Talking Real Science with Oliver Wearing https://youtu.be/h_X9VKD6ukw This episode of Share Science features Dr. Oliver Wearing , Mitacs Accelerate Industrial Postdoctoral Fellow and UBC Killam Laureate in the Department of Cellular and Physiological Sciences at the University of British Columbia. His research aims to develop next-generation radiotelemetry devices that monitor the cardiovascular function of small and large animal models to try and better enable us to generate safe and effective translational therapies to restore cardiovascular function following spinal cord injury. Oliver Wearing was recently interviewed at the inaugural American Physiology Summit in Long Beach, California, and won the InsideScientific Science Communications Content Creator Kit.

How did you enjoy the inaugural summit? And what was your favorite part of the four day long meeting?

I think the best thing about the APS summit, for me at least, is the diverse range of disciplines that are on offer at that conference. It's pretty rare to have such a broad array of different sub-disciplines of physiological research on display for such a large audience. I have pretty broad interests, and my work today actually spans quite a few of the different APS sections. So it's really fantastic to have this smorgasbord of amazing physiology research to choose from. Just the volume of attendees and its profile in the community makes it a great opportunity to maximize your impact with past, present, and future colleagues and collaborators from around the world, as well as learn about cutting edge technologies and resources provided by the vendors and industry partners exhibiting in the physio hub. With any conference another highlight is networking and catching up with friends during ceremonies and all the different social mixes and, of course, afterwards at bars and restaurants near the convention center. Long Beach in California is a particularly nice spot to be doing that.

Let's get to know what shaped you into the researcher you are today: where did you grow up and how did your youth influence your path and passion towards science?

I grew up in a relatively small town in England called Macclesfield, and it was pretty rural. I definitely grew up with an appreciation for the environment and the natural world and wildlife as my parents love animals. My brother and I grew up around them, and we'd watch and identify, for example, the birds that would feed and bathe in our garden or whatever, and try to tell the difference between different species and things like that. My grandfather was also a really keen, I suppose you call him a hobbyist or an amateur scientist, and he taught me about his passions, and they would range from astronomy to botany to etymology to arachnology. He really sparked my curiosity in the scientific method, and how the world around us works, particularly the diversity of animals and the amazing places that some of them manage to live. I was also really lucky at school to have had some really incredibly inspiring teachers that helped nurture that curiosity. I got a huge deal of satisfaction learning how to figure things out, using scientific skills and knowledge, and those teachers really helped to develop that interest and passion for the sciences; that's what really ultimately led me to pursue them at University.

You have an interesting array of research interests; where did you get your bachelors and PhD? What piqued your interest in the relationship between cardiovascular physiology and the autonomic nervous system and specifically your transition from your PhD research to what you're studying today?

It's been quite a long and winding road, but it's been a really rewarding one. I did my bachelor's degree at the University of Manchester in zoology and was really fortunate to have a lot of opportunities to do field work as well as professional experience placement. Lots of opportunities to delve into different fields of research over that time. My first research project was funnily enough in spider behavior and looking at the mating dances of a species of jumping spider that does these little dances to impress females to have access to mating, kind of an interesting start to research. In my third year of my degree, I was very fortunate to work at the University of North Texas for a year, in the lab of Dr. Dane Crossley, looking at the developmental plasticity of physiological function in reptiles, specifically crocodiles and turtles. That research was really trying to figure out the effects of low oxygen during developmental time frames on later life physiological function, particularly cardiovascular function. Reptiles bury their eggs when they lay a nest. Over the time that these eggs are buried and the embryos inside them are developing. They consume oxygen in that nest, and so within that buried chamber, oxygen in that nest depletes over time. By the end of embryonic development, these animals are actually quite oxygen limited or hypoxic. So we were interested in what the effects of that are long term, and through that work, I got exposed to a lot of surgical techniques, instrumentation of the cardiovascular system. That project was really the start of what has become a central interest of mine in terms of the influence of hypoxia, this low oxygen on cardiovascular function. That led me to pursue a PhD in the lab of Dr. Graham Scott at McMaster University looking at how hypoxia and living in a hypoxic environment for your whole lifetime can affect your cardiovascular function, and how animals that have specifically adapted at high altitude have evolved these mechanisms to cope with that challenging environment. So my thesis was looking at the cardiovascular circulatory adaptations to high altitude hypoxia and in deer mice that live at the top of the Rockies in the United States. That really was looking at the plasticity of a physiological function in response to hypoxia and comparing high altitude populations to low altitude populations to figure out the role of genetic adaptation over evolutionary time. Looking at the cardiovascular function and its control in that work, it led me to be interested in those systems of control: the autonomic nervous system, the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems control of cardiovascular function.

"Actually, funnily enough, it was through an InsideScientific webinar that I became aware of my current supervisor's work, Dr. Chris West here at the University of British Columbia. His interest is in cardiac autonomic function in the setting of spinal cord injury."

In patients with spinal cord injury, those systems of cardiovascular control are damaged, particularly the sympathetic nervous system. These patients, unfortunately, suffer from chronically low blood pressure or hypertension as well as instances of incredibly high heart rates and dangerous spikes in blood pressure that can even be fatal. Now I'm interested in that, and funnily enough, another common thread through the work is that hypoxia seems to be an actually promising way of enhancing the sympathetic nervous systems influence on cardiovascular function in the setting of spinal cord injury, which is what that we're involved in now. [fusion_builder_column type="1_1" layout="1_1" align_self="auto" content_layout="column" align_content="flex-start" valign_content="flex-start" content_wrap="wrap" spacing="" center_content="no" column_tag="div" link="" target="_self" link_description="" min_height="" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" sticky_display="normal,sticky" class="" id="" type_medium="" type_small="" order_medium="0" order_small="0" dimension_spacing_medium="" dimension_spacing_small="" dimension_spacing="" dimension_margin_medium="" dimension_margin_small="" margin_top="" margin_bottom="" padding_medium="" padding_small="" padding_top="" padding_right="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" hover_type="none" border_sizes="" border_color="" border_style="solid" border_radius="" box_shadow="no" dimension_box_shadow="" box_shadow_blur="0" box_shadow_spread="0" box_shadow_color="" box_shadow_style="" z_index_subgroup="regular" z_index="" z_index_hover="" overflow="" background_type="single" gradient_start_color="" gradient_end_color="" gradient_start_position="0" gradient_end_position="100" gradient_type="linear" radial_direction="center center" linear_angle="180" background_color="" background_image="" background_image_id="" lazy_load="avada" skip_lazy_load="" background_position="left top" background_repeat="no-repeat" background_blend_mode="none" render_logics="" sticky="off" sticky_devices="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" sticky_offset="" filter_type="regular" filter_hue="0" filter_saturation="100" filter_brightness="100" filter_contrast="100" filter_invert="0" filter_sepia="0" filter_opacity="100" filter_blur="0" filter_hue_hover="0" filter_saturation_hover="100" filter_brightness_hover="100" filter_contrast_hover="100" filter_invert_hover="0" filter_sepia_hover="0" filter_opacity_hover="100" filter_blur_hover="0" transform_type="regular" transform_scale_x="1" transform_scale_y="1" transform_translate_x="0" transform_translate_y="0" transform_rotate="0" tran