At Atlantic Imaging, we love to talk to our users about the work they are doing, as well as the future direction of their research. This month, we were privileged to chat with Dr Andrew Davidson, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Glasgow, about his use of the fly model Drosophila, in understanding the role of cell death in tumour biology. As Andrew’s lab starts to grow, we asked about the challenges facing him as a PI.
How many people do you have in the lab at the moment?
The lab hasn’t got stupidly big yet, but suddenly we have more people than I can keep my eyes on…but there’s also lots of data being generated, which is good.
Does it feel weird that you’re less hands-on in the lab?
I scheduled myself into the lab meeting rota to force myself to start a project, but after 6 months I didn’t have a lot to show! I like try things, maybe an experiment that doesn’t have much chance of success, and then pass it on to someone else for repeats and analysis.
Can you give me a lay-person’s summary of your research?
Our work combines Drosophila genetics and live imaging. The powerful genetics of the fly gives us tools to interrogate biology; we’re interested in live-imaging tumours in a living organism, which isn’t really possible in any other setting. We are interested in the paradoxical effect of cell death in tumours; the body can respond by healing a tumour. You’re trying to kill the tumour, but often you’re then stimulating the cells to grow back. We can grow tumours in flies and follow the behaviour of labelled macrophages (which have an important role in cell death). These cells are very dynamic, so fast imaging is essential.
So, you’re studying genes and pathways that have common links to vertebrate cancers?
Cell death is conserved across all multicellular organisms. Flies don’t get cancer, and probably don’t get tumours as humans do, but do get “neoplastic outgrowths” that grow out of control. We can use them to study the fundamental aspects of tumour biology and the relationship between cell death and tumours. Our tumour models are being influenced by clinical cases – we are using models informed by patients to see what happens with cell death in these genotypes.
What inspired you to get involved with this?
As a postdoc in the Wood lab, whilst studying wound healing, I realised that cell death was not inert – it was driving and informing the biological response in order to promote healing. Cell death is not passive but is actively involved in regeneration and tissue remodelling. Thinking about the way cancers are dealt with by damaging them made me think about exploring the active role of cell death in tumour biology.
Are you funded by CRUK, then?
I’m funded by the Wellcome Trust – it’s fundamental biology.
Do you feel that funding for basic biology has taken a hit recently?
It’s always been the more difficult sell. A slightly more translational edge helps to get research funded. A model organism can be harder to get funding for, and genetics is catching up in other organisms – there is now more of an onus on model organism users to sell what they can do with their systems.
How heavily do you rely on microscopy?
All our output is imaging; so everything from basic fly husbandry and sorting flies, to mounting animals, to the output from the spinning disk system (live imaging and immunofluorescence), relies on microscopy. Every experiment ends in an imaging experiment.
How do you feel about automated microscopes?
There’s an old romantic part of me that can’t abide a microscope without eyepieces! Automated microscopes can help at the acquisition stage, but there’s a double-edged sword in that a lot of discoveries I made were achieved by going through image-by-image. It meant I spent a lot of time with my data. Automated approaches will only tell you what you’re already looking for. Modern microscopes are also so expensive that they tend to be owned by facilities, which limits your access to them.
Our philosophy at Atlantic Imaging is to help labs keep going with imaging for a minimum of cost.
At a critical point in my research, I landed the lab and I had a very small startup fund. Less than £100k went to purchasing the spinning disk – it was a real bargain, and I couldn’t have afforded any other type of setup. This has allowed me to acquire preliminary data that has enabled me to secure longer-term funding.
How is the quality of the data you’re getting?
I wanted to recreate the setup we had in the Wood lab (Edinburgh). To be able to generate the same quality of data is fantastic, because I know how much we can do with that.
If a young person was looking towards a career in science, what would be your advice?
Even if you excel as an undergrad, the actual job is very different. Some experience in a real lab is very important – you have to be interested in the actual journey. Being interested in curing cancer is not likely to sustain you in a scientific career because you’re not likely to achieve that. Something else has to excite you on a day-to-day basis. Most experiments aren’t going to work, so enjoying doing the work for its own sake is very important. As an undergraduate you think you’re going to be making huge discoveries, but you’ve got to have more than that or you will run out of steam.
Can you share your plans for the future?
Every output of ours is imaging. I need to diversify away from that – there are other approaches that we need to embrace, for example, more “-omic” approaches. I always come back to imaging – I’m excited about correlative techniques to image, snap freeze, and do spatial transcriptomics. We’re also looking at pushing into different models – we have an internationally-recognised mouse cancer resource on the doorstep. More immediate objectives include generating our first paper, getting the first PhD student through, and building up the lab. Those are all going to be fun milestones.
Thank you for sharing your journey so far, Andrew. We wish you all the best as you grow your lab, and may you enjoy many more hours at the eyepieces!
