In Conversation with Dr Davina Derous
Dr. Davina Derous is a systems physiologist and a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen. With a PhD in biological sciences, she is currently focusing her research on the study of genes between land and aquatic mammals. She is interested in drawing connections between energy metabolism, environmental stressors and ecological health, using techniques in genomics and statistics. Dr Derous is highly involved in the editorial and peer review process of scientific journals, and as co-chair of the Athena SWAN & Equality and Diversity committee for the School of Biological Sciences, she is also dedicated to increasing inclusivity and equality in academia.
Recently, Youth STEM Matters volunteers Shalini Sellam and Samiksha Manoharan had the opportunity to interview Dr. Derous and learn more about her research. In the interview, she shared insightful perspectives on the effects of the environment on animal health, the differences between human and animal health, the future of the peer review process and the need to increase accessibility in STEM.
Dr Davina Derous
Samiksha: Thank you so much for joining us today, Davina. For anyone who hasn't come across your work in system physiology before, could you briefly summarise what you do as a systems physiologist and what your research is mainly focused on?
Davina: A systems physiologist is a researcher that focuses on how things are changing on a cellular level, and how this can impact the whole organism. For example, how the change at a cellular level reflects in your blood, and then how that impacts how your fat tissue might be signalling that change, or how your brain tissue might be signalling that change, and then eventually, how your body morphology would look or how your behaviour might change. I work with dolphins and whales, and I research how the environment has an impact on their cell expression, and how that eventually might tie into their ability to reproduce and create offspring. I also research the impact on humans and their ability to, for example, store or use up energy. So that's just a quick summary of what systems biology is.
Shalini: That's an exciting field of study. It makes a great impact when you're studying the effects of things like climate change and environmental stressors. So, leading on from that, what sparked your interest to study systems physiology and pursue a career in this field?
Davina: I have a bit of a weird background. When you're eighteen, you're forced to choose a degree, and I had no idea what I wanted to do, so I decided that I wanted to be a dietitian. I did three years as a dietitian, and we got taught how diets and metabolism interact within our bodies. In my third year, I had to do an internship in a hospital, and I absolutely hated it. I spent two or three years becoming a dietitian, and then in my last year I just hated it and I did not like it. I had a mild panic, and wondered “what do I do now?’’, so I decided to do a Masters degree. The reason why I did that is because one of my projects was a bit more science orientated, and I realised I wanted to do something in science. I did my Masters in nutrition and physiology, and the physiology part is where that systems physiology aspect came in - this was still all human-based. Then I moved to do a PhD in obesity and ageing. One of the reasons I was very interested in humans relates to how we do have people who are obese but are very healthy. So, the big question is, why is that?
“I’m doing lots of research to see if we can come up with novel health markers that we can use to protect whales and dolphins against the effects of climate change. ”
It might sound like it was a bit of a leap from human-based research to what I am doing now, researching dolphins and whales, but it turns out that dolphins and whales have this massive fat layer, also known as blubber. They are classified as obese, but they're basically very healthy; they don't get type 2 diabetes, and they don't get any of the negative side effects. That really sparked my interest.
I decided that this was really cool, so I ventured away from humans, and now I'm really trying to figure out how these morbidly obese animals function. I’m doing lots of research to see if we can come up with novel health markers that we can use to protect such animals against the effects of climate change. So it's a bit of a detour from where I first started, but I'm doing something I love now, and asking really interesting questions.
Samiksha: That’s amazing - it’s really good to hear about your career track from high school to doing something you love as a Senior Research Fellow now.
Shalini Sellam: And so my next question is based on your career as a whole as well. As a systems physiologist, can you give us some insight into the impact of systems-based thinking rather than traditional methods of study?
Davina: Especially in the fields of marine mammals, what typical ecologists or biologists do is they would either count the amount of offspring that was being produced or the number of animals that were present in a certain area. Then they would try to link that back to, for example, fishing. Or they could, for example, take a sample, look at how much fat they have, and then say, okay, these animals are healthy - they've got enough fats to reproduce.
The systems physiology approach that I'm doing is looking more at what really happens on a cellular level. For example, an animal might be sick, and there are already signs of that in their cells and organs, but you wouldn't see it just by looking at it. That can have long-lasting effects and if we're not able to pick it up really early, then we start seeing symptoms when it's too late. So that's where the whole system solely comes in. We start thinking about the bottom level - for example, what happens in your cells? What happens in your organs? Can we see it in our blood? Can we see it in the behaviour of the animal? And that's where we tie it all together to move forward.
Shalini: Yeah, that's a fascinating approach. I think that's probably the best approach to studying things like this, by looking at many different perspectives.
Samiksha: Leading on from there, what is the most exciting research project you've worked on in your career so far?
Davina: Because aquatic mammals (like whales and dolphins) have this really big fat layer, we assume that when they don't have enough energy, it's like they lose weight, and their fat shrinks; if they have another energy gain, they get fatter because they store energy. So the same as humans, we lose weight and we gain weight. But with these dolphins and whales, at some point, they protect their fats so they have to undergo starvation - they are drawing energy from somewhere else. I currently have a project that is still under analysis, where we looked at cell expression in the fats of whales. We were also really trying to figure out, to have to go through a starvation phase, what is really happening in that fat? And that's really important, because then we can start making novel health markers. If we are currently assuming that they are the same thing as humans, but they're not, then we're looking at the role of health markers. The best way to compare this is if you go to a doctor or somebody takes your blood, they can tell you that you're sick. But right now there is no standard of what a healthy dolphin or a healthy whale looks like. One of the interesting projects I'm trying to do is trying to figure out if you can come up with health markers that we can use to look at healthy or diseased dolphins.
Samiksha: That sounds great! So, our next question is a sort of an experience-related question too. What's the biggest challenge or setback you've had to overcome in your career? And how did you manage to overcome it?
Davina: Science can be very exciting - but you have to get used to rejections. You have to get used to failures. For example, if you're applying for grants to get a project funded, you might not get the funds, although your ideas are very good. it's just getting used to that rejection and not taking it personally. I think that's a big one. Same if you go present your data, some people might think that you're absolutely wrong. Some people might think you're absolutely right. It's just dealing with that rejection, and not taking things personally - I think that's a big one in science.
Samiksha: I definitely agree. I think having a strong mindset goes a long way, especially when you're pursuing a career related to STEM.
Shalini: Absolutely. What you were saying about not taking it personally as well. You're all there to try and gain more information and further your field of study, so it's not about you as a person.
Shalini: We wanted to move into some questions more specifically based on your studies and your research. And so the first one is about your recent paper on the adaptations of energy metabolism in cetaceans (aquatic mammals). It focuses on studying the positive selection of genes in some of these metabolic pathways. I'm curious to know, what are some of the limitations you face in your research related to genomics?
Davina: In the last 10 years, we've made a huge amount of progress. The DNAs of a lot of dolphins and whales are being sequenced and analysed, and they are publicly available on the internet now. But the downside as well is that not all information is available, because most of these animals are deep divers, so we barely see them on the surface - and if we do get any data from them, it's when they strand on the shore. Slowly and slowly, we're getting more of that DNA, and genomes of animals.
A great example is last year in Dumfries, Scotland - there was a stranding of what we thought was a certain type of beaked whale. But it then turns out they're a completely different species, a species that we've never seen before, and so we don't even know what they look like. They look like beaked whales, but they might be something else, a completely new species that we haven't discovered till now. That’s the downside of working with genomes - you need to have genomes available for all the animals. We are getting there, but it costs lots of time and lots of money. Especially because we don't have access to the genomes of all of these animals, it's a slow process trying to get all of them sequenced.
Samiksha: In another part of your research, you mentioned how aquatic mammals can be affected by human-caused disturbances. What do you think of the relationship between animal health and the overall health of the environment?
“In the last 10 years, we’ve made a huge amount of progress. The DNAs of a lot of dolphins and whales are being sequenced and analysed, and they are publicly available on the internet now.”
Davina: The top marine predators which include, for example, seabirds (which are also counted as submarine predators), the seals and all the dolphins and whales are what we call the sentinels of the sea. Because they feed on top of the food chain, if something is wrong, it usually builds up in the food chain. And because they're on top, they usually can be seen as an indicator of how the whole ecosystem is doing. One great example, and this might be shocking, is chemical contamination. So there were certain chemicals that were completely banned in the 1970s but they're still in the marine environment because they build up. They have an effect on dolphins, whales and especially the orcas (a species of dolphin). Huge amounts of these chemical contaminants affect the fat stores of aquatic mammals, which are really bad for them. For example, it can impact how certain organs work, it can impact reproduction and things like that. That's just one example of the link between how we can use health markers from animals to assess how healthy our environment is.
Another one is climate change. Even a three or four-degree difference in the water can really impact the movement of dolphins and whales going upwards. Because you know, Scotland is becoming warmer, so we're starting to see more and more species that we usually don't see in Scotland. But that can also have beneficial effects for some species. Up in the Arctic now, the polar caps are melting; but that does have a positive effect for some of the hunting grounds of the bigger baleen whales - they now have more food available, because the plankton is right under the ice caps. So the effects are going at such a rate that it's not slow enough for the animals to adapt to it, and that’s the issue.
Shalini: Thank you so much. Briefly moving away from aquatic mammals - you've also explored how restricting the constant consumption of calories can help battle ageing. Can you give any insight into how current-day diets are going to affect human health and evolution in the long run?
Davina: The issue that we have right now, as humans, is that we might live longer, but we're also getting more diseases as we live longer. The percentage of obesity and the percentage of people that have diseases associated with, not only ageing, but obesity, such as type 2 diabetes, vascular diseases and things like that, is on the rise. There's this cool little study done that shows if you eat fewer calories, you actually live longer, but you also live healthier. There are a couple of downsides to that, which is that you're always hungry and you're always cold; especially for women, if you drop below a certain weight, you also lose your ability to produce children. Scientists are now trying to come up with a certain mimic or a certain medication that we can take that is targeting those specific changes, again, on a cellular level, so we can actually extend our lifespan without feeling cold, without feeling hungry.
Shalini Sellam: That's really cool. If you can create something that will tackle those things, I think that's a huge step in increasing lifespan and trying to get humans to live longer. But it's interesting to hear about the trade-offs that come with certain calorie restrictions, that you have to consider along with the health benefits.
Samiksha: So my next question will be a bit more general: from food consumption rates to animal well-being, your research covers a wide variety of global issues. If you were given the choice to tackle one important problem through your research, what would it be, and why?
Davina: That’s an interesting one! Food insecurity is a huge issue, and that absolutely needs to be solved. Without sounding selfish, it's food insecurity, but my real interest lies in what I'm doing with the dolphins and the whales. Because I just find it fascinating and absolutely interesting, and they're at risk at the moment as well. So it's a double-edged sword. It’s hard to pick one.
Shalini: Going deeper with your experience as a researcher, in your biography, you mentioned how you've been involved in the peer-reviewing process of scientific journals. What are some of the things that you look out for when reading research papers from other systems physiologists and other scientists in general?
Davina: The first thing I always check is statistics. I've got quite a strong background in statistics, so it's one of those things that I always check just to make sure everything is on board, and the figures as well. It's actually quite shocking how many papers are submitted with the figures just not showing the data, or not showing the conclusion or discussion, and there's not much that’s been shown within the figures. But so far, I haven't had a single paper I reviewed that was really bad - just some minor or tactical changes that need to happen.
Samiksha: Is there anything about how scientific papers are currently reviewed and published that you would like to change or improve?
Davina: Currently, it takes a lot of time out of people to review a paper - and you're not paid for it, or you're not recognised for it. The main issue is that people are paying journals to get their work published, but then they really struggle to find people to review these papers. To share an example, I was the editor for a journal paper on fat and marine mammals, and usually we need to find two reviewers to review a paper. I sent out I think it was 35 plus invitations to researchers, and none were able to review the paper. So that whole review process gets delayed further and further until we actually find reviewers. I've heard from other people as well that they sometimes have to reject the paper because they just can't find reviewers. So I think at the moment, generally, in academia, the work pressures are so high after COVID-19, that people are really struggling to add more to their workload, and it's a shame because a lot of good papers are just not getting out at the moment.
Shalini: I'm interested to know, are there any areas of study that you haven't explored before that you may be interested to look into in the future? Maybe linked to your current research in dolphins and whales, or maybe not linked at all?
Davina: Yes, the poop! So I really want to start looking at faecal samples from dolphins in the world. They have such interesting bacteria in the gut as well, but it's really hard to collect. There are weird stories from people that do fieldwork. Some basically wait for a dolphin or whale to poop, and then they jump in the water to get it because it just dissipates so quickly. So, it's something that’s really hard to get, but it's something that I am hoping to look into in the next three or four years.
Shalini: Yeah, you've got to have a lot of dedication to go into the field and get those. But that is actually a really interesting topic.
Samiksha: Our next few questions will be focused on providing some advice and help for young people wanting to get into research and publish their findings. That said, having had the experience of reviewing and publishing scientific papers, do you have any tips for scientific reviewers like ourselves?
Davina: That’s a good question. What I always tried to do when I read a paper is just try to tell the story back to myself. If you, as a reviewer, can't understand what the paper is trying to say, that's not your fault. It's the fault of the author - it may be that they're writing it in such a way that's either too complex or has too much jargon. You have some really brilliant papers where you can't completely understand what they're trying to say, so avoiding too much jargon and telling the story would be my one tip.
Samiksha: I agree. It is definitely important to think about the readers when you're writing something as well.
Shalini: Definitely, accessibility is a big issue. Speaking of things like accessibility, what do you think is the best way to increase inclusivity in the field and get more underrepresented people involved in STEM?
Davina: That's a good question. As a part of my job, I'm also head of the Equality and Diversity committee here at the university. And it's just been hard to try to change the mindset of people, to make it more inclusive for women and other minorities in STEM. What I always tried to actively do is consider the wording when I advertise a post or a PhD project, and write it in a way that sounds more inclusive.
I would recommend just talking to a lot of different people to get a lot of different perspectives because you might come from a certain background and see it in a certain way. And you think, okay, this is great, this is inclusive, but then you start talking to other people, and they don't see it as inclusive at all. It's really important to have people from different backgrounds that can give opinions and can help advise, and if you don't know how to proceed, just ask questions. It's better just to ask questions.
It’s also important to show different people in STEM, to change what a “typical” scientist looks like. If we can increase the visibility of different people that are from different backgrounds, that are women, that are from different minorities, that will spark the interest of a younger generation saying, okay, I'm being represented, I recognise myself in this person. We need to move towards that, but the issue with getting this representation in positions like professors is it takes 20 years to get there. So it's slow progress, but we're getting there.
Shalini: I completely agree. Your job sounds very interesting and seems like a vital one too.
“I would recommend just talking to a lot of different people to get a lot of different perspectives because you might come from a certain background and see it in a certain way. And you think, okay, this is great, this is inclusive, but then you start talking to other people, and they don’t see it as inclusive at all. It’s really important to have people from different backgrounds that can give opinions and can help advise, and if you don’t know how to proceed, just ask questions.”
Samiksha: Following up from there, what advice would you give to young people who want to pursue a career in STEM or make a difference through STEM?
Davina: Talk to a lot of different people - that's what I would do, especially for summer projects. I found that a lot of my colleagues are very open to even high school students coming in and doing a summer project. So become a member of some scientific groups, look out for those opportunities and go to public engagement events. I generally feel like most, including my colleagues and I, are very keen to get young people into STEM. So if you pop them an email saying that you're interested in doing some work and that you would like to have a lab placement, that could be a way forward. I think communicating and reaching out is the best way to do it.
Maddy: I know that often people tend to take subjects in STEM and try to link them to humans. You've mentioned that it is not necessarily your interest. But you also mentioned that, before your research, scientists were applying human health markers to aquatic mammals. I was wondering if the opposite might happen in the future, where if there have been any findings in aquatic mammals, whether these might be linked back to humans?
Davina: Something in the back of my mind at some point as well, is to basically find a cure for obesity. If you can figure out why these aquatic animals have so much fat but are really healthy, and if you can figure out on a cellular level how that happens, we can tie it back to humans, and we can basically have a cure for obesity. Other people have done that as well. But with other animals, you're trying to find little things in different species and trying to tie them back to humans. So there is definitely a possibility for it to be linked back that way as well.
Mhairi: What does a day in your life typically look like?
Davina: Depending on the weather - winter and summer are slightly different, because of the amount of light you get in Scotland - I generally get up at seven. Then in the summer, I have my breakfast, and I've got two dogs, so I take my dogs out for about an hour in the morning for a walk. I will usually be back by 8.30, then check my emails for half an hour. If I work from home, then I usually start working through my to-do list. This can be anything from admin work, where I have to contact different members of the department to get things organised for students that are coming in, or for me to start teaching. And then that usually takes me to midday, so sadly, the majority of my day is emails. After midday, if I'm writing a grant application, I'll start writing the grant application, or I start doing some analysis. Then on rare occasions, I’ll go up to the lab as well, if I have active projects that need to be done.
But, my day can be very different and can also include public engagements, to presenting, preparing presentations and teaching as well. For me, teaching is from January to March or April, and then from September to December, I've got Honours students that are doing some projects. From April to June or July, Masters students come in to do a project and I've got my PhD students that work year-round. So my work week looks different at different parts of the year.
I try to stick to nine to five. I don't work weekends, because I feel with academia, there is no need anymore to work weekends. I think we need to move away from that whole idea that academia is working more than eight hours a day; that’s not healthy for anyone. That's something I am telling my students as well - you can get there by working eight hours a day and not working on weekends.
Shalini: Since you mentioned your statistical background, I was wondering if there is a specific way that you plan out your statistical analysis of any results that you have?
Davina: I always try to think: what is my biological question here? Because there are so many different options for stats that you can get so lost in it, and even I sometimes get lost in what I'm doing, and then I find different things to do, and then when it comes out, it's so exciting! When I get stuck, I always try to come back to my main question - what I am trying to get out of my data, and what kind of question I'm trying to ask. Then based on that, I'll select the kind of modelling I need, or I select the type of data I need. I always start with plots, and I always make figures, so that I can see if any trends in those figures can be explained by different groups, for example. Then once I've done that, and I've got a good exploratory look at it, I start thinking about targeted statistics, to see what would be the best fit for what I'm trying to ask.
Mhairi: Within our community, we have people within the age range of 14 to 24, and young people towards the older end who are interested in research might be looking for supervisors. So having both supervised students and having to find a supervisor for your career, what advice would you give to young people who are looking for a positive experience with their supervisor?
Davina: Although it’s a bit of a hard one to do, try to speak to members that are in the lab. Usually, a red flag for me as well, when I start looking at jobs or at applications for my PhD is: if it seems like they can't keep people in their lab, that might be a red flag there. But if you have a lab that's very busy, and you have students coming in from all different levels, for example, people that are doing summer projects all the way up to postdocs, then that's usually a good indication that the lab is not toxic, and also that a mixture of different people that are in there. It's really hard to figure out all of this before you actually start, but I would recommend that you talk to your supervisor first to get a quick impression of them. If you think you're going to like them, it could be an incredible project. But if you don't like the supervisor, then you know you're going to have an issue with the supervisory team. Also, don't be scared to ask the supervisor questions. I think that's a big one as well, just to have a feeling of how they work in a group.
Madeleine: Earlier we were talking about how there's a demand for reviewers in certain fields. At Youth STEM Matters, we're concerned with the youth. So I was wondering if you think that youth could play a key role in that process?
Davina: I think it would be great to get young people involved, especially to check for accessibility and to see if it's written to such a good level that it's accessible for everyone. I think that would be key.
“I think it would be great to get young people involved [in scientific peer-review], especially to check for accessibility and to see if it’s written to such a good level that it’s accessible for everyone. I think that would be key.”
