Knowing Your Non-Negotiables: Finding the Right PhD Project

I originally applied for the MRC Doctoral Training Partnership in Biomedical Sciences at King's in 2020. However, despite getting to the interview stage, I failed to obtain a place in the highly competitive program. But determined to succeed, I re-applied the following year and am now in my third year of the Neuroscience-Mental Health theme.

The title of my PhD project is Unravelling Brain Activity and Sleep Disturbances in Prodromal Parkinson's Disease. While I am so glad I chose to proceed with this project, it wasn't necessarily a straightforward choice at the start. Faced with various options in the project catalogue, I chose my PhD based on having worked with pre-clinical models of Parkinson's Disease (PD) in my previous job as a research assistant. I was familiar with the theory and background of PD, as well as the animal aspect, so working on a preclinical PD project felt less daunting than starting completely from scratch on a new disease or topic area. However, the techniques I would be using for my project were completely different to what I was used to/had experience in, so this also gave me a 'novelty' aspect and seemed like a nice challenge.

As for other things that influenced my decision, I was really fortunate to have worked previously with many people who had completed PhDs in Neuroscience. They were a wonderful source of information, and I was able to learn some of the pitfalls and challenges from them before I even started my PhD. I had also worked in a research lab for a year and a half before starting my PhD, so I knew some non-negotiables myself. For example, I knew that often times the choice of supervisor was more important than the choice of project and that the other people (technicians, research assistants, other PhDs/Post Docs) in the lab are the ones you're going to be spending the majority of your time with, so it's important to be able to see yourself working with them day-to-day. I had also previously come from a very small lab (with only myself, a PhD student and the PI), so I really wanted more people to be around to bounce ideas off, and for there to be a feeling of 'team'.

I chose this topic as I have always been interested in neurodegenerative biology and what happens in the brain over time that can lead to dysfunction. After my undergraduate degree in Neuroscience in 2019, I moved to the US where I worked as a technical specialist in a biotechnology company that engineered fiber photometry systems for use in neuroscientific research. While I was there I got a taste for the process of preclinical research. From the planning and development of an idea to the intricate techniques that can be used to parse apart specific brain regions, networks and even specific cell types. So while neurodegeneration overall was a topic that stood out to me, preclinical research seemed like a good way to go about answering the specific research questions I had.