous work. I ended up finding my research supervisor, Dr. Sofia Ahmed who investigated female-specific cardiovascular risk factors which I thought was really interesting!

Why women’s health?

When I was introduced to research, I noticed a huge disparity in studies that included females. Two thirds of clinical research is conducted in males and applied to both sexes; as you can imagine, some treatment strategies don’t completely translate over. 

When we look even further at research among racialized minorities such as a black women, the data is very scarce. So a lot of my interest and passion stemmed from advocacy within women and racialized minorities as this is an opportunity to better support the health of Canadians and people globally. 

What have you found through your research?

My research investigates the use of exogenous estrogen and cardiovascular markers among women. In young women, we investigate birth control use and in post-menopausal women, we study hormone therapy. Our preliminary data indicates that oral uses of estrogen may be associated with stiffer arteries and potential increases in risk for future cardiovascular risk. 

This data is very important as women ingest these hormones for many years, even several decades, and so any incremental increases in cardiovascular risk may have important impacts down the line. My research provides women and healthcare professionals the information they need to make informed decisions about treatment strategies. 

More longitudinal studies are required before we can make recommendations to clinical practice, however, our results suggest that women should opt for non-oral forms of birth control and estrogen therapy whenever possible, as this may be associated with lower cardiovascular risk. 

Do you think there is enough minority representation in the sciences?

I think we all know what the answer to that is; no there’s not enough representation. 

As a black woman pursuing a combined M.D. and Ph.D. degree, I have encountered very few minorities in leadership positions or as professors within my educational training. Representation is very important as it brings new ideas to the table and helps combat racial bias. 

The lack of representation also impacts the amount of research that’s done in that community. Often researchers are motivated to advocate for diseases that they’ve personally experienced or seen within their family and communities. So, if you don’t have enough black researchers there’s not enough people studying topics that predominantly impact black people. They also have the cultural competency needed to engage with their own community and mobilize them to participate in research. 

For instance, there are alarming racial differences in the material mortality rates. Black women are between 2 to 6 times more likely to die from complications during pregnancy compared to their white counterparts. Furthermore, black women are more likely to develop breast cancer at a younger age and it tends to be more aggressive. 

You can see how advantageous it is to have researchers who feel personally impacted by these statistics as it would motivate them to investigate this further. I’m interested in women’s health and that of racialized minorities, because that’s me, that’s my sister, those are my family members. 

On a final note, what do you hope for the future of your industry?

It’s always important to recognize the good work done by those who came before us. Whether that work was done only in males, we have developed ground breaking treatment strategies because of it. What I’m proposing is that research be expanded to other communities to foster innovation and better health outcomes for all Canadians. 

It’s always about providing racialized minorities a seat at the table. Finding novel ways to encourage minorities to pursue careers in research and medicine as well participate in research studies is the goal.

Behind The Science With Dr. Robert-Paul Juster

Authors: Arrthy Thayaparan and Alex Lukey (Blog Coordinators) 

Published: June 4th, 2021

Interviewee: Dr. Robert-Paul Juster, PhD, University of Montreal 

For this month’s Behind the Science feature, we spoke with Dr. Rober-Paul Juster, an assistant research professor in the department of psychiatry and addiction at the University of Montreal.

As Dr. Juster is a proud member and advocate for research with the LGBTQ2S+ community, we discussed the challenges faced by this community in the sciences. In honour of Pride month, we hope that these discussions bring to light the challenges faced by queer and gender diverse communities.

Additionally, we talked about Dr. Juster’s work on sex and gender research to understand the effects of stress and adversity. He is currently conducting an ongoing survey of COVID-19 that focuses on sex and gender. If you are interested in learning more or participating in his work, check this link out. 

But without further ado, we introduce Dr. Juster…

How did you get into the sex and gender research field?

The first scientific project that I was involved in looked at sex differences in cognition, which was something I was learning in a class at the time. Then I remembered learning about gender roles, masculinity, and femininity in another class. I just sort of put them all together and was particularly interested in the LGBTQ2S+ community. I ignored these interests a bit during my master’s. But then, in my PhD, I had the opportunity again to revisit and look into them further. 

I’m a gay man. So I think the best research often has a personal meaning to the person. I think we can debate whether that makes us purely objective, but I think I had a real desire to contribute to the community and engage in activism through my science. So I think that was always sort of there in my mind, that I wanted to be involved through science. And it so happened that that’s probably been one of the most interesting and fruitful parts of my career so far.

Why is it important to have research that focuses on and includes diverse communities like the LGBTQ2S+ community?

That’s a great question. I think underrepresentation is something that we talk about not just in the field of sex and gender. More broadly, there is still so little research tat has been done with consideration of women. I’ve always felt a real alliance with women, in particular. I think gay men and heterosexual cisgender women have a pretty interesting alliance. My dedication to advancing research and especially health research among the LGBTQ2S+ community is really focused on the desire to really represent better. I think representation is really the most important thing for my research.

Is there enough representation of the LGBTQ2S+ community within the sciences?

I don’t think so, especially for trans and/or non-binary people. I think there’s not a sufficient amount of representation. It’s something new as an ally, I can do my best to lend my interest and my research focus to these and other underrepresented communities. But I feel like so many areas that have not received sufficient representation in science and health research are often the ignored people of those communities. 

So I think there is a slowly growing number of people from the LGBTQ2S+ community represented in academia and in STEM. But I think there’s always more that’s needed. 

I think we talk a lot about equity, diversity and inclusion. More needs to be done to really be aware of that reality and to be sensitive to the fact that even though you’re an ally with an identity that is also marginalized, you can never truly understand the experiences of every subgroup that you’re interested in. 

That’s been an interesting process for me of humility, being really humble and always being aware of the realities of other groups that have not received the same representation. Nor the same privileges. As a white cisgender male, I have a lot of privileges that I think a lot of other groups don’t and it’s important to acknowledge that.

When working with diverse communities, there’s always the potential to create harm when conducting research. How can that harm be mitigated?

Even researchers with the best possible intentions can go into research among a group and not identify their real needs. I think particularly for the transgender and/or gender non-binary communities, there’s been a lot of research that has focused on the origins of difference. Same thing for sexual minorities to try and identify brain regions that are different. This inquiry aims to explain why people are gay or why they’re trans. 

I mean, human beings are curious, and we want to identify the causes of things. But I’m not sure that that research really speaks to any sort of direct needs of the community. Being mindful about what is important to the communities that you want to study and serve is really the essential thing. We can have all kinds of great ideas about research that would be great among the communities that we’re interested in, but it just doesn’t speak to their needs.

And that’s potentially damaging, because there’s no investment of taxpayers dollars to an issue that might not actually be pertinent to the communities that you’re studying. So I think it’s so important to be engaged in participatory research and to really be attentive to the needs of the community and being able to adjust research accordingly.

Can you explain your research to us?

My research aims to understand how men, women, and gender diverse people each have unique health and wellness needs. Beyond binary sex or any kind of focus on categories of groups of people, my work is really focused on the nuance within sex. So trying to identify how things, like sexual orientation, sex hormones, gender roles, or combinations and social economics in relation to your gender, all relates to your health and well-being. 

I’m also really interested in groups that are exposed to different forms of stress and can develop inspiring resilience. What are the things that they do to help minimize their stress? What are the factors that contribute to their protection or resilience to certain conditions? I want to spend my career answering those questions

So studying the LGBTQIA2S+ community, for me, is fascinating because there’s so much gender diversity, and just so much lived experience that is mixed with adversity and resilience. It provides a really strong lens from which to identify how people can become quite tough in terms of facing problems in the future. 

Any last thoughts you’d like to share?

Studying sex and gender research is much more complicated than it seems. Each and every different group combines with other factors like social economics, geography, age, race, and ethnicity, that collectively influence people’s health. We have a tendency, I think the general public and scientists sort of silo off different groups of people. But the bottom line is that every individual has multiple identities that can protect them, but can also affect their health in negative ways, based on stigma and inequalities. The take home message is that allowing groups and subgroups to really express their lived experiences. It’s so important to be attentive, sensitive and engaged to find ways to be an ally. 

You know a lot of the time, people will talk about the transgender community and they’ll be like, ‘Well, you know, [transgender people] only represents one to two per cent.’ That’s still a substantial number of people. And I think there’s a tendency for a lot of the general public, as well as scientists, to sort of dismiss that if it’s a small group of people, then it’s not really going to affect everyone else. But I really argue that you’re all connected. It’s so important to be able to represent all these different groups and to learn from them. Because I think a lot of people that are underrepresented and have been marginalized, engage in very unique and very powerful coping responses that make them resilient. Being able to understand those mechanisms is actually kind of a hopeful message for all. 

And this applies for the rest of society as well. It doesn’t just become about doom and gloom and how society stigmatizes you and your poor health, but more about how you navigate these issues that we’re trying to slowly fix as society progresses, so that we can work on those different factors in the future. In the context of COVID-19, different groups within the LGBTQ2S+ community are engaging in different coping strategies. And while for instance, trans and non-binary people are dealing with a lot of mental health problems, like so many other people they’re also engaging in seeking social supports in virtual ways. In any kind of situation where there’s adversity, people that have faced adversity for reasons of their identity are going to engage in ways that the rest of society can learn from.

Behind the Science with Eunice Bawafaa

Authors: Arrthy Thayaparan and Alex Lukey (Blog Coordinators) Interviewing: Eunice Bawafaa, RN, MSTTI, MScN, Phd Student, UBC

Published: May 7th, 2021

Our next installment of the Behind the Science features Eunice Bawafaa. Not only is Eunice a talented PhD student, but she is also a registered nurse passionate about improving the health of women in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Eunice “sat down” with Alex over zoom from her home in Ghana to talk about her research journey.

How did you become interested in the work you’re currently doing?

I have worked for the past twelve years as a registered nurse in Ghana. In my capacity as an RN, I have worked in several health facilities in different units and also at a policy implementation level at the municipal health directorate as the PMTCT/ HIV, pregnancy school and health promotion coordinator in the La-Nkwantanang Madina Municipal Health Directorate in Accra, Ghana.

So I have been working with women at different stages of their health in materially under-resourced facilities in Ghana. Working in materially under-resourced health facilities in Ghana, I have witnessed firsthand, the devastating effect of poverty in women’s health. Poverty, race and gender affect the ways in which particular groups of women are constructed and treated in the healthcare sector.  Generally, however, women’s knowledge and experiences of and with maternity and child-care in Sub-Saharan Africa are usually discounted in the face of western biomedical practices and knowledge. As a practicing nurse, I have been struck and dismayed at the lack of acknowledgement or recognition of women’s own knowledge with regards to maternity and childcare but such knowledge, in the context of Ghana is considered ‘traditional and backward’.I have been particularly interested in understanding how gendered and racialized constructions of women and particularly rural and poor women, impact the quality of their interaction with healthcare personnel and probably the type of treatment they receive. So these questions, I felt would be better answered through research. There is an impact to be made on the health of these women by giving them a voice because working with them, one thing I’ve noticed is that they actually don’t have a voice in their own health.

So you’re doing your PhD right now?

Yes, I’m in my second year in the health equity stream. I am currently looking at the perception of reproductive health access for rural Ghanian women. My mentor and supervisor is Dr. Suzanne H. Campbell. Her work centers around transformational leadership in simulation and lactation, and she also happens to be a member of the Women’s Health Research Cluster here in UBC. She introduced me to this cluster and the lactation lab, which have both enhanced my research. I think there’s a lot that we can do for women if we try to solve health problems with evidence from research. We can make a lot of positive changes on what is impacting women’s health.

How would you explain your research in simple terms?

My area of research has to do with rural women who are at an age when they might be starting a family. During these ages, these women have the ability to decide when and how they choose to go to the hospital for services to help them achieve this goal. Sometimes, the society they live in makes it difficult for them to make this important decision. They may even have the money to go to the hospital for the services, but there might be pressure from their community that might change this decision. So in my research, I want to know about this moment when they want to access these services. I want to know about the possible challenges that they are facing in getting these services concerning childbirth and their well-being. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to contribute to finding solutions to problems that women face when going to the hospital for services that can help them choose when and if they want to have children. This will help make the rural women healthier and happier.

What makes you excited about the future of women’s health research? 

What makes me excited is working with top researchers, including my supervisors, Dr. Suzanne H. Campbell and Dr. Alison Phinney who are both changing lives with the wonderful works that they are doing. They are both excellent role models and they are contributing significantly and  impacting health outcomes for women, their families and the larger society. There are also a number of excellent role models in the Women’s Health Research Cluster here at UBC who are making a very significant impact in changing policies and impacting health outcomes for women. As the years go by, more research is being conducted and sponsored for women’s health and that tells us the future is promising for women’s health. Clusters such as the women health research institute here in UBC is training and mentoring more researchers in women’s health and that is one of the many steps that the cluster has taken in ensuring that issues of women’s health are made known to the rest of the world and that something is done about it. There are also a number of good grants that specifically sponsor research for women’s health and that shows that other stakeholders in health are coming to the negotiating table on women’s health. In the end, there will be enough evidence from these researches to change or amend or implement policies that will improve upon the health of women globally. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel and it is so exciting; for instance, in my case, I came to Canada (UBC) from Ghana and I am working in partnership with other health stakeholders so that I could make an impact back home in Ghana. I feel excited because I think we are making progress and I am happy to be a part of this progress in health research.

Looking back on your journey, are there things you wish you would have known when you were just starting as a women’s health researcher?

Yes! From my own experience, people to mentor you is very important. Also, getting involved in organizations like the Women’s Health Cluster are all helpful ways of staying tuned and abreast with issues around us. When I actually started my academic career, I was always more interested in the practical side rather than the other aspects, that is, teaching, administration and research. But then, as I became more grounded in the principles and theories behind my practice that I love so much, I realized that without research, the practice setting would not be improved and we cannot explain or substantiate what we do in the practical field. Research may look tedious, but that is actually how we find solutions to bigger problems. I would encourage anyone who has the love for research to go for it and never look back.

Any last thoughts that you would like to leave us with?

Women are the bedrock of society. Because of this, the health of women is actually the health of society and more attention should be paid on issues of women’s health. 

 

Behind the Science with Bonnie Lee

Authors: Arrthy Thayaparan and Alex Lukey (Blog Coordinators) Interviewing: Bonnie Lee, PhD Student, UBC 

Published: December 25th, 2020

At the Women’s Health Research Cluster, we strive to close the gaps in communication and knowledge between the public and scientific community. As such, our newest blog series, Behind the Science, will take a sneak peek into the world of science through a series of interviews with some amazing women’s health researchers. We hope that this series will spark interest in the general public and young students by understanding the journeys of these researchers

So we’re starting off with a BANG and introducing our very first interviewee! She is a future leader in the study of women’s health and a beloved colleague of the WHRC team. As a graduate neuroscience researcher at UBC, her work primarily looks at the impacts of motherhood and Alzheimer’s on cognition and the ageing brain. 

If that didn’t make any sense to you, then not to worry! The following interview will simplify the research, whilst also breaking down misconceptions of the research field. Without furtherado, it is our pleasure to introduce Bonnie Lee…

How did you become interested in women’s health research?

So I guess I first became interested in women’s health research when, in my undergrad, I realized that none of my courses really talked about sex differences. Like how different phenomena that we’re studying may be different, or even the same in males or females. It’s kind of been ignored or glossed over.

During undergrad, I was working on a research project that looked at sex differences in the relationship between stress and neurogenesis. That’s kind of how I stumbled into the world of sex differences. Then in my fourth year, I took a course with Dr. Liisa Galea on neuroplasticity. She brought up a lot of interesting ideas about sex differences and women’s health, which really opened my mind and got me fascinated about women’s health research.

Then, of course, later on, being part of Liisa’s lab as a grad student even furthered my interest as I learned more about the intricacies and nuances of women’s health research.

Why do you think we need to focus on women’s health?

Well, I think just the woman’s lifespan is so interesting. From the menstrual cycle to pregnancy and motherhood to menopause — there is so much we have yet to learn about these life events. Even besides that, so many diseases are more prevalent or more severe in females. There’s so much we don’t know about those topics. 

We all know someone who gave birth — like your mom, for example. So the fact that we don’t know much about [women’s health], it’s just crazy. Speaking of diseases that are more prevalent in females, my research is focused on Alzheimer’s disease. It is known that females have a greater lifetime risk of Alzheimer’s disease, but more intriguing to me is the fact that pregnancy and motherhood play an interesting role in the manifestation of the disease — with earlier onset, more severe pathology in the brain, and so on, in women with previous reproductive experience. It makes me wonder, why is that? And I think it’s not just about women’s health, right? The fact that we are able to learn something about why it’s more prevalent in females will tell us more about the disease in general. We’ll know more about different treatment options. So it’s not just going to benefit women, it’s going to benefit everyone, including men.

How did you decide to research Alzheimer’s, like in the scope of all possible diseases? 

I was always interested in Alzheimer’s disease. A little personal background, I used to volunteer in a senior home where I played piano for them every weekend. I became really close to a senior who had Alzheimer’s disease. I guess that kind of put a seed in my brain and made me want to learn more about the disease.

I think a lot of people can relate because it is a really prevalent disease — many have family members or friends who might have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or experienced taking care of someone with Alzheimer’s disease. When I realized all the sex differences and long-term effects of pregnancy and motherhood in relation to Alzheimer’s disease, I think that’s when I really felt like this is something I want to dive deeper into and try to figure out why.

So, what drew you to neuroscience and to study the impacts on motherhood, especially?

So this goes all the way back to first year. In my first year, we had something called Imagine Day at UBC. My leader was actually a neuroscience major. I never knew that you could major in neuroscience at UBC! When I first got in, I thought “Okay, I’m going to be in science, I’m going to learn either chemistry or biology or physics.”  I was actually interested in psychology, too, though, in high school. I always wanted to learn more about the brain so after finding out there’s a major for that, it was no brainer for me [pun intended]. So I did my undergrad in neuroscience, and then the rest is history.

How would you explain your research if you were explaining it to a second-grader?

So Alzheimer’s disease is a brain disorder that impairs cognition and your brain. I am interested in looking at females who were either pregnant or not pregnant, and then how Alzheimer’s disease affects their brain and their cognition in middle age.

Do you have any early findings? Or any interesting leads yet?

Yeah, we do. But it’s a bit more complicated, so it’s not going to be for the second-grader. We found some differences that have to do with the APOE epsilon 4 (APOEe4) allele, which is a genetic risk factor for late-onset sporadic Alzheimer’s disease. 

The rats that had the genetic risk for Alzheimer’s disease made more errors in the spatial working memory task compared to healthy wildtype rats – which is what we expected to find. What’s interesting is that there were differences in search strategies in the memory task between groups of rats that had been pregnant vs never pregnant. Basically, the rats that had been pregnant before were less efficient than rats that had never been pregnant before. This shows the long-term effects that pregnancy can have on the brain, which is always exciting to see. We also found differences in neurogenesis and neuroinflammation measures between the groups. APOEe4 rats (the rats that had the genetic risk) had more neural stem cells but fewer new neurons in the brain compared to wildtypes — suggesting that perhaps their neural stem cells weren’t very active in the sense that they didn’t become new neurons, or maybe they became something else, like astrocytes or other neural stem cells. On the other hand, rats that had been pregnant saw the opposite effect: they had fewer neural stem cells but more new neurons compared to rats that had never been pregnant. This could mean that rats that had been pregnant had neural stem cells that were really active and were able to become new neurons. I won’t go into any more detail here, but if anyone has any follow-up questions or anything, they can email me anytime [bonnie_lee@psych.ubc.ca].

So, what stage of research are you in right now? 

So my first chapter, I guess, my first big experiment has been done. I am dealing with brain samples now and processing the tissue to finish up analyses of different measures. Specifically, I have been looking at measures of neurogenesis, neuroinflammation, and a little bit of tryptophan metabolomics as well. So just finishing up those analyses. I am hoping to start my next chapter in January, where we will be looking closer at sex differences this time and differences between rats with either APOEe3 or APOEe4.

What makes you excited about the future in women’s health research?

I think things like the Woman’s Health Research Cluster. The WHRC is helping diverse and multidisciplinary trainees and researchers find each other and collaborate on new projects, which is really exciting. I am looking forward to seeing what kind of research comes out of those collaborations. 

I am also really hopeful about the fact that the cluster is targeting a wide audience. We don’t just involve trainees and researchers, but also policymakers, patient partners, health practitioners … getting the public involved and making them aware that women’s health is important. I think that is a huge step and an important one.

Practicing knowledge translation in science is still new to me. But I think it’s so important because you could be doing all this work, but we need people to be aware of the work so it can be applied appropriately. And that way, your research becomes more meaningful, I think.

After talking about your journey, do you have any advice for people just starting or interested in research?

Practically speaking, I would say, do your research. Look into different topics that you might be interested in, but also different researchers and their body of work. Try talking to graduate students and early-career professors. For me, at least, talking to different people and getting their perspective has been very insightful.

Before I started, I used to think, “[research] is so boring, I would never want to do this.” But, as I started to talk to more principal investigators and graduate students, and as I started to become involved in labs as a volunteer, I began to realize what it’s really to be in research, and I began to really like it! So I would suggest talking to people, keeping an open mind, and find ways to get involved in research early on.

Is there something that people can look forward to coming from you in the future? 

I do have a chapter that should be published soon. It is a chapter on the sex differences in neurogenesis and the implications for Alzheimer’s disease, and I wrote it with another member of my lab and the research cluster, Tanvi Puri as well as Dr. Liisa Galea. Yeah, I guess other than that, just more experiments and hoping to publish more papers soon!

Alex and Arrthy (Women’s Health Blog Coordinators) would like to thank Bonnie for taking the time for this interview. To our readers: keep an eye out for more blogs and interviews! If you would like to be featured, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at womenshealth.blog@ubc.ca!