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. Patrícia Ferreira is an author on ‘ A second look at the stomach – a fishy perspective’, published in JEB. Patrícia conducted the research described in this article while a PhD candidate in Dr Jonathan M. Wilson's lab at Department of Biology, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. Patrícia is now a post-doctoral researcher in the lab of Dr Kathleen Gilmour at Department of Biology, University of Ottawa, Canada, investigating comparative vertebrate physiology, ion regulation and gastrointestinal physiology.
Patrícia Ferreira
How did you become interested in biology?
As far back as I can remember I have always been interested in the living things around me. In my early school years, I enjoyed studying the animal world, and science was something stimulating and that determined my education path. I have not stopped looking inquisitively at the world around me ever since. I have a deep curiosity to understand how things work, from molecules to the whole animal, bound to the excitement of doing something no one has done before.
Describe your scientific journey and your current research focus
I did my BSc in biology and MSc in marine science at the University of Porto, Portugal. As soon as I entered university, I started working in research labs in the first year of my BSc and I have been lucky that I never stopped, moved from lab to lab and had the chance to explore different biology streams, from ecology to molecular evolution and translational biology. My MSc thesis was supervised by Jonathan Wilson and Filipe Castro at CIIMAR-UPorto and was also my first contact with gastrointestinal physiology work. It was then that I found this deep interest in wanting to understand how animals work. After graduation, I moved to Denmark in 2017 where I gained experience with the generation of transgenic models (in mice) and continued studying ion transport, this time related to renal and intestinal physiology. In 2020 I moved to Canada and started my PhD at Wilfrid Laurier University with Jonathan Wilson where my PhD work focused on addressing the importance of stomach acidification to metabolism, digestion and growth, and started with the generation of transgenic fish that lack a functional stomach. After completing my PhD in January 2025, I went on to start a post-doctoral position with Katie Gilmour at the University of Ottawa in studies focused on ion and acid–base regulation using zebrafish glucocorticoid and mineralocorticoid receptor transgenic lines.
Gastrointestinal tract of a juvenile Astyanax mexicanus stained with an antibody targeting NKA (light blue, left panel), illustration of a juvenile A. mexicanus for reference (right panel).
Gastrointestinal tract of a juvenile Astyanax mexicanus stained with an antibody targeting NKA (light blue, left panel), illustration of a juvenile A. mexicanus for reference (right panel).
How would you explain the main findings of your paper to a member of the public?
This is a Commentary on the current knowledge of the importance of stomach acidification to an animal's growth, digestion and overall metabolism. Additionally, we have highlighted future avenues of research to be explored. In particular, we focused on how the use of genetically modified organisms can help us answer a lot of the questions that scientists in this area have been attempting to address. The premise of this approach is that you can learn a lot about something from the impact of its absence.
Why did you choose JEB to publish your paper?
We got an invitation to submit a Commentary to the Special Issue on the Integrative Biology of the Gut. It was an opportunity too good to pass up. At the heart of the Commentary is my PhD work that has spanned the past 5 years. There have been a number of key papers in JEB that we have cited. The JEB comparative physiology readership is also the ideal target audience to share these ideas with and we are excited for the feedback!
What do you enjoy most about research, and why?
I have always greatly enjoyed the fact that each day can be different from the other and that this offers new challenges. There is the constant quest for answers to the new questions that arise along the way, and the need for troubleshooting of the new tools and approaches that are being developed! There is also the fact that this work is not done in isolation so there are opportunities to collaborate and be exposed to new ideas and techniques.
Patrícia Ferreira's contact details: Department of Biology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada, K1N 9A4.
E-mail: [email protected]
