There’s been a lot going on for Lauren Schewitz-Bowers in the last few years; she has become a mother – twice, completed a PhD in immunology and ophthalmology, presented her work at an international scientific conference and is working as a postdoctoral research associate in Professor Andrew Dick’s research group. She continues to work part-time for principle investigator Dr Richard Lee, who is the lead for experimental medicine within the Inflammation and Immunotherapy research theme; with a particular interest in inflammatory eye diseases.

“Richard has been very supportive of me working part-time,” she said. “Support from colleagues in the lab is also excellent; we look out for each other and work very well as a team. This is essential to me being able to complete experiments and continue my work as a researcher.”

Lauren has now been part of the same research group for near on ten years and much of her research has also contributed to several successful funding proposals and research outputs (including a patent on work stemming from her PhD thesis).

Lauren’s decision to take a full year of maternity leave for both her children has meant a huge deal to her work-life balance and has really helped with her return to work. During both maternity periods, she kept in touch with colleagues through phone calls, attended occasional seminars, skyped in to weekly lab meetings when she could and even attended a course she was chosen for through the Set-squared partnership.

Lauren published a paper off the back of her PhD thesis (Proc Natl Acad Sci; 2015) and is continuing her work on this project as well as a new line of enquiry into epigenetic control of T cells. This project sees her working closely within the UNITE (Universities and National Institute Transatlantic Eye) consortium for human ocular immunology and has huge opportunities for collaborating with colleagues from the National Institute of Health (NIH) in Washington and as far abroad as Guangzhou in China.

Her group was awarded Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) status; these are specialist research centres that drive the translation of research in biomedicine into patient care. Lauren is one of three named post-docs, which means that there are specific funds for her lab space and for additional staff. This round of BRC money will see her through to April 2017. Another application has been submitted to the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) for a further five years funding, which hopefully will be awarded for work to continue within her group.

Science is a very competitive environment, with increasing pressures on people the more senior they become.  Although not required to go to the lab at weekends, or attend all the meetings, Lauren says that she sometimes does, by choice. And she has planned her childcare and work days so that it coincides with as many lab meetings and UNITE conference call meetings as possible. She also has the opportunity to call-into meetings from home, making her work-life balance even more manageable.

Biomedical Research Centres

The Biomedical Research Centres, based within the most outstanding NHS and University partnerships in the country, are leaders in scientific translation. They receive substantial levels of funding to translate fundamental biomedical research into clinical research that benefits patients and they are early adopters of new insights in technologies, techniques and treatments for improving health.

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