We take for granted informal encounters during scientific conferences. Some will shape the course of our lives. It was meeting an academic from Sheffield during a conference in China which changed the direction of Dr Yi JIn’s life. She is now a Wellcome Trust Sir Henry Dale Fellow at Manchester Institute of Biotechnology.
Yi received encouragements from both her Master’s supervisor in China, and an academic met at a conference, who encouraged her to apply for a scholarship with the British Council. When others show their confidence in us, it gives us the courage to go for opportunities we may not dare jump into otherwise. Yi changed not only country, but also research field and landed a PhD at The University of Sheffield (UK). She has moved quickly across 2 Postdocs, before landing her first independent research position at the University of Cardiff. Recently, she has obtained a Wellcome Trust Sir Henry Dale Fellowship at Manchester Institute of Biotechnology (University of Manchester).
Listening to our conversation will prompt your thinking
Read the blog post inspired by this conversation:
https://tesselledevelopment.com/research-lives-and-cultures/yi-jin
We take for granted informal encounters during scientific conferences. Some will shape the course of our lives. It was meeting an academic from Sheffield during a conference in China which changed the direction of Dr Yi JIn’s life. She is now a Wellcome Trust Sir Henry Dale Fellow at Manchester Institute of Biotechnology.
Yi received encouragements from both her Master’s supervisor in China, and an academic met at a conference, who encouraged her to apply for a scholarship with the British Council. When others show their confidence in us, it gives us the courage to go for opportunities we may not dare jump into otherwise. Yi changed not only country, but also research field and landed a PhD at The University of Sheffield (UK). She has moved quickly across 2 Postdocs, before landing her first independent research position at the University of Cardiff. Recently, she has obtained a Wellcome Trust Sir Henry Dale Fellowship at Manchester Institute of Biotechnology (University of Manchester).
Listening to our conversation will prompt your thinking
Read the blog post inspired by this conversation:
https://tesselledevelopment.com/research-lives-and-cultures/yi-jin
Warning- getting a perfect transcript is . This transcript may have mistakes. Be kind to us by accepting these potential errors. I hope that the transcript is helpful to some of you! Apologies in advances for any mistakes in the transcript.
Sandrine: All right. Let's make a start.
[music]
Sandrine: Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening, dear listeners, you are today on the podcast Research Lives and Cultures. Today I have the pleasure to have with me research fellow Dr. Yi Jin. You'll have to tell me your-- Yi?
Yi Jin: Yi Jin.
Sandrine: Okay, I'm not even going to try to say your name properly. It's always quite embarrassing. Yi Jin.
Yi: That's very good.
Sandrine: Most people can't pronounce my name properly either so I get away with this. I met Yi many many years ago when she was a PhD student and now she has received a prestigious Wellcome Trust Sir Henry Dale Fellowship and she's now based at the University of Manchester. It's really really a pleasure to have you on the podcast. I'm really looking forward to a conversation and hearing about some of your experiences in transitioning in your research career. Can you get us started and giving us an overview of your research career so far. I guess it's a long stretch of time maybe in a few minutes but give us a sense of how you started in your research life.
Yi: I started as a chemist in China doing a chemistry degree for seven years including bachelor's and master's degree. Then after that, a very unexpected opportunity, I was awarded a overseas research scholarship funded by the British council which gives me the opportunity to study in molecular biology and about technology at the University of Sheffield for four years. That led me into enzymology from a pure organic chemist type of research. After that, in 2014, I moved to University of York as a postdoc to learn structure biology with professor Gideon Davies. In 2017, I moved to Cardiff University and started my independent research group as a group leader. Now just two months ago, I moved to University of Manchester to start my fellowship here.
Sandrine: That's a pretty stellar career transition. Before we get started in the current experience that you have of research, what was the driver originally in term of coming to the UK because there are tones of bachelor students from China who will be desperate to come to the UK. Getting a scholarship to come to the UK to study is pretty remarkable. What was it that you had done or were you just an incredibly talented student? How did you manage to get that in the first place?
Yi: I actually never thought about studying abroad until the summer before I finished my master's degree. It was on the international conference organized by my Chinese supervisor back then, Yu-Fen Zhao, and on that conference, I was presenting a poster and I met later on my PhD supervisors professor Mike Blackburn and professor Jon Waltho. They were actually looking for a student who has got chemistry background, knows phosphorus chemistry, and would like to learn something biology related to the subject.
They thought, "Okay, your English is pretty good, although you need to pass your English test which is IELTS, and your sciences is great, and we encourage you to apply for this scholarship." I remember back then the story was I literally locked myself inside my apartment trying to pass the IELTS at the highest score. In the end, I think I got eight out of nine, just a month not doing anything because a high score in English test is very important on top of your GPA, your publications, and things like that. In the end, I got the scholarship and then I just never looked back.
Sandrine: I had to do also the language test when I was in the US and I'm sure I didn't get that high level [unintelligible 00:05:13] so well but it's interesting because in a way you went to this conference but at the time, were you already considering a PhD or research career, or was it the door to research opened through just having that conversation?
Yi: Actually, it wasn't before I met them or before we officially started the conversation about me applying for a scholarship to come to the UK, I wasn't thinking about moving abroad at all because I had a long-term relationship back then. I was going to finish my master's degree and then move back to my hometown in the university and become a university lecturer. That was my life plan but I think for everybody, your career development and your life have to sometimes come together in a way.
Out of the blue, I broke up with my boyfriend back then, and also the job application at the university in my hometown wasn't going well because they did require a PhD degree instead of a master's. Many things just come together. There is opportunity to come to the UK and there is no string tied with any relationship and the job hunting in China didn't go well. Just all these factors together make me want to jump out of the regional social circle and move to the UK.
Sandrine: Did you have already the inner confidence of, "Okay, I can do this." In a way jumping from, leaving your country, something that I've done myself, and sometimes we go because we just want an adventure. We are not too scared about what's going to happen next. We just say, "Whatever happens, it's fine. I'm just there for the experience," but for some people being worried about changing country or going to a place where you don't have any friends or even knowing whether you're going to like the research or not, until we are in it, we actually don't really know. What gave you the sense of, "I'm just going to do that."
Yi: I think this is the importance of the mentorship back then. It's the encouragement of other people because I not only have to change studying in a totally different language, a different culture but I was changing field altogether. From an organic chemist doing purely synthesis into molecular biology and biotechnology, studying protein structures using a nuclear magnetic resonance as a technique, studying enzymology. I had a self-doubt back then as well whether I could make anything out of this, whether I could be able to deliver a PhD altogether afterwards.
It's the encouragement of my PhD supervisors, by Mike and Jon, and by my Chinese supervisor back then saying you should try it, you should go out open your horizon broaden your horizon and learn more. You will be able to do it. Also, another thing worth mentioning is back then in 2008 when I arrived in Sheffield, I remember there weren't many overseas students, Chinese students back then. I think it's that encouragement and the confidence that other people had in you really made me just decide, "I can do it." I tried my best to join the initial training in MBB, and just transferred from there.
Sandrine: How did you negotiate with your own family because thinking now I've got all children and the idea of them traveling on the other side of the world, one of my son is considering doing a masters in South Africa and thinking of him going that far is really scary. This is an important consideration in term of making this decision. Our careers we don't live in isolation and we have to convince our family that we will be fine. It's not that we have to convince them necessarily to let us go but this is part of the conversation we need to have.
Yi: I'm very lucky in that sense I have to say, because I grew up on a university campus since I was born. Both my parents were very, very supportive. They are very open-minded and if their daughter and never mind, remember it's a single child policy in China so I was the only child. When I told them I had this great opportunity to apply for a scholarship, to be funded a study in the UK, and I'm going to pursue a PhD to do great science with great people. They were very supportive. For them, since I was 18, they just let me go but moving from hometown Harbin to Xiamen University which is six hours away by the plane.
Sandrine: Oh, by plane. That's in plane. Oh, my Gosh, wow.
Yi: It's from Northern China moving to Southern China for seven years studying in Xiamen University. Then, later on, jumping from Xiamen University to Sheffield, to the UK. For them, it's just another journey for their daughter to pursue. They were very supportive. Even until now, after I finished my Ph.D. or postdoc, they were not saying, you should come back to China and you should stay with us. For them, it's like, "World is your oyster." If you want to pursue a career, wherever you are, we are supportive of you.
Sandrine: It's important to have that. I mean, something I need to learn of letting go of my own kids, that's for sure. If you're thinking about your research career, what would you say is really your internal motivator? Because for some people it's about maybe really enjoying directly the experimental work, for others, it's making connections but we all have internal motivation that really keeps us going, drivers help us to stay at it because doing research is hard. If you're thinking, what is within you that really pushes you to thrive in your research life?
Yi: What drives me? I would say it's the freedom in academia to do things and to try out the ideas in my mind. That freedom is very important for me. I'm lucky enough that throughout my career, all my supervisors, my PhD Supervisors, and my postdoc supervisors, they're all very liberal. They're all very supportive of me trying things out independent of their supervision, their research directions. That is something, to me, very important that I have the freedom. On the other hand, I remember once I went for a postdoc interview, the potential supervisor for that postdoc told me, and I totally agree, is, "When you do research, you are not just doing something you are interested in, you need to also to consider what other people are interested in." For me, it's absolutely true that what other peoples are interested in is totally aligned with what I'm curious about. Then the sparks would just happen. That actually really drives me.
Sandrine: I've interviewed a lot of post-doc about the challenging process of moving from the project that you may be working on during your post-doc to developing your own research space. One of the things that you just said is to work with a supervisor who give you a sense of independence of creating the space because obviously when you're employed as a post-doc, you need to actually do the experiment related to the grant that you are employed on, at the same time, creating the space of what will be your own space as a researcher. What has been your own approach in terms of this transition from, doing the work that is necessary for the PI, for the principal investigator, employing you, and then at the same time, having that space of exploration where you can build your own research niche?
Yi: Obviously, I have to make time for it and I have to think harder. It doesn't require that extra level of hardworking quality in a way that I'm willing to try to do something else using my own time. Although, when you were a postdoc, you are using other PIs resources but as long as they are supportive, I'm willing to put in that time. I think it's then I realized I could become a PI in future myself because I'm not totally relying on the ideas given by my supervisors and other PIs. I can have my own idea small to begin with but new, and I can do the troubleshooting. I have the experimental approaches to prove my own ideas. It's small experiments during my postdoc or during my PhD that actually made me aware that I can be novel, I can be creative and I can lead a small piece of research of my own. That, later on, has proven to be very helpful when I transit from a postdoc to a PI myself.
Sandrine: Did you have at some point the need to have a conversation with your PIs in term of, that's the work that we've done together, this belongs to you and this is the things that I've done on the side? We often have a conversation about research niche that when you are applying for your first fellowship, you need to demonstrate that you are not a clone of your PI. You are somebody who is developing something on the edges or you are combining different things in a different way. Can you take us through the process that you went through to identify the research niche that is your own way for maybe the PI that you were working with in your last postdoc?
Yi: To establish the niche, especially when you wrap up together and apply for a fellowship, or when you apply for the job to say, "I'm bidding for this position as a PI and this is my research proposal."11 When I was doing that, the first thing I was thinking about is, what can I do? What have I learned over the years? For me, it's quite unique because I'm a hodgepodge. I do chemistry, I do organic synthesis, I do some protein and I also do protein x-ray crystallography. I do a lot of enzymology. I learned some chemical biology techniques in Gideon Davies lab in York. I've learned all of this. I've learned how they run the group, and how they pitch for funding opportunities when I was a either co-I or when I was a participating postdoc.
When it's my own turn, I look at my skill set, as I just said and I also look at what is needed at moment. What is the topic that the funding bodies are interested in funding? Then I try to think about something else. I wasn't that afraid of proposing something that I had no training background in. For example, for my Wellcome Trust Henry Dale Fellowship, I proposed to study a bacterial pathway, namely the sulfoglycolytic pathway, which I studied part of it when I was a postdoc when the pathway was first discovered in 2014.
I also know Gideon and his collaborators are also studying this pathway. How can I differentiate my research program away from theirs? The good thing about the fellowship is you can propose the learning and the training developing aspect of it so that I've never actually studied or trained in microbiology. All the work has been done by the York and the York group. His collaborators are more focusing on synthesis, the substrate of the pathway or studying a specific enzyme in the pathway. I want to study pathway as a whole. Also, I want to study the pathway in a different organism. The other organism has got medical relevance. In this case, I proposed to study Salmonella, which is also a pathogen that we urgently need to tackle, in terms of the disease treatment. That's how I proposed, I wrap up the research idea altogether and in the fellowship, I will learn by collaboration quite a bit of microbiology. I will, again, by collaboration, learn quite a lot about informatics through collaboration. Establishing the niche is not that hard, in my opinion.
Once I started running a small research group by myself for one and a half years in Cardiff, before I submitted the fellowship application, because, I can already see how to construct the fellowship in a way so that I don't tread on other people's toes, but on the other hand, it has to be novel and there has to be a integrated project with several objectives in it, which can answer a key scientific question or solving the key social health issue.
Sandrine: Did it take you a long time to put it together? Because again I've observed often that some post-doc, in the last few months of their postdoc position, start pulling their hair and start saying, "Oh, what's next? Maybe I should apply for a fellowship." You can't really pul a fellowship out of the bag in a couple of weeks. It may take months and months to actually bring things together in term of the skills and the gap in the research arena and also finding things that also you find interesting.
In your case, how long would you say took from the moment that you said, "Okay, I'm just going to now go for this."
Yi: I have to say, when I decided to apply for the fellowship, it took quite a while to convince myself that I was going to go for it. I was going to come up with a very holistic idea, a project to bid for a fellowship because it is a substantial piece of work just to put the proposal together, to develop all those objectives in a realistic and a composed, and a structured way.
For me, with the Wellcome Trust fellowship, it required initials application. The first stage, you submit a two-pager, and to convince the committee that it's a topic they're interested in. Its general research idea, the direction is what they are happy to fund. That didn't take long. I think in two weeks' time, they replied me and said that we invite you to submit a full application. I was like, "Great, I'm halfway in," but actually, it's from that moment you realize the marathon has just begun. Because I was a PI already then, I had to run a research group. I had to deal with quite a bit of a teaching, so I didn't rush it.
When I realized I may have to have a bit more time to hand in the full application, Wellcome Trust was very supportive because for them, they would rather see a very well-prepared, very well thought through proposal than something being rushed in and full of holes.
From the preliminary application to the full application, it took me a year. I remember it's that year I did so much reading because I had to teach myself quite a bit for the microbiology and all about informatics I proposed on the fellowship application but also, I had to polish it off for those pages of research proposal I was going to write. That took quite a long time.
I remember I came to my office every morning half-past seven and then didn't go home until ten o'clock in the evening. I don't know whether I should encourage other people to do so.
Sandrine: That was your reality.
Yi: Yes, just because I was driven to submit a very well-written proposal, very well thought-through proposal. Later on, I actually was diagnosed with vitamin D deficiency because I literally locked myself in the office just to think about using my spare time how to write this a perfect fellowship, I would call it but never mind. I would say, it's not just you lock yourself in office, you need to talk to people, a couple of the reading, and also to seek the peer support. Again, I was very lucky that at school of chemistry at Cardiff University, I had two fantastic colleagues who are two years ahead of me in their career stage. This is Dr. Dr Louis Luk and Dr. Yu-Hsuan Tsai. Both of them are very supportive, very critical for my proposal. That's what made it and it took time.
Sandrine: One of the things that's interesting is that you actually were already a PI. Can you tell us about the transition from your last postdoc to actually having that first fellowship in Cardiff? Many postdocs, in a way, may think, "Oh, I need another postdoc and I did another post before they have a sense of becoming a PI," but what kind of position was that, and what's made you actually decide, "Okay. I'm just going to jump to become a PI."
Yi: Again, I think my path is a bit Unconventional, I have to say, because I was very happy in Gideon's labs, learning structural biology and the chemical biology and all my projects were working very well. I was working hard, I was delivering results and I was getting some good publications out of my hard work under Gideon's supervision.
Then it was a unique opportunity that the head of a chemical biology section at school of chemistry, Cardiff University, came to me and said, "We're advertising a PI position, a research fellow position. Would you be interested in applying?" I had the same thought, my first response was, "Have I got enough postdoc experience? Am I good enough? Am I ready to be a PI?"
For me, my thought was, "If there was a job open, I'm going to apply." Whether I get it or not, it's another thing. Obviously, again, you have to prepare the job application and prepare for the interview, spare time. In the end, I got the job. The transition had some self-doubt, but I remember when I told Gideon that I got the job offer at Cardiff University, he said something I will never forget in my life. He said, "Oh, congratulations. You will start worrying about other people's life now."
[laughter]
Sandrine: Absolutely. What kind of setup was it, that fellowship? Because again, I suppose it's like jumping into a lectureship position, you need to access funding. Did you have to get funding from the start or were you given a funding package to get started?
Yi: I had a rather small but generous startup package, I would say, for the size of our school. I was given £25,000 to begin with, and out of that, I literally built a small lab myself, including purchasing some small equipment. As soon as I started the job, I started looking at other funding opportunities. The good thing about being appointed as a research fellow, and back then wasn't on a prominent position, it wasn't a prominent lectureship, it was a five-year contract research fellow, was I can have the access to some small pot of money, including Wellcome Trust to see the world, the Academy of Medical Sciences, Springboard Award. I had to come up with a proposal and submit it, went through peer review. I was lucky that I was awarded three out of the four proposals I submitted in the first.
Sandrine: That's amazing.
Yi: - one and a half years.
Sandrine: That's a very high success rate.
Yi: Oh, thank you. With that small pot of money, a little bit more than £200,000 I could build a crystallography lab to do protein crystallography in Cardiff School of Chemistry, and that was desperately needed back then. It was really driven by the need of my research and also driven by what I'm eligible for because, in my opinion, there are more funding opportunities than I could possibly apply, but it's one of the things, what should I go for first? I need to select what are the ones that I have the best chance of winning. In the end, I think it was a very happy experience that I didn't suffer too much from all the objections of the ground proposals.
Sandrine: During your position in Cardiff, that's when you apply for the Wellcome Trust, Erindale Fellowship, so now you've moved to the University of Manchester for this fellowship. Again, that's an important decision in terms of having just set up a lab in Cardiff, then making the decision of going somewhere else for your fellowship. What was, again, your process to decide that that was the right place for you? Because having just set up a lab, some people may say, well, why move because you could have done your fellowship in Cardiff. Why was it important for you to change at that stage?
Yi: You're absolutely right that it feels very sad to not give up, but to move on from one place to the other after spending four years. For me, that's also what drives me to do research is to learn. When I was in Cardiff, I was happy in a way that I was a small group leader, I had three PhD students in my group, and at peak time, I had two postdocs working in the lab too, but I feel I need to learn more. For me, especially for the research proposal, I propose in the fellowship. It would be a much better fit to move to Manchester and to be located in a more multidisciplinary environment. That's what actually drives me to move to Manchester.
Sandrine: I know these are hard transition. What do you think has been important in you becoming a research leader, a PI? Sometime, I guess, for many researchers, the stage of "Okay, Christ, now I'm in charge of others, I'm the boss. People are depending on the way I think about things to progress their research, to progress their career." Could you talk to us about some of these experiences of establishing your life, establishing the dynamics, the interaction in your team? What has it been like?
Yi: My experience is mixed. To have the first a PhD student that is totally on the same wavelength as you is very important. As a junior group leader, I was very enthusiastic and I was so determined to train my first PhD student myself and to teach him everything I know. Although now, he's gone way beyond me, in my opinion, in many, many techniques. The first PhD student, in my opinion, is very important. The dynamics in the group can be a bit variable because I feel I'm quite a competitive person and I'm not particularly patient. Sometimes I may appear to people to be a bit pushy, but very soon I will learn.
I learned different students have different characters and you need to talk to them in different ways. It's a trial and error. For me, I'm still learning and trying to figure out what is the best way of communicating with each of my PhD students. Now, I've moved to Manchester and there are still two PhD students staying in Cardiff, for various reasons, couldn't move with me due to funding or family issues. It's now this remote supervision and how to get most out of that. I know they are working very hard, they are very keen and I try to do my bit to connect to them and to listen to them. On one hand, they want to grow, they want to achieve.
Trust me, I'm actually very lucky that all my students and postdocs are very driven, so they are very key. On the other hand, from my point of view, I have got this leading purpose. I'm their mantor, I'm their supervisor. Although I may not be much older than them, but I do take the responsibility of their, I wouldn't say the entire research career in future, but I do find myself in the position that I need to be responsible for their training, for their research philosophy. That's what sometimes can happen simultaneously, spontaneously, but sometimes we do clash. I don't worry too much about just being nice to my group members because they need to know what is right, what is wrong.
When they made a mistake, I do not hesitate to point out to them, even though they may not be happy to hear that directly from me. I do make them aware that there is a certain way of doing things that can get your work, can get your results published, and that there are other ways of doing things would be wrong or too sloppy, and you are not going to pass the reviewers' critical eyes. As long as I can convince them what is my intention and what is our goal of doing this piece of research, and as soon as they understand why, everything is easy.
Sandrine: What do you think is the really the hardest in being a group leader? I'm not talking about getting grants and all that, but in terms of creating an environment where maybe people who have very different motivation than you because people come into the PhD for all sorts of reason. People will start a PhD because they still want to be students. They don't necessarily want a research career, and in a way, as a PI, what you want is for the ideas that you've worked really hard to develop. You want the data, you want the information, but for some PhD students, what they after is not necessarily a research career.
They're just there to acquire some skills, but they may consider you moving out of academia. You remember from when I was working at Sheffield as a researcher developer, we always had lots of opportunities for people to develop professionally. Often, there is a tension with some supervisors who are very reluctant to let their PhDs or postdocs get involved in professional development.
Now that you are on this side of the fence in term of being a group leader yourself, what do you think is really hard in creating a dynamic where people can really develop professionally, but their whole person, not just the science so that they become highly skilled professionals that can move into position, whether it's in academia or outside of academia?
Yi: I would say from my own experience, I start that dialogue with them very early on, so at the beginning of their PhD and talk to them, what do you want to achieve? What do you want to do after your PhD? You would be surprised that not all of them know the answer. I'm the same, I was thinking back then when I was doing my PhD what I would like to do afterwards. I could try patent attorney, I could even turn into a policewoman working in a forensic chemistry lab. I was thinking about all sorts.
Likewise, I asked them questions, but the purpose of me asking those questions, what they would like to do in future was not to make them give me the answer on the spot, I was trying to push them to think because as soon as they have any idea about their future or what they would like to do in future, I would say, I always encourage them to tell me that, and then I will say, "Try this project because if you do this project, you will learn technique A, technique B, or technique C, and that will make you look very good on your CV." You will have a lot to say in your interview when you go job hunting, and you will be a more sought-after person if you try this project.
For me, the hard part was to design just project for each of my students. This also happened during the pandemic when the lab could only open part-time and some of the students were not available all day in the lab, and so I had to adjust with them in a way. I think it was maybe advantage as a young PI that I was willing to adjust with them and I think also to communicate with them what my intention is when I suggest them to do certain experiments or when I suggest them to take on the whole project. Or even when I assign project students to them what my intention is, and as soon as they're understanding my intention, the rest of the conversation are not difficult.
Sandrine: Is easier. No, I can completely get that. Coming from China in British universities, we're starting to have loads of conversation about implicit bias in term of being a foreigner or being a woman in a very male-dominated research environment. What has been your own experience in term of maybe some of the biases that you felt were there? Not necessarily explicit ones, but how have you experienced yourself the research environment in term of your ability to really have a voice in the research community or in the institution when you're still early stage as a PI?
Yi: I think I'm just a lucky person in that sense that I never worry that I'm a woman and I will be disadvantaged or I would be suffering from the gender bias or race bias. Because the moment 2008 when I parachuted in the UK, I thought I was as equal as everybody else. I would try my best to improve my English, to make the accents, try to learn that local dialect. That in terms of research, in terms of science, I try to look up to the ones that are doing the best, so never concerns me or worries me that I'm a woman, I couldn't deliver more. Also, I think because I haven't been a mother myself and I haven't been distracted by the family side of things.
Most of the time, over the years, I could focus on my career development more. It's not because I didn't want to have a family, I think that's how life works out. That's how I think about myself. When it comes to promoting women's designs, I've been doing that since I was a group leader. I hired two postdocs, both female researchers. …one of the postdocs has been unemployed for one and a half years and I hired her to work with me, and after two years of training in my lab, now she moves into industry in full-time employment as a research scientist in a small startup company. Obviously, this is all confidential, I didn't want to review anybody's [crosstalk].
Sandrine: That's a really interesting point because, for example, you could be a woman who doesn't manage to get a postdoc and basically end up leaving science altogether because you're not given a chance because you've not managed to secure a postdoc. Actually, being given a chance to jump into a postdoc will make a difference between you leaving science altogether or not. In a way, maybe being a woman yourself is almost an extra motivation of giving other women the opportunity to have a go at postdoc. What do you think is missing in maybe the way we are supporting postdoctoral women in making that jump, that transition from postdoc to PI?
Yi: To make that jump, there are two things that are the catalysts. One is yourself, whether you are willing to make that jump or are you going to be scared off by just the idea of thinking, "I'm going to run a group, I will be so busy dealing with grant writing, publishing, supervising students," all that. I think in terms of their own mental motivation is very important, but on the other hand, I think the research community does have some expectation from the postdocs who submit their CV to apply for a certain job and they look at your track record, and they look at your publications.
That expectation is there, it's invisible. It's expected you can propose something competitive worth reading, and you need to put yourself out to bid for funding with all the referee turn, all these requirements. I can understand where it is from. I remember once I was having this conversation with a visitor to our school and I said, I'm thinking very hard how to publish this paper in high impact journal. I was thinking about journal this, journal that, and his comments was, "Oh, you shouldn't play games, you should just focus on research, you should keep your head down and just do good research." From my point of view, yes, I have been doing that.
I have been doing good research in my opinion. I have been pushing really hard, but it's not me thinking I'm good, it's what is the expectation out there? When you look at my publication list when you click on my website, when you look at my CV when I submit a grant proposal, you look at what have been published in the last five years. It's that expectations there that sometimes if you haven't been lucky like publishing the journals, you are excluded from that, but I think very often, I hope the research committee, the community could be more open to think about what people could deliver in the future and willing to talk to them, and give them the opportunity to have a discussion instead of just looking at the CV and the publications and Google Scholar lists.
Sandrine: It's really interesting you talking about that because I was talking to somebody who works for a research funder in Luxembourg and they're going to try a new approach in term of the way they're recruiting fellows and create what they call a narrative CV, which is basically a way where it's not just a CV that is based on so many publication, but is much more a story of the approach to undertaking the career that, in a way, tries to go away from this very metric-based way of selecting people for the next stage. Can I ask you what really drives you to keep going?
Yi: For me, the drive comes from this fact that I tell myself, this job, as a whole, is a learning process. It's not just about learning a new technique. It's very skill-based, but I'm doing a job of three persons if you're thinking that way. Being a group leader, being a research leader, I convince myself that every day I come to work, I'm dealing with a lot of things, but most of them are for me to learn and they will become useful in the future. Also, when I train students or train my postdocs, when they could deliver something that I couldn't do, or I never thought about it could happen in my research group, that was really exciting for me.
It would be more exciting than me getting a paper published or getting a grant awarded in a way because the good thing about this job is the human touch in it. Yes, we are doing research, but it's actually the researchers in your group, including yourself that are doing the research together with you. That human touch is important. I always feel it's ever so joyful when my former master's student or a project student in my group got a PhD offer from a top university or a top company, or my former postdoc got a job offer and been employed by a company doing fantastic research in drug discovery. To me, that is very rewarding and I've always been very excited about it.
All these things add up together really keep me going. There was no single factor to say, "Oh, just go for money or just go for the number of papers." Obviously, those things are also rewarding being a researcher for sure, but it's the human interactions. When I see my students getting more mature, moving into the state of their career, that's very exciting for me.
Sandrine: That's really nice to hear. In the final question that I have for you, if you had to start all over again, would you do things differently? Also, what would you tell your young self to enjoy the journey a bit more?
Yi: I'm more of a forward-looking person. Giving me a hypothetical scenario saying, "It's all over again, what would I do differently?" I would say I have nothing to regret. I've been really lucky to get the right support, a lot of support by the kind of people, my former supervisors, my colleagues, and the institute I've worked in, so I really have nothing to regret or I could do better. I don't think so. If you ask me what advice I could give to the other early career researchers, I would give them the same one as what my former supervisor, Gilia Davis, gave me, be patient. Patience is important. I'm not saying you need to sit on things and just wait for it to happen, but a lot of the good things do take time to happen.
As long as you keep at it and you have faith in yourself and you keep pushing and you try hard, if you fail, you try again, try something better, the good things will happen. I also tell myself to be patient because now in Manchester, I have to build a group altogether all over again, but when I look back, the full years I spent in Cardiff, I learned a lot by trial and error, by experiencing going through with other colleagues with my own team. That took four years and now, I have another five years founded by the Wellcome Trust to create another group and try to establish myself here and expand my research scheme. That will all take time, but I think I'm definitely a more patient person than a younger me four years ago. I would say.
Sandrine: Can I ask you, do you still get a chance to go into the lab?
Yi: Yes, I still enjoy fishing crystals with my PhD students. I still enjoy doing that. Here in Manchester, at the moment, I'm in the middle of building a group. Almost like I'm a general on my own [chuckles] and I'm going to go to the lab and just try to grow a batch of bacteria, try to purify a batch of protein, try to set up a crystallization tray, and just see how it goes in the new institute, in the new environment and try my beginner's luck here again.
Sandrine: Can I ask you two silly questions? Maybe not so silly. What's your favorite piece of equipment and what is your favorite experiment?
Yi: My favorite piece of equipment was the 500 megahertz, an MR machine that I used in Sheffield when I was a PhD student because my project involves a lot of [unintelligible 00:56:59] and I was spending most of my time setting up experiments on that. I remember 2012, almost 10 years ago when my PhD supervisor, John Walton, moved to Manchester. Actually, who is one floor below me at the moment.
Sandrine: Okay, wow, that's quite funny.
Yi: Yes, we were very sad, we were waving goodbye to the little 500 megahertz magnet, and now it's good to see it's in good use being paired with a new Cryoprobe with enhanced sensitivity. That's my favorite equipment. In terms of my favorite experiment is the non-natural immuno-acid incorporation into a protein. That is an experiment that I heard of throughout my PhD and postdoc training and I decided I was going to try it out myself when I have my own research project. When I first moved to Cardiff, I tried it out, it failed.
I just simply tried to incorporate a floral terracing into a green fluorescent protein and with all the design because we have another expert in the school who works on that, so I thought I would like to try this because I would like to use the system for one of my other proteins I'm interested in, but I failed big time, I couldn't make it work. When I recruit my first PhD student, Patrick Bowman, I told him, "I couldn't make it work, please, you try it out." I was trying to supervise him on how to do things when I couldn't make it work myself. After eight months of failing, he managed to work with a decent yield of the protein and with great properties.
As soon as he managed to achieve the non-natural main asset incorporation into a small G-protein, his whole PhD project just opened up and the rest of his P-project was built around that. That was really exciting for me to see when something I couldn't make it happen, the younger generation, my student could make it happen. That feels great.
Sandrine: That's fantastic. It is been absolutely lovely talking to you and really well done on your achievement and your other work to get to where you are. I wish you really all the best for your time in Manchester as a Wellcome Trust fellow. Thank you very much for being on the podcast.
Yi: Thank you for having me.
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