ECR Spotlight – Oliver Wearing Free

Oliver Wearing

How did you become interested in biology?

As a small boy, I was fortunate to grow up in a family that valued the natural world, and I really enjoyed the sciences at school. Funnily enough, my principal interest towards the end of high school was chemistry, which I did indeed pursue at university. However, delving into historical literature in the biological sciences and watching some spectacular TV documentaries (while really struggling to get to grips with quantum physics!) led me to re-assess my choice; so I dropped out of my MChem degree, and signed up to study zoology at the University of Manchester! There, I was hugely inspired by some amazing professors and researchers who really encouraged me to get involved in research, including cardiovascular physiology and small-animal surgery.

Describe your scientific journey and your current research focus

While at the University of Manchester, I was really fortunate to be able to participate in some awesome field trips, from The University Marine Biological Station in Millport, Scotland, to studying animal behaviour in Gauteng Province in South Africa. This hands-on contact with field research was so inspiring, and got me really interested in how animals interact with their environment. I was even able to pull together a spider behaviour publication from research I performed in the south of France. I also got the opportunity to spend my third year of the BSc in the lab of Dane Crossley, at the University of North Texas, USA. There, I was trained in microsurgical techniques for instrumenting reptiles (and other vertebrates) for assessments of anaesthetized and awake cardiovascular function. Dane's research was, at the time, centred on understanding the long-term consequences of hypoxia during embryonic development in reptiles, and this sparked an interest in the effects of oxygen limitation and adaptations in the oxygen transport pathway, obviously including the circulatory system. From that, I dabbled in research projects in fish (one looking at environmental stressors on brown trout metabolism and swim performance, the other characterizing a novel zebrafish model of metabolic syndrome) before pursuing graduate studies in Graham Scott's lab at McMaster University in Canada. There, I spent several years interrogating the haematological and cardiovascular adaptations to high-altitude hypoxia (and cold) in the North American deer mouse (as you can see in our paper in this issue!), largely through the employment of physiological telemetry technology to better understand awake, routine function in these challenging conditions where possible. Trying to develop better methods for studying cardiovascular function in awake animals – acquiring high-quality data without the complication of metabolic and neurological side-effects of anaesthesia or restraint – has since become the central focus of my research. My postdoctoral positions in Christopher West's Translational and Integrative Physiology Laboratory at UBC have allowed me to really explore and develop best practices for cardiovascular data acquisition in vertebrate animal models, particularly small mammals, which we are now teaching to a wider audience through surgical workshops.

How would you explain the main findings of your paper to a member of the public?

In our current paper, we describe how deer mice that have adapted to the environmental challenges at high altitude have evolved alterations to the mechanisms that help regulate blood pressure and heart function. By comparing these animals with their low-altitude relatives of the same species, we've been able to demonstrate that high-altitude mice are better able to maintain normal blood pressure values in the low-oxygen conditions experienced at high altitude, and that this is underlain by higher heart rates and a stronger heart rate response to offset changes in blood pressure. As such, we believe that these changes in the control of the cardiovascular system observed in high-altitude deer mice help these small mammals thrive in their low-oxygen habitat.

What do you enjoy most about research, and why?

The thing I perhaps love most about research is having the excuse to focus in on questions about how the world works, and more specifically how to do that in the best possible way. Over time, I've become increasingly obsessed with refining procedures and trying to maximize the accuracy, reproducibility, relevance and impact of the data I collect. At the same time, it's been great to have worked with a broad range of amazing animals (which I love!) during my research career. Together, these considerations continue to make me strive to maximize the welfare and utility of the animals that contribute to our studies. I strongly believe that animal research is still required to properly answer many of the most pressing questions in the biological and biomedical sciences, and therefore refinement should be on our minds for everything we do when working with animals and their tissues. This really drives most of what I do in the lab these days, and inspiring others to recognize that sentiment has become fundamental to my work in animal research. It's also what I find most rewarding.

Do you have a top tip for others just starting out at your career stage?

Just do it, and do it for yourself. It's so easy to get bogged down by others' high expectations and overwhelmed by even your own lofty goals, but learn how to take things one step at a time. Recognizing that working hard for someone else is far less sustainable than working hard for yourself is powerful. Invest time breaking down what seem like massive tasks into ‘bite-size’ achievable goals, and feel comfortable being proud of yourself for even the little wins, even if they're not visible/impressive to those around you. Those baby steps will get you running in less time than you might think!

What's next for you?

Since becoming a research associate at UBC, I've developed a couple of hands-on surgical courses that people can attend to learn and/or refine techniques in vertebrate cardiovascular physiology. Through developing these courses, colleagues and I wrote a guidelines paper on best practices to adopt when assessing intracardiac pressure–volume relationships in rodents (though these principles can largely be applied to all vertebrates, albeit considering caveats!). Through that paper and the courses, I'm excited to help others improve their data collection/analysis/reporting methods, and I have started some consultation work in the preclinical research space to help further that endeavour. In an era when data collection often occurs at an overwhelming rate (e.g. with continuous telemetric recordings of multiple physiological signals), and its collection/analysis is increasingly automated, I think it's vital that we ensure the proper checks and balances are in place right from the get-go, and that we are confident that our data are what we think they are. As such, I'm a big proponent for: (1) the scrutiny and development of rigorous standard operating procedures in laboratories (which is surprisingly not standard within or across labs!); (2) detailed reporting and proper justification of scientific methods (which are sadly sometimes not encouraged by technology providers, research supervisors or even some journals); (3) comprehensive knowledge translation (theoretical and practical!) between current experts and those wishing to learn new or improve existing techniques; and (4) dedication to maximizing the welfare and utility of our research animals. My future is oriented towards championing these goals, both in my own research and that of others.