Professor Heather Mortiboys
Professor Heather Mortiboys, Professor of Cellular Neuroscience and Metabolism reflects on her research and the importance of mentoring and supporting early career researchers.
Professor Heather Mortiboys, Professor of Cellular Neuroscience and Metabolism in the School of Medicine and Population Health, Faculty of Health.
As a University of Sheffield alumna, Heather studied Biomedical Science and in her final year of study undertook a module on brain disease. It was following a lecture that her interest and lifelong work into Parkinson’s Disease began.
Heather was awarded a PhD from the International Max Planck Research School in Dresden, Germany. During her time in Dresden, Heather was working at the interface of laboratory research and translating it into the clinic in the local university hospital.
Wanting to stay working with Parkinson’s, Heather began working as a Postdoctoral Research Associate before setting up her own lab at the Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience.
In her lab, Heather’s focus has been on understanding the causes of mitochondrial problems in neurodegenerative disease and how they can be therapeutically targeted, with much of her research focusing on Parkinson’s.
Heather reflects on her research and the importance of mentoring and supporting early career researchers:
“When starting out on my research path, what drove me, and still does, is making a difference to those who have Parkinson’s as well as their families and carers. Over recent years, we have made real inroads to understanding the disease, the mechanisms of it and how it can vary across individuals. People with Parkinson’s have always known that the disease is different for each person, but as scientists and clinicians we’ve often treated everybody the same.
“This is changing and I hope that some of my research has contributed to the understanding we have of the disease at a cellular level and that Parkinson's is different in everybody and therefore this needs to translate to clinical treatment and therapeutic developments. Looking to the future I think there will be new therapeutics that are not just symptomatic but could slow the disease. We are making progress in this area.
“Since starting my career, I’ve been able to set up my own lab and grow my team and as part of that it’s really important to me to nurture and develop the careers of those working in my lab and those further afield. It’s something I see as a fundamental part of my role.
“With all my early career researchers, whenever we discuss the paths they may want to explore, I always try to share and reflect on the potential setbacks and how they can be difficult to deal with. It is however fundamentally important to learn to deal with rejections and use them to your advantage in the long term and that's something that, through those conversations, I hope to share and help them with.”
Thank you to all the women for taking the time to share their stories and reflections and for providing the information featured on these web pages.