ECR Spotlight is a series of interviews with early-career authors from a selection of papers published in Journal of Experimental Biology and aims to promote not only the diversity of early-career researchers (ECRs) working in experimental biology but also the huge variety of animals and physiological systems that are essential for the ‘comparative’ approach. Tanja Kloock is an author on ‘ Scaling of quantitative cardiomyocyte properties in the left ventricle of different mammalian species’, published in JEB. Tanja is a post-doc researcher in the lab of Christian Mühlfeld at the Institute for Functional and Applied Anatomy, Hanover, Germany, investigating allometry of the cardiovascular system in mammals of different size.
Tanja Kloock
How did you become interested in biology?
Ever since I was a child I wanted to work with animals because I love being outdoors and observing wildlife. So I spent a lot of my free time in nature. At school I loved biology and science and decided to become a veterinarian. At vet school I was fascinated by the individual adaptations of species to their environment and the diseases associated with them. This made me develop a particular interest in the biological relationships between form and (mal-)function and interspecies comparisons.
Describe your scientific journey and your current research focus
After graduating in veterinary medicine from the University of Veterinary Medicine in Hanover, I began my doctoral studies at the Equine Clinic of the same university with a clinical focus. I studied horses affected by trigeminal-mediated headshaking and developed a clinical scoring system. After finishing my PhD I started as a post-doctoral researcher with Christian Mühlfeld at the Institute of Functional and Applied Anatomy at Hannover Medical School. During the past year, my research focused on the allometry of electron microscopic heart anatomy and its physiological background.
How would you explain the main findings/message of your paper to a member of the public?
Heart rate is highly dependent on body mass and is therefore much higher in smaller mammals. In the Etruscan shrew, the smallest terrestrial mammal, the heart rate can be as high as 1500 beats per minute. In our study, we were able to show that all the species studied have the same number and volume of heart muscle cells per body mass even though heart rates differ so much. Nevertheless, heart muscle cells of different species differ in electron microscopic ultrastructure: cells of small mammals have many energy-providing mitochondria, while large mammals have more contractile filaments.
Why did you choose JEB to publish your paper?
My PI loves this journal and always wanted to publish an article in JEB.
What do you enjoy most about research, and why?
I really enjoy the freedom you have as a researcher to focus your research on topics you are interested in and want to know more about. If you get no answer to a question, you can research it. Also, there is a huge variety in the different tasks, from literature searches, hypothesis development, project planning, project execution, analysis of results, interpretation and discussion, manuscript writing, presentation of results, to developing new projects. I really enjoy the conferences where you learn about new and fascinating projects, get feedback for your own research results and meet colleagues.
What is the most important lesson that you have learned from your career so far?
A very important lesson I have learnt is that there is always a solution, no matter what the problem is. So many times I have been frustrated and desperate because of problems and challenges that have arisen during my research. In addition to discussing the problem with colleagues and supervisors, it often helps to let it go for a night and come back the next day with fresh energy and new perspectives. This helps a lot in finding a suitable solution.
Tanja Kloock’s contact details: Institute for Functional and Applied Anatomy, Hannover Medical School, Carl-Neuberg-Str. 1, 30625 Hanover, Germany.
E-mail: [email protected]
