Dr Tracy Briggs awarded For Women in Science Fellowship

Dr Tracy Briggs was recently awarded one of four UK & Ireland L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women In Science Fellowships to further her research into the understanding of single-gene disorders that lead to systemic lupus. We find out more Congratulations on your recent win – how does it feel? Great! I am really pleased. I only started as an NIHR Clinical Lecturer at The University of Manchester this year and prior to winning L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women In Science fellowship I did not have any consumables funding. The financial support this award provides is essential to allow me to start my research project and thus develop my scientific career. Winning this prestigious award is also a great honour and it has already resulted in introductions to several eminent scientists and clinicians. What made you enter the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women In Science awards? As a female post-doc scientist the award seemed very well suited to my project and to me. I know first hand of the difficult balancing act of trying to establish a scientific career, whilst bringing up a young child; therefore the ethos of the award really resonated with me: that is, the provision of funding for women to support them, in whatever way they can, to continue in their research career. Your research currently focuses on lupus – what is it? Lupus is a potentially life-threatening autoimmune disease, which affects around 25,000 people in the UK. There is currently no cure. The immune system of the affected individual considers its own tissues as foreign and attacks them. In many people, it is likely to be the result of a combination of both environmental and genetic factors. The majority of affected individuals are women and they develop the disorder in their 30s. However, in some cases, a change in a single gene can cause the condition and these individuals are often severely affected from childhood and there may be several affected people in the family. Studies of such single-gene causes of disease are helpful to pinpoint which genes play a role in lupus and help to further our understanding of how the disease occurs. Tell us about the specific work which won you this award. The aim of my project is to determine the genetic basis of a form of lupus which runs in families, starts in childhood and predominantly affects the skin. By determining the chemical (inflammatory) and genetic changes causing disease in a number of families, I hope to understand the origin of this skin sub-type of the disease. Based on previous work, I hypothesise that these findings will be relevant not only to patients with this specific form of lupus, but also to the larger lupus patient population. By understanding the underlying genetic and functional cause of disease we can then start to consider targeted, effective therapies. How will you be using the funding? I will use the funds to obtain key preliminary data which will form part of a future larger grant application. Specifically I plan to perform next generation sequencing analysis in cases of familial lupus with the aim of identifying novel genes causing the disease. I will also assess specific markers of inflammation and perform basic functional studies of any genes identified. A small amount of my budget will be used to attend a large lupus conference, to learn from and network with scientists and clinicians working in my area of research interest. Any advice for young female scientists? To follow their dreams and to aim high. To find a mentor that they trust and respect. To try to obtain experience in several different areas so that they can discover what is available to them and what they enjoy. To not to be afraid to try! Tracy Briggs, MD and PhD in Medical and Human Sciences, is a Clinical Lecturer at the Manchester Centre for Genomic Medicine, University of Manchester. About the L’Oréal-Unesco for Women in Science The L’Oréal UNESCO For Women In Science international programme was founded 16 years ago by L’Oréal and UNESCO on the premise that ‘the world needs science and science needs women’. The awards programme is designed to promote and highlight the critical importance of ensuring greater participation of women in science, by awarding promising female scientists with fellowships to help them further their research. The L’Oréal UK and Ireland Fellowships For Women In Science were launched in January 2007.  The Fellowships are run in partnership with the UK National Commission for UNESCO, the Irish National Committee for UNESCO with the support of the Royal Society. In 2014, four fellowships of £15,000 were awarded to outstanding female postdoctoral researchers. The programme is designed to provide practical help for the winners to continue in their chosen fields.  For example, winners may choose to spend their fellowship on buying scientific equipment or paying for childcare costs or indeed whatever they may need to continue their research. From 2015 the For Women In Science programme will encourage applications from the engineering, mathematics and computer science fields and increase the number of fellowships to five worth £15,000 each. By the end of 2014 over 2000 women from over 100 countries will have been recognised for their research and received funding to further their studies since the overall programme was founded in 1998.