Hannah Smith on using statistical techniques to identify blood-based biomarkers

Please tell us about your research project and how your work involves genomics or makes use of genomic technologies 

My research project involves using statistical techniques to investigate the relationship between blood-based epigenetic and proteomic markers, several risk factors and brain health outcomes. I hope to find biomarkers of brain health that can help to identify individuals at risk of neurodegenerative disorders such as dementia.  In the context of my project, brain health outcomes include cognitive function and decline, structural neuroimaging measures and dementia diagnosis. I predominantly work with DNA methylation data which is generated using genomic technology that can profile over 800,000 DNA methylation sites across the genome. In my project, I use data from large cohort studies including Generation Scotland, the Lothian Birth Cohorts and the Health for Life in Singapore study. 

Please summarise your previous work and career so far.

I first started an NC course in Applied Science at Dundee and Angus College back in 2015. After that, I progressed onto their HNC Applied Science which allowed me to apply for an Integrated Master's degree in Molecular Biology at the University of Dundee. I am now a 4^th year PhD student in the Translational Neuroscience PhD programme at the University of Edinburgh. I have published two papers so far during my PhD: the first study looked at epigenetic scores (EpiScores) of blood protein levels as biomarkers of brain health, and the second study was on EpiScores of metabolic traits. I also had the chance to present some of my work from the second paper at the Clinical Epigenetics International Conference (CLEPIC) last year (see photo). 

Hannah's work was recently published in the American Journal of Human Genetics in an article entitled 'DNA methylation-based predictors of metabolic traits in Scottish and Singaporean cohorts'. 

Click the links below to read the article and a news story about it's publication.

What inspired you to follow your career path?

I don’t really have a good answer for this. I enjoyed science at school and have always found learning about biology interesting; particularly anything involving the brain. I knew that in whatever I did for a career I wanted to help people. I often considered career paths such as nurse, paramedic or police officer. I thought studying biology would open up several career paths for me so I applied to college and things have just kept progressing from there! 

If you could have tea with anyone (alive or dead), who would it be? What would you talk about?

Oh this is tricky.. maybe the criminal psychologist Dr Julia Shaw from the Bad People podcast. I always enjoy their discussions on human behaviour and why people do the things they do, so it would definitely be an interesting chat. I also have to say Adele as she’s my favourite singer and I think she’s hilarious!

What is the most unusual thing you have done during your career? 

In my Honours and Masters projects, I worked with Drosophila Melanogaster (Fruit flies), which a lot of my non-researcher family and friends thought was very strange although it is a very common model organism! I also extracted DNA from cat faeces which was an odd undergraduate project! 

Do you have any advice for people wanting to pursue a research career? What do you like best about your job? What do you like the least?

I would advise people to really consider research as a career as there are so many interesting questions in science just waiting to be answered! My advice also would be that there is more than one way to get into science and research so explore all the options available to you. I’d probably say the best thing about my job is being able to work on several different projects – it really keeps things exciting. I also work with a brilliant team and have met lots of great people working in science. The thing I like least would have to be my commute to work as I live quite far away from the office and am not much of a morning person. 

How do you spend your time outside of research? Is there anything else you would like to tell us about? 

I recently got a dog called Izzy who takes up lots of my time and I especially love taking her to the beach (see photos!). I try to spend as much time as possible with family and friends. I’m always up for trying new hobbies (see photo above for my first time indoor climbing). I play for a recreational football team weekly and really enjoy reading both fiction and non-fiction books whenever I can (my goal is to read 30 books this year). I love to listen to all kinds of music and podcasts – it helps me get through that morning commute! 

Links

Institute of Genetics and Cancer

Hannah Smith X (formerly Twitter) Profile (external link)

Hannah Smith Bluesky profile (external link)

Marioni Research Group website (external link)

Marioni Group X (formerly Twitter) Profile (external link)