Lab Notes: Interview with Isadora Clivatti Furigo
At the British Society for Neuroendocrinology we want to support our ECRs as much as possible as they begin to think about the next step in their career. In this 'Lab Notes' blog series we interview recently established neuroendocrine researchers about how they started their labs and advice they would give to up-and-coming neuroendocrine researchers.
Dr Isadora Clivatti Furigo is Assistant Professor in Coventry University, and her research aims to study the brain areas involved in the control of metabolism in normal and imbalanced conditions, such as obesity, diabetes, and pregnancy. Her currently interest is to investigate the role of prolactin in the brain regulating the maternal adaptations to pregnancy and lactation,
In this interview Isadora reveals how hard work, embracing opportunities, a strong network of colleagues and mentors helped her to get to the point of leading her own team. She also speaks to the challenges of being a non-native speaker navigating a scientific career in the UK.
Isadora is also one of our BSN mentors. If you are looking for a mentor to help you with the next step of your career, please take a look at BSN's Mentorship Scheme.
Tell us who you are and in which research you specialise
Hi everyone, I’m Isadora, a Brazilian/Italian scientist living in the UK since 2019, and a proud mum of a little boy. I’ve been working as assistant professor at Coventry University since 2022, and my research interest is in studying hormones’ actions in the brain to control metabolism, focusing on specific conditions of metabolic stress, such as under and overnutrition, pregnancy and lactation. I’m also interested in understanding epigenetic factors that are altered in these conditions, and how they can impact the central control of energy balance of the present and the future generations.
How did you get to where you are now?
That was a quite long journey, as it is for most scientists (yes, I am not special for this reason, lol). It was full of challenges, but also accomplishments and joy!
I started my scientific career back in 2006, when I joined the University of Sao Paulo (USP), in Brazil, for an undergraduate degree in Fundamental Sciences for Health, a bachelor provided by the Institute of Biomedical Sciences at USP, and knocked on the door of the respected Professor Newton Canteras to ask for an internship. He accepted me as a supervisee and I stayed in his lab for 6 years, over the undergraduate and masters’ studies, learning deeply about rodents’ neuroanatomy and behaviours. It was a spectacular apprenticeship opportunity, and I am really glad for this period.
Then, looking for another lab to do my PhD studies, I met Professor Jose Donato Jr, who at that time had just joined USP as associate professor, after returning from some years of post-doctorate at the University of Texas (USA). I got onboard his lab, which was an incredible opportunity to learn how to start a lab from the beginning. In his lab the atmosphere was very motivational and collaborative, and there I developed my main project and supported many other students, which helped to build up my curriculum with excellent peer-reviewed articles.
From one idea that came up during my PhD, I started to build a new proposal for a post-doctorate, which I started straight after finishing the PhD. We studied the role of the growth hormone in the AgRP neurons in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus, and we discovered that this hormone is an important starvation signal to these neurons to save energy and stimulate food intake in situations of food deprivation, helping with survival. These amazing findings were published in Nature Communications, myself as first author, which I am very proud of.
In the middle of my post-doc at Donato’s group I felt that I should start looking for some opportunities abroad, so long story short, I got in contact with Professor Susan Ozanne, from University of Cambridge, for an opportunity to join her lab, as visitor researcher, for one year. This experience was marvellous, both personally and professionally, and made me open my mind for new possibilities, such as deciding to move for good to UK.
After a period of maternity leave, I joined Coventry University as assistant lecturer for one year and then applied for a position as assistant professor in the same university in 2022, which allowed me to continue my research, and here I am now!
It is worth mentioning that, during my PhD and Post-doctorate, I had lots of “working until late” and “working over the weekends” days, but in the end of the day I could reap the fruits of the hard work.
How did the pandemic impact your career?
The pandemic has, for sure, impacted my career, but, as I said earlier, I am not special on this matter. The biggest challenge I faced was being abroad, far from my family, during the first months of the pandemic, as I was in my period in Cambridge when it started. It has impacted the work that I was developing there, because I had to postpone many experiments, but I used that lockdown time to write part of the article regarding the project performed in Ozanne’s lab. Obviously, it has impacted all of us mentally, but I tried to keep myself busy with readings, exercises, meditation and growing a human being inside me.
What would be your three top tips for up-and-coming neuroendocrinologists who want to establish their own labs?
If I would give 3 top tips to neuroendocrinologists’ enthusiasts, I would say:
- Embrace opportunities: don’t be afraid of leaving your comfort zone, neither if it implies leaving your country. Do not waste opportunities to learn new things, even if you feel that you are not 110% prepared. It turns out everybody feels impostor syndrome, but the wise people have decided to overcome their fears and embrace the challenges.
- Build a good network: it is really important to keep in touch with other researchers in your field, people that you admire, people that you feel you can contribute with, because at the end of the day, good science is built with strong collaborations.
- Believe in yourself: stand up for your ideas. You have to be the person that believes first in your projects, and then, with a strong foundation, you can convince your peers that what you research is valuable and good. I like very much a phrase that I heard from a mentor before having my first viva (when I was graduating): “you are the person that knows your work best, because you have done it, so stand up for yourself”.
Can you tell us about any mentors who helped you get to where you are now? How did they help you?
I can say that I had many mentors over the years that have contributed very much to my professional development, from teaching new techniques to being participative supervisors and advisors.
Talking to more experienced people is super valuable as you can learn from their journey how to trace your own journey. In my case, I am an international person living in UK that has gone through many challenges that native people may not have done. So if you are in a similar situation as me, I can share with you some of my experience through the mentorship scheme, or you can contact me via email.
What challenges have you faced being an international researcher in the UK and how have you navigated them?
The biggest challenge that I face as an international researcher (and personally for sure) is to not feel that I am being myself, or that I am not expressing my thoughts/knowledge to the level that I know I have in my native language or feeling that I do not fit to the place/culture. Because for non-native speaking people it is quite difficult to express ourselves in a second language (international people will understand what I am saying). I also sometimes struggle to understand bureaucracy at work (when it is different from my country).
With time, this feeling might improve or go away. But for now, what I try to do is to be patient with myself, to understand that, for some things, I might require more time to understand/fit/follow, and I also try to not be ashamed to ask colleagues for help when necessary. International people should be, instead of ashamed, proud of having the courage to be exploring new places, new jobs, outside the world that they are most familiar with.
