Feature
GOING GLOBAL From making discoveries about chronic lung disorders to managing a research programme to improve health around the world, Dr Sarah Puddicombe has taken her career from lab to office – and beyond. Joining the University of Southampton in the early ‘90s, Sarah was part of a team of scientists who discovered ground-breaking potential for interferon beta, paving the way for pioneering COVID-19 treatment. Interferon beta is a naturally occurring medication in a class called ‘immunomodulators’. The team found a defective interferon beta response to virus infections in the airways of those with chronic respiratory disorders. This novel discovery indicated a use for interferon beta to help protect airways against viral infections – and it is now being used to help improve the outcomes of COVID patients.
“ In February 2020, I visited teams in South Africa. It was a privilege to visit the research sites and meet the local communities and teams who are directly benefitting from these research activities.” Dr Sarah Puddicombe
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Today, Sarah is Assistant Director of Global Health based within the University’s largest enterprise unit, NETSCC (the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) Evaluation, Trials and Studies Coordinating Centre), based at the University of Southampton Science Park.
Following her PhD, she worked with Professor Donna Davies and Professor Sir Stephen Holgate, initially looking at these growth factors and signalling pathways in the repair of asthmatic airways in responses to different environmental insults. Her research involved taking cells from airways and growing these at an air-liquid interface. “I was able to grow miniature models of the airways to replicate the lung lining – layers of cells with specialised mucus producing cells, and cells with beating cilia which help clear mucus and irritants from the airways,” she said. ‘’My work using these models and biopsies compared healthy and diseased airways’ responses to external insults and looked at factors involved in the underlying disease changes observed in the airways.”
Early days Sarah arrived in Southampton in 1992 as a research assistant and also studied part-time for her PhD.
It was around this point that the team discovered a weakness in the protective barrier of the airway to various insults in asthma. They also found impaired antiviral responses to respiratory infections and identified the potentially game-changing influence of interferon beta, capable of improving antiviral responses.
“My PhD was focused on epidermal growth factors and their receptors whose signalling can go wrong and drive uncontrolled cell growth, leading to breast cancer,” she explained. “I made modified versions of these growth factors to find agents to alter this signalling and to help prevent cancer.”
“Levels of interferon beta produced in asthma and in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, or COPD, were lower in response to virus infections and, by adding interferon beta back in, you could help protect the airways from these viral infections,” explained Sarah.
