What first motivated you to study epilepsy research for your PhD and what was the main question you were trying to answer?
My interest in epilepsy began during my early research training at UCL, where I saw first-hand how disruptive drug-resistant seizures can be. Many people continue to have seizures despite trying multiple medications, often with difficult side-effects. This highlighted a critical gap between what current treatments offer and what patients actually need.
This gap was particularly evident in temporal lobe epilepsy, where seizures frequently remain difficult to control. My PhD set out to investigate whether we could design a more precise therapy, one that responds only when needed. Specifically, I wanted to know if we could develop a gene therapy that activates when neurons become overactive, calms the network, and then switches off once normal activity resumes. The goal was to move beyond continuous, whole-brain drug exposure toward a more targeted, circuit-level approach for epilepsy.
What were the key findings from your work, and why are they important for epilepsy research?
We wanted to know if a gene therapy could do something current drugs can’t: follow the brain’s natural rhythms, step in only when needed, and step back when it’s not.
During my PhD I developed and tested gene therapies designed to respond to abnormal brain activity. A central finding was that a therapy could be made to follow the brain’s own network dynamics, enabling both spatial and temporal control. We achieved this using an activity-dependent genetic “switch” that drives expression of a calming protein only when neurons become excessively active. In a model of epilepsy, this approach reduced seizures and improved memory and behaviour, without constantly suppressing normal brain function.
Earlier in my PhD, I also contributed to approaches that increased the brain’s own protective genes to help stabilise overactive networks. Together, these studies point toward a different treatment paradigm: rather than continuous, high-dose drug exposure to the whole brain, we can begin to design therapies that are active only where seizures originate and only when needed. In the long term, such precision could offer better seizure control with fewer cognitive and systemic side-effects, particularly for people whose epilepsy does not respond to current medications.
How did support from the Epilepsy Research Institute contribute to your PhD journey?
Gene therapy is a long game. My work won’t reach a clinic tomorrow, and that distance can make the day-to-day feel abstract. The Institute helps close that distance. Their webinars show me what clinicians and families are dealing with now, not years from now. The Shape Network has helped me prioritise my experiments, keeping in mind who it is for. Hearing from people with lived experience anchors the technical work in a real question: will this help someone, someday?
Also, the Researcher Hub shows I’m not alone. There are people across the UK working on epilepsy from angles I’d never considered. We’re all playing the long game together.
The Institute keeps me connected to the reality my work is meant for. That keeps it honest. Which keeps me going.
Finally, is there any advice you would give to prospective PhD students considering a career in epilepsy research?
Something I’ve come to believe is that staying connected to the human reality of epilepsy matters more than any single technique. Conversations with clinicians, listening to patients and families, that tends to stick with you in ways that papers don’t. On days when experiments aren’t working, those are the voices that come back.
I’ve also learned that it’s okay not to know things. Pretending you understand when you don’t is the quickest way to stop learning. Some of the best conversations I’ve had started with someone saying, “I don’t follow, can you explain that?” Most people are relieved someone else asked first.
The field pulls from so many directions, genetics, computing, imaging, and you don’t need to master everything. Being willing to pick up things outside your original training tends to open doors.
And the non-linear bits: experiments fail, ideas shift, some days nothing works. That’s just how it goes. Having good people around, taking care of yourself, and remembering that even small contributions add up: that’s what makes the long game sustainable. It’s a hard field, but there’s real room to matter in it.
