Rewire Your Career: Johanna Jackson

Rewire Your Career is a new interview series that highlights the many routes people take into and through neuroscience. From moving between academia and industry to shifting across disciplines or starting in a completely different field, these stories show that there is no single path to building a career in science. Through sharing experiences, challenges and advice, we aim to showcase the flexibility and resilience of neuroscientists, while inspiring our community to explore the possibilities ahead.

Dr Johanna Jackson, UK DRI group leader at Imperial College London.

We interviewed Dr Johanna Jackson, UK DRI group leader at Imperial College London and first recipient of the Alzheimer’s Society’s Carol Jennings Fellowship. Jo discussed her career path from academia to industry and back again, leading the Multi-'omics Atlas Project, and her group's focus on drug repurposing for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. We covered challenges including changes to funding post-COVID, gender disparities in academia, as well as the importance of public engagement to bridge the bench to bedside gap.

Neuroscience Journey and Initial Research Interests

Can you tell us a bit about your background in science, your current area of study and what interested you about neuroscience initially?

I did an undergraduate degree in Physiology and in the final year we covered a lot of neuroscience, so that’s when I started getting into it. My PhD focused on tracking stem cells in models of neurodegenerative diseases. In my postdoc in Sweden I became particularly interested in synapses. I went into industry doing synapse work after the funding for that project came to an end. At Eli Lilly, my role focused on setting up an in vivo two-photon imaging facility, where I stayed for eight years and where I led my own group.

I went to industry because of the scientific opportunity - i.e., to study synapses in Alzheimer's disease using two-photon imaging - but ended up learning a lot about drug discovery research. I also learnt how to manage projects and lead diverse teams, such as teams of biologists, chemists, students, staff scientists, and those working in other therapeutic areas. Whilst you pick up extra skills in industry, you also miss some aspects of academia, such as writing grants and publishing your data, which can make it difficult to return from industry. Part of my motivation to make the move back to academia was to contribute to understanding the human condition to identify novel synaptic drug targets. When I came back to lead the Multi-’omics Atlas Project, on behalf of the Head of Department of Brain Sciences at the time, I was able to bring together the human work, my background in neurodegeneration, and my love of synapse biology.

Do you think your decision to make the switch back to academia would be different if you were to consider it now, in the current research climate?

Not very many people come back once they go into industry. When I decided to leave, I didn't realise quite how hard it would be just being out of the system for so long. It was quite tricky but I don’t regret it (most days)!

When I speak to my students I always say that your options are always open, but you need to think carefully when you make those decisions. For example, if you do enter industry, if you can you should try to keep publishing - then you have some tangible output if you need, or want, to come back.

The funding landscape has changed too, as I came back just before COVID.

How has available funding impacted the way that you've directed your research since?

I think a lot of funders like it if you have industry experience. Charities are particularly keen on bridging the gap between academia and industry, and that’s what I always set out to do anyway. It is important to find a niche, and I saw myself as being well-placed to try and bridge that gap with my relatively unusual set of skills.

Another aspect that has shaped my research since coming back to academia is drug repurposing. Industry doesn't focus on repurposing drugs for obvious reasons. However, this is key in terms of patient benefits, and charities are keen to fund this research.

Challenges in Clinical Trials and Biomarkers

How could we accelerate the clinical trials associated with drug repurposing, and what are some current barriers for them?

We have these disease modifying therapies that tackle amyloid, the protein that aggregates in Alzheimer’s disease. If we can also target synapses and provide combination therapy, then we would be able to achieve improved cognitive function. Being able to combine the two would be great, or possibly focusing on inflammation and tau, or the aggregated protein in other diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease. It is essential to study both, and having more funding for direct targeting of synapses and boosting cognition directly would be much better.

There are several barriers, particularly in the synaptic space. Finding biomarkers to look at synaptic health: there are only a few and they need further validation. Getting them to be looked at routinely, alongside amyloid markers in clinical trials, for example. That will really tell us what is happening to cognition.

These biomarkers could be blood, CSF or PET. Digital biomarkers from smart watches too. There is a lot of data, but it just doesn’t get routinely used. We still get participants to fill out a pen and paper form which is really basic testing that has been done for decades.

Public Engagement and Data Utilisation

What could we do, as researchers, to push for the routine use of novel biomarkers in clinical trials? Could public engagement and awareness of these findings allow them to advocate for better care planning?

I think public engagement is key. There are two types of public engagement, like getting more girls, or other under-represented groups, interested in science. There's this other aspect of public engagement you're asking about, and that is getting the public on board. Sharing with them what we work on, and getting them to understand what we need and why - for example, there are concerns about data privacy. A lot of data protection worries are slowing down research progress, and to make meaningful conclusions we need patient, as well as healthy control, data. Therefore, we do need people to be involved and aware of the possibilities.

I wonder whether you could touch on the topic of misinformation in science, and perhaps any misconceptions about data privacy in industry compared to academia?

Even if you're in industry or in any kind of sector, we all have to abide by the data protection laws. That's non-negotiable. We all have phones that are connected to networks that share our data with Apple and Google and we all seem to be okay with that. Health data is slightly different. We all have an opportunity to drive research forward and I think it’s getting the cost-benefit analysis across to the public. By being careful, but working together, we will make leaps forward.

Role Models and Support for Women in Science

Before we wrap up, I wanted to ask you about starting a research career now as a woman. Could you give some advice to women doing PhDs, that may be considering leaving academia?

Even at PhD level, there are many more women than men in the field, then it really begins to drop off -  it's the leaky pipeline. And then, as you progress and you move higher up the academic ladder, the numbers decrease quite dramatically over the years. People try to understand exactly why that is: is it women wanting to have children? They don’t think that is the reason now; it's a variety of factors.

In terms of advice, to be honest, it's very difficult. I think that you've got to have clear boundaries. We all love science and we all want to progress, but it can't be at the expense of everything else. Whether you have kids or not, you've still got to maintain your life outside of work. It's particularly hard to be firm with those boundaries, but it's very important to stick to it.

Also, why do women progress slower than men? Women are cited less often, so their papers get cited less. They're more likely to be a middle author. There is also a lot of unconscious bias. I'm still amazed to go to conferences and see an all male panel. Thankfully, it's getting called out more. However, women not being asked to speak and present their research then leads to people not knowing about them, and then they are cited even less. Although things are changing, a lot more could be done.

What could institutions do to better support their women researchers?

I think there's a big thing around role models.

We need to be very careful about intersectionality as well, including women from all ethnicities. Institutions also need to be careful to not label it as a "women's problem". We can't put women in all these training courses and get them to just "be more confident".

I'm quite often the only woman in a meeting. Frequently, another woman will have organised the meeting itself and that is not really helpful either, because then women are seen as a support role. We've got to fight against this unconscious bias - why am I being asked to take notes? It's important to be able to say no and question why you're being asked.

I’m glad you touched on that. I wanted to ask you about your own role models. Who has inspired your techniques or shaped your research career?

There are several. Unfortunately, I've never had a woman supervisor.

At the moment, Erin Schuman, who won the Brain Prize in 2023. I think she is amazing and she also does a lot of work for women in science. Tara Spires-Jones too, her science is incredible and so is she (read our interview with her here). There have been many others along the way, particularly around ten years ago, that were speaking up when no one spoke about this. Those women had to break down a lot of barriers, so to them I’m really grateful.

Future Directions

Thank you very much for your time. One final question, what are you most excited about in your research coming up in the next few years?

We are starting to move into a bit more of a Drug Discovery phase. That was always the plan, the grand plan. We've done a lot of basic characterisation of synapses in humans outside of this condition, and we are now starting to understand them, starting to think about repurposing drugs and the mechanisms and to test some of those. So that's really exciting. We are also starting to branch out from Alzheimer's disease, and we are doing some Parkinson's disease work.

There's a group of Parkinson's patients that develop cognitive impairment, and we want to understand what happens to their synapses. So that's also really exciting, in terms of multi-'omics, I think the most exciting thing from a science point of view is individual synapses. There is a paper that came out a year or so ago that looked at the transcriptome of individual synapses. There was a lot of heated debate around this paper, but we are moving in that direction as well.

And so that's really cool, similar to when people began single cell and single nuclear work years ago, we are now able to do it at single synapse level. And our work is about looking at the transcriptome and the proteome of the synapse, integrating that data, understanding the kind of mechanisms that might drive the proteomic changes - it gives us another avenue for therapeutics.

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This interview was conducted by Victoria Mery and edited by Rebecca Pope, with graphics produced by Suzana Sultan and Ginevra Sperandio. If you enjoyed this article, be the first to be notified about new posts by signing up to become a WiNUK member (top right of this page)! Interested in writing for WiNUK yourself? Contact us through the blog page and the editors will be in touch.