Today we are incredibly fortunate to be joined by Hassal, who completed her PhD midway through studying medicine at Cambridge for which she was awarded triple 1st class honours. She is one of the few PhD research scientists who also has a medical degree, a rare combination!
If that wasn’t impressive enough, Hassal was the top ranking student in medicine at Cambridge for three consecutive years!
During her PhD, Hassal published in incredibly selective journals and was invited to numerous international talks at prestigious conferences to share her new exciting findings and tool developments in neural tracing. All of which we touch on in this post.
And don’t worry, I am also feeling more than a little inadequate after reading all of that!
Hassal has been very generous in sharing her insights and experiences, so I’m excited to share the following discussion with you all!
You can find Hassal on Instagram (@hassallee), Twitter (@HassalLee) and LinkedIn and previous PhD Profiles are available here.
Please introduce yourself
Hello, my name is Hassal and I completed my PhD at the MRC-Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge.
My PhD was in the field of neuroscience, where I engineered a new viral tracing tool that enables long-term tracing and single cell molecular profiling of synaptically connected neurons in live brains.
Since the PhD, I completed my medical training at University of Cambridge and now work in clinical trials research as a clinical fellow at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York.
PhD Applications
What is your background and why did you decide to do a PhD?
I decided to apply for the MD PhD program when I was in my final year of pre-clinical studies as a medical student at the University of Cambridge. The course has 3 years pre-clinical, and then 3 years clinical training. You apply for the PhD in year 3, and then start the PhD after completing your first year of clinical training.
Prior to your PhD you were the top ranking student in your medical college at Cambridge three years in a row. With a class size of 350 and Cambridge ranking within the top 5 medical schools in the world, this is an amazing achievement. What productivity advice do you have to share with us mere mortals?
Haha I’m not sure if I really have the greatest techniques!
I don’t have a well scheduled consistent pattern (although I have tried to for so long). I think society tends to focus on the importance of consistency and how even small improvements can exponentially grow if they are continued over a long period of time. This is very much true, and for people who are able to be that consistent and disciplined I think it is a very good approach!
But for some reason, I can never do it – I can’t tell if it’s a discipline issue or if my brain just doesn’t work well that way. I tend to find it hard to focus consistently but when I can, I get a lot done in one sitting.
I guess the one thing I would like to say is that you don’t necessarily have to be linearly consistent to improve and become better at something! Like yes, you definitely need to keep trying and be persistent, but some people work better in shorter bursts of productivity and that’s fine too!
Why did you choose to do a PhD?
I had really enjoyed the academic training in my course and was curious about how new scientific discoveries are made.
How was your application process?
There was an initial paper application to apply to the MD PhD course in general. I think it consisted of a few short questions and a CV. Then there is an interview stage where they ask you about your motivations, and about your previous research experiences if you have any.
After that, you reach out to the laboratory or research institute that you want to join, and go through the PhD application process with them. At the MRC-LMB this involved another paper application followed by interviews with your principal investigator, and the heads of your research division.
How did you decide on a project?
I had a database provided of all labs affiliated with the University of Cambridge – I went through that to find labs that were doing work that I found interesting.
Initially, I was looking at quite a few different fields, e.g. neurodegenerative disease, vascular medicine, neuropsychiatry. I met with a few lab leaders and their lab members to discuss potential PhD projects, and I found myself most drawn to the Tripodi Lab at the MRC-LMB.
What was the Amgen Scholars Program like, and how useful was it in preparing you for the PhD? I understand the program is very competitive, accepting only around 7% of applicants – do you have any tips for people looking to gain more laboratory experience before their PhDs?
The Amgen Scholars Program is a fully funded summer research program hosted at famous institutes across the globe. It is a really great opportunity as an undergraduate to gain experience in a lab and meet other aspiring research professionals across the globe at that stage of your training!
In general, getting experimental experience before the PhD is really useful, not just for the application but also to get a better idea of lab life and what you are signing up for a significant part of your early career.
The Amgen Program is competitive, but there are other ways you can gain lab experience. If you reach out to a large number of laboratories in subject areas you are interested in, some will have space to accommodate summer students. Unfortunately the challenge in most of these situations is usually that you are getting paid very little, if anything at all, so people tend to try to search for laboratories of interest within commuting distance of their homes or at your home institution.
Sometimes, colleges and universities will offer stipends for students staying on campus to conduct research over the summer, so definitely check for those! [A note from Jeff – the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) is one such option.]
What advice do you have for people applying for a PhD?
I would advise that you do thorough research before deciding on your project and lab. Once that decision is made, you are potentially going to spend many years working there. Take time to reach out to and talk with previous members of that lab, ask to speak to other labs in the same institute etc.
I think the human aspects of research work are very important and you want to be in an environment where you can feel supported and work happily with others.
Life as a PhD Student
How was your PhD experience and how did the PhD compare to your medical degree?
The PhD experience was a steeper learning curve than I had expected. I felt the biggest difference was that at medical school, you learn how to assimilate and understand large amounts of information efficiently and logically. You don’t spend so much time assessing the veracity of the information you’re given, you take things more at face value and you prioritise assimilating that knowledge.
In the PhD, I realised this approach was not so helpful – it took some time for me to really learn how to assess and interpret new information in a more critical way, and hypothesis test. In that sense, I am really glad I have had both experiences, because it has taught me different skills that are both very useful, not just in work, but in life in general.
What were the highlights of your PhD?
Most of my first year was spent essentially learning and becoming comfortable using the techniques that I required for my research project.
Nearing the end of my second year, I started to see some exciting data that the new viral tracer that we had engineered was minimally immunogenic, and that enabled me to more confidently grow out the project in a productive direction.
In my final year, I was invited to present my work at Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in Chicago, a protein engineering workshop at HHMI Janelia Farm and an internal seminar at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. This was a lot of fun as it was my first experience going to conferences abroad to present my own research! Soon after that I wrote up my thesis and had my viva.
During the PhD you were invited to prestigious invitation-only events to present your work, what was that process like?
Each venue and event is quite different!
For example, HHMI Janelia organize meetings that are very small and selective by design to create a close group atmosphere that allows deeper exchanges between experts in highly specialized areas of research. I was really honoured to be invited to present the exciting findings from my protein engineering work to develop new circuit-specific gene-editing vectors and how it can be used in real-world clinical settings.
Other conferences ,such as the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting, are the complete opposite, it is huge and attracts more than 30, 000 attendees. The excitement comes from the scale of the event and it gives you the opportunity to present your work to so many scientists from across the world.
What do you wish you’d known when you started your PhD?
I think something I wish I had started doing sooner is asking more questions. When you are initially new in the lab, you learn a lot of new protocols and techniques that have been set up by previous lab members. There are instances though, where those protocols are optimised for previous experiments, and may not be well suited to the new thing that you are trying to do.
So although you should learn the most that you can from the techniques that have been set up before you, I think asking questions about why things are done the way they are and checking if that is the right thing for you is important.
It can save you a lot of time – and people are usually very keen to help you if you ask!
You recently had some of your PhD work published in Nature Methods, which is a highly selective journal with a less than 8% acceptance rate and an impact factor of about 50! Do you have advice for people trying to publish in such a competitive journal?
I think as a whole, the experience of publishing differs a lot between different topics, fields of research and techniques used.
One general thing I would mention though is that as a whole, higher impact journals tend to expect a wider range of in-vogue experimental approaches – which tends to mean a longer time investment. So as a PhD student, you want to be thinking about timelines and at what point you need to publish.
One thing you can consider is to plan both for a shorter-term simpler project that can be completed in a shorter time frame, and also a larger more ambitious high-impact project (that then also has more risk to not go as planned). That way you can mitigate risk and check the boxes as you are going through your journey!
Was the PhD stressful? If so, how did you handle the stress?
I did find the PhD stressful at certain moments! I was very happy for the first year and a half or so – I just enjoyed being in the lab, learning how to use the machines and take images on microscopes, and the facilities were amazing. As that novelty started to wear off, I started to feel more stressed about work.
For example, I found myself worrying a lot about certain decisions I had made (e.g. should I use X concentration or Y concentration for this experiment, should I take a 2 week time point or a 4 week time point? Will it ruin everything if I make the wrong choice? etc.).
One thing that worked well for me in these moments would be to just plan a day or two where I would not organise any wet lab work, but sit somewhere quiet with my headphones and a coffee, and spend the whole work day just going through my previous data and previous literature to see if there were any clues as to how I should plan the next experiment.
I think experimental work requires a lot of patience, which can be frustrating at times, and in those moments I needed to take that step back and clear my mind before regaining the energy to re-tackle a problem.
Do you have any advice or tips you’d like to share?
Take advantage of being able to take on other roles as a student – for example, if you are interested in scientific communication, submit articles for your school’s magazine, if you are interested in how science can be applied to business, see if there are any venture opportunities to do some pro-bono work.
I think PhD is a great time to explore these opportunities and you can learn a lot about yourself and what sort of things you enjoy doing in the process.
PhD Completion and Beyond
How was your viva experience?
I had returned to clinical school after submitting my thesis so I remember I was in my obstetrics and gynaecology placement at the time, and had a very stressful drive back into Cambridge to make it to my viva! Once I arrived though, my viva experience was really nice.
Honestly, I was just grateful that my examiners had bothered to read my entire thesis and it was a nice experience to receive that interest and talk through interesting questions about your work with accomplished senior scientists related to your field!
What have you been up to since finishing your PhD? Do you have a career path in mind?
After my PhD, I completed my final 2 years of medical school and then moved to New York to work as a clinical fellow in Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory to work on clinical trials data from remote monitoring devices.
How was the transition from being a PhD student to your current role?
Moving to the US to start working in clinical trials was really interesting – I expected there would be more differences between clinical and pre-clinical data analysis but I found that the approach to data analysis is fairly similar, the main difference was in the type and volume of data being collected so I had to learn a lot more coding.
It has been a great experience to integrate my medical and PhD work in this way!
How do you find it working in the US compared to the UK?
I find that the laboratory/research working environment is fairly similar in the US and the UK. It does take a bit of time to feel fully functional and set up in a new country (e.g. making a bank account, renting an apartment etc.) but I think that is to be expected when making a move!
I’ve really enjoyed my time here so far.
It is rare for PhD research scientists to also be trained in clinical medicine. Do you think your PhD has helped in your current role as a clinical fellow and in hindsight would you choose to do a PhD again?
Yes definitely! Having both the PhD research science experience with a medical degree has enabled me to combine my PhD with real-world clinical settings to focus more on translational science.
It is very uncommon to find clinical physicians who are also PhD research scientists and know how to perform genetic/protein engineering, in vivo neuroscience studies, develop new viral neuronal tracing tools, and analyse large-scale genomics data. In this way, combining your PhD knowledge to new settings can give you a very unique skill set!
In my current role, I have already applied my PhD academic research knowledge and medical experience in the space of health equity to develop new ways of analysing accessibility to geographic sites.
Thank you so much to Hassal for sharing her PhD story. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed putting it together with Hassal. As a reminder, you can find Hassal on Instagram (@hassallee), Twitter (@HassalLee) and LinkedIn.
Previous PhD Profiles are available here and you can subscribe for free access to my resource library here:
Great article.
Thanks Afia, glad you enjoyed it and thanks for your continuous support. Best wishes, Jeff.