INTERVIEW

Lyn Beazley

Interviewed by Bea Perks

Posted February 15, 2002 · Issue 120

Background

Biography
Lyn Beazley graduated in zoology at the University of Oxford in 1966, and moved to Edinburgh University to do a Ph.D. in neuroscience in 1970. After a brief spell as a postdoc in Edinburgh, she took up a research position in 1975 at the University of Western Australia (UWA) in Perth. She planned to spend two years there, but liked it so much she stayed. She became professor of neuroscience in the UWA Department of Zoology in 1994. She leads a team looking for parallels between the molecular cues that direct development of optic nerve fiber in the embryo and those that orchestrate regeneration after injury in adulthood. Her long-held ambition of restoring sight to people blinded as a result of injury to the optic nerve is looking more realistic than she ever thought possible.

What led you into research?

As an undergraduate at Oxford, I was fascinated with two things: one, how vision transfers an image of the world onto our brain, in full color and perfectly organized; two, keen to do something that would help the human race by repairing injured bodies in some way. The worst bit of the body to try to fix up after injury is the central nervous system. When I started, it was assumed that there was no way that we could ever think of initiating any repair. I wanted to see if I could do something on both those lines; working on repair of the visual system just hit the nail on the head. So I went up to Edinburgh in 1970 to do a Ph.D. - and I've been in the same area ever since.

What took you to Australia?

My husband's a medical doctor, and he wanted to try a stint of working in Australia because he'd heard it was particularly good. I knew Australia had a good reputation for neuroscience, with the Nobel laureate Sir John Eccles. We came for two years, and are still here. The world as it is today, you can do research wherever you are . . . the tyranny of distance doesn't seem to apply any more.

Who has most inspired and/or influenced your work?

Dame Janet Vaughan, who was principal of Somerville College when I was there. At a time when it seemed unlikely that women could have careers in science . . . and be successful . . . and married . . . with children . . . and keep the whole act together . . . she made it clear to me that you could. She wasn't a neuroscientist [Vaughan was a clinical pathologist], but she was my role model in a philosophical sense. In a scientific sense, a wonderful man called Albert Aguayo, professor of neuroscience in Montreal. He was the one who really opened up the field, promoting studies of how central nerves could regenerate if given the right environment. He's 70, and still going strong. He's secretary general of the International Brain Research Organization now.

Who awarded you your first grant, and what was it for?

The Science Research Council of Great Britain, to look at the formation of connections between the eye and the brain in frogs, and the role of visual experience in modifying the projections between the eye and the brain. I've been around and about that area all my life.

Who has made the greatest contribution to your field?

Santiago Ramón y Cajal, who got the Nobel prize in 1906. He is just the greatest neuroscientist who ever lived. He was the first person to say the nervous system is separate cells. He did a huge amount on nerve regeneration. He foreshadowed all the things we're still doing. Like Mozart is to music, Cajal is to neuroscience. You might have others, but you'll never beat him!

What has been your main contribution to the field?

My interest is not in development per se, but in seeing to what extent that applies in nerve regeneration. Setting up neural networks in development is jolly hard, but it's like walking through a forest when it's only knee high. In regeneration, what you're trying to do is to get nerve fibers to grow through an established forest. It's going to be very different, but are the cues they're looking for going to be the same? What I've been doing in the past five years is asking what are the molecules that developmental neuroscientists have found, are they in the adult brain, are they reexpressed after injury, are they a help or a hindrance after injury?

Which scientific idea in your field (yours or others') do you regret the most?

There was a chap called Paul Weiss. He thought that everything in the nervous system, in terms of nerve fibers, growing or regrowing, was determined by physical forces - bump into a set of cells and they would deflect where you went. It's an old example, but an important one because it held sway for so long - until we realized there were molecular cues to make nerve fibers grow and from where.

What are your scientific plans for the next five years?

In five years we want to understand how to get regenerating optic nerve fibers to the right place and to make a connection so that people who've become blind as a result of optic nerve lesions can have a chance of seeing again. When I started this research I thought this was for several generations time, but the field's moved so fast that I can see that this is becoming not an immediate reality but something we'll gradually become better at. It's not a question of if we'll help, but when and how much we'll help.

What are the qualities of a successful researcher?

Persistence and creativity. If you have one and not the other, it's a bit awkward.

If you could work with any scientist (historical or current), who would it be?

Charles Darwin. He's the single most influential biologist or thinker the world's ever had. Hasn't he put humans in context? And not only his evolution work, all his work on aquatic plants, carnivorous plants, earth worms. So totally brilliant, whatever he was doing I would want to be part of it.