Ambassador for science

A passionate advocate for science, Professor Lyn Beazley shares some of the exceptional and continuing contributions she has made to Australian science over a career that began with a passion for biology.

Australian Life Scientist: What inspired you to study science?

Professor Lyn Beazley: I attended a state school in Britain and we had wonderful teachers for science. On one excursion we visited Down House, Charles Darwin’s house just outside London, and I had the opportunity to look through the microscope he used, see many of his specimens and his garden. I decided I wanted to be a biologist and I was lucky enough to attend Oxford University to study botany, but I changed to zoology.

I completed my undergraduate degree, but towards the end I attended a lecture by a visiting professor from Edinburgh University, Professor Michael Gaze. He was working on repairing the brain after damage, particularly the visual system. We knew that some animals could repair their systems: fishes and frogs are very good at it, but humans are not. I thought I knew a little bit about fishes and frogs, and it sounded a wonderful PhD topic, so I moved to Edinburgh and completed a PhD on the development of vision and its recovery after injury.

Neuroscience didn’t exist as a discipline when I first started. We were to be found in departments such as anatomy, physiology or pharmacology, and neuroscience became a discipline around me. I was at the beginning of a real surge of interest in neuroscience and the way it could be used, not only for theoretical advances but for practical help to improve human health - and I’ve been there ever since.

ALS: What led you to move to Australia?

LB: My husband and I moved to Australia in 1976; it was really to see a bit of the rest of the world.

I saw a two-year visiting research fellowship at the University of Western Australia (UWA) advertised in Nature. I applied and was successful, so I came to a funded fellowship.

At that time the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) was expanding its career fellowships program and I was lucky enough to be awarded a research fellowship. I then set up my own lab de novo. I had support from the university and applied for external funds from local funding bodies as well as the NHMRC. Over time I built up a substantial research group of about 30 people.

Moving to Perth was an entirely positive experience for me. From the very beginning people were most welcoming and supportive. The biomedical community were very inclusive and encouraging.

I stayed as a Fellow until I moved across to a professorship at UWA in 1994 and then in 2006 I became the Chief Scientist of Western Australia (WA) on secondment from UWA.

ALS: What sort of neuroscience research did you pursue?

LB: During my PhD I investigated how the environment interacts with the developing nervous system, a theme I continued in my first postdoc in Britain. During development there is an exuberance of connections in the brain, more than you need long term, and then the inputs from the environment - literally what you see in the case of the visual system - help ensure the survival of connections that are functional and the loss of inappropriate ones.

I also studied recovery from neurotrauma. The retina, the light-sensitive sheet lining the back of the eye, receives light and converts it into electrical activity that is forwarded via the optic nerve to the brain. We knew that if that nerve is damaged in some animals it can regrow and reconnect to visual centres in the brain to restore near perfect vision.

That is one of the big questions: why can a central nerve in an animal such as a fish or frog regrow but not do so in a human? We’re still struggling to achieve a similar success in mammals, including in humans.

ALS: Your work changed clinical practice, can you tell us about this?

LB: That was because of a serendipitous association with a wonderful professor at UWA, Professor John Newnham. He was working in the area of obstetrics and gynaecology, particularly concerned with the risks associated with preterm delivery.

If a baby is born early, one of the most vulnerable systems is the respiratory one. The lungs need to be triggered to function at an earlier stage than they would normally do so and a great way to do that is with corticosteroids.

A brilliant discovery by Sir Graham Liggins in Auckland was that corticosteroids prematurely mature the foetal lung, giving the baby a better chance of surviving being born early. So if a woman is at risk of preterm delivery, she is administered corticosteroids. These are transferred via the placenta to the baby so that if the baby is born preterm, the lungs are primed.

But the issue was that the effects of the corticosteroids wear off over time. So if a mother was threatening to enter labour but did not, she might return and over time receive many courses of corticosteroids. High doses of corticosteroid can change patterns of neural development such as myelination, patterns of cell division and cell death.

We studied the effect of a wide corticosteroid dose range in animals to estimate a dose that would be protective of the developing brain but still mature the lungs.

It was amazing because in our first study, we took one look at the micrographs of the developing optic nerve in the corticosteroid treated and untreated groups and knew immediately that aspects of development were changed. That’s not to say that development could not catch up later, but it was much better if the influence was not detrimental from the beginning.

Our work led to three clinical trials around the world and influenced the decision of setting the recommended dose of corticosteroid treatment.

ALS: Do you feel passionate about educating people about science?

LB: Absolutely! When I was at UWA I was very keen to give first-year lectures. I also ran a second-year course on development and a third-year course on comparative neuroscience.

I feel very strongly that professors should engage with students when they first come to university. It was particularly important to me as we are still building up the number of women in senior positions almost everywhere, including in universities. I thought it was important to be a role model and to show students, as in my case, that you can, as a woman, have a partner, raise a family and still succeed in your career.

Throughout my time as Chief Scientist, I was particularly keen to reach out to young people. I visited many wonderful schools here in Western Australia, and I spoke at a teacher’s professional development conference only last month.

Engaging people with science is just so close to my heart. It has been a very important and a key part of my work, not only for the practical aspects in a university context of attracting honours students and PhDs, but much more widely than that. I’m passionate about sharing my enthusiasm for science and showing people how it fits into society, into industry, government and community.

Whatever their background, people need to have an understanding of science because they will have to face issues such as whether to immunise their children, whether to eat genetically modified crops, use of stem cell therapy or promoting renewable energy projects. We need to have an understanding of all of these areas and more to be active participating citizens of Australia and the world.

ALS: And you have juggled a full-time career and family very successfully.

LB: Yes, I have three wonderful daughters and I’ve had a very supportive partner right through.

When I became Chief Scientist of Western Australia, I very much encouraged young people into the science area - both boys and girls - but there are some areas of science, particularly engineering, where we simply do not have enough women. Moreover, we tend to lose women from science, the numbers dwindling as their careers advance, and we are losing, therefore, some of the talent pool.

I am very keen to support getting more gender balance, whether it’s more women in engineering or encouraging more men in nursing or teaching for example. We need more balanced professions; we are getting there but there is a way to go.

ALS: You were Chief Scientist of Western Australia from 2006 until 2013 - how do you become Chief Scientist?

LB: Well, in my case, I was approached I’m delighted to say.

I accepted with great enthusiasm but also some caution because I didn’t know what it would be like, but it’s been a wonderful experience. I’ve been honoured and delighted to complete 7 years. It’s been amazing for me and I hope beneficial for my state and for Australia.

ALS: Are there some highlights from that time?

LB: There are a lot.

One of them would be in terms of education. I’ve always supported the role of lab technicians in schools because I think doing science is not just a theoretical exercise, it’s very much a practical one too. So I’ve been involved in an initiative to set up a nationwide ‘hotline’ for lab technicians in schools to ensure they can talk to each other across the country, to introduce the best and safest procedures in schools and provide positive support for science teachers. That is one thing that I’m really happy to have achieved.

Another initiative, this time at a local level, was to work for healthier estuaries in WA. Science really needs the public on board now because there are very big issues to address and we just don’t have enough scientists to tackle them. So we set up Dolphin Watch. The program, working with Murdoch and Curtin Universities, has trained nearly 700 individuals who are now monitoring the health of the Swan and Canning Rivers, particularly watching for dolphins but indirectly other aspects that would influence the health of the river system.

This example relates to a more general principle that we can apply to support science projects in other areas. Setting up new apps, for example, so the public can interact with science and if they see something in the environment they can report it. These ‘citizen science’ programs I see as very important and increasingly will help science address issues, both local and national.

I was also very much involved in the negotiations for the Square Kilometre Array, the radio telescope project that is arguably the largest science project that has ever been planned for the planet. It will be co-hosted by Australia, being mainly located in WA and in the Republic of South Africa.

Throughout my time as Chief Scientist I argued strongly for Australia’s participation in the SKA. The project has already had various other terrific spin-offs; for example, we now have a super computer here in WA, which is available not only for radio astronomy but also for other areas such as predicting climate change, medical research, environmental and agricultural science as well as supporting the resources sector.

This has all been part of building up science. I’ve described it like a table with four legs - industry, government, academia and the community. I’ve felt that my role as Chief Scientist was to facilitate interactions between these groups to make a difference in both the short and long term.

ALS: Now that you have finished your term as WA’s Chief Scientist, what’s next?

LB: I’m still very busy. People have very kindly asked me if I’d like to continue in many of the initiatives in which I have been involved. There are so many opportunities that have opened to me from being Chief Scientist that I can follow up without compromising the next appointee [who we now know is Professor Peter Klinken] to that important position.

I’m a member of the board for Bionic Vision Australia and I’m also on the boards of two medical research foundations here in WA, one of which is addressing hearing loss in our community. I’m also still working with schools a lot.

I’ve worked very closely with the WA Museum for many years - I was a trustee for 7 years and am now Patron of the Friends of the WA Museum.

One exciting thing that is happening in WA is building a new museum that will have science at its heart, along with social history and what it means to be West Australian. To play even a small role in helping to articulate the case for the new museum has been wonderful and we are really looking forward to seeing it open in 2020.

Another initiative I set in motion was introducing FameLab into Australia. I plan to continue this association. This is an international program that is already up and running in 25 countries. I first encountered it when I attended the Cheltenham Science Festival in Britain, which is arguably the largest science festival in that country, and one component is the Famelab competition to find the best young science communicator worldwide.

We’ve just introduced the program to Australia - the British Council is very involved and it’s hosted by the WA Museum - 2014 is its first year here.

One of the reasons we could run the program, which is based in Perth, was because His Excellency the Governor of Western Australia, Malcolm McCusker AC, made a philanthropic donation to help participants from across Australia to come to Perth - that made the difference between running the program and not. The winner, Dr Michael Smout from James Cook University, travelled to Cheltenham to compete in June.

This is the sort of program that in the long term we should be supporting for the next generation because for me science communication is very important. Not just doing science, but learning how to communicate it and translating it to improve life on our planet. We are hoping to continue FameLab in Australia for at least the next 5 years; I hope it will then become embedded as part of our culture.

Overall I trust I can continue to promote science as key to a better future on our precious planet.

Image credit: Professor Lyn Beazley with Sir David Attenbourgh when a spider was named after him at the Western Australian Museum.