The last week of November was an especially intense one for Sarah Teichmann. She was chosen Raman Chair jointly with computational biologist Aviv Regev. Teichmann is co-founder and co-leader of the international Human Cell Atlas (HCA) consortium, whose mission is to create a comprehensive reference map of all human cells to help understand health and treat disease. She was on a whirlwind tour of three Indian cities, including Calcutta, to talk about the progress of HCA research.
Teichmann and Regev had brought together approximately 100 leading scientists in London in 2016 to discuss how to build a Human Cell Atlas. Since then, the global initiative has grown to encompass 3,723 scientists from 103 countries — including 139 from India. In the past eight years, 1,940 institutes have published 450 research papers, which may well transform our understanding of health and disease.
For all these reasons, it seemed like a good time to catch up with someone like Teichmann who has shown how scientists across the world can come together to try and fix human illnesses by “producing a healthy reference map, like a Google Map for the human body”.
Here are excerpts from the interview.
Q How did you come to chose a career in computational biology? Wasn’t it a risky choice?
You are right, it was an unusual choice in 1996. I chose to pursue a PhD in this field for three reasons. First, during my bachelor’s research on NMR spectroscopy [most common use is in MRI scanning], I discovered that I enjoyed computational data interpretation more than wet lab experiments with chemicals and test tubes. Second, I enjoyed thinking about big-picture questions in biology and was inspired by a paper titled “One thousand families for the molecular biologist” by Cyrus Chothia. Third, I applied for a PhD with Chothia at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, and immediately got along well with him and the other PhD students. More through luck than anything else, bio- informatics as a field rose to prominence in the subsequent decades, which helped my career.
Q Tell us a bit about your research.
Over the past decade, we have focused on mapping the cells in the human body, using single-cell and spatial genomics. These are technologies that are inspiring a “resolution revolution” in genomics, where we can sequence and image the entire molecular content of single cells, either in suspension or in thin tissue sections. These technologies buoyed the birth of the international HCA consortium.
Q What has your life as a scientist been like at Cambridge?
As an undergraduate and PhD student, I had a wonderful time learning a huge amount of basic science and how to carry out research in a vibrant international community of scientists. As a faculty member of various research institutes, and later as head of a department at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in the UK, I have been privileged to work with amazing PhD students and postdoctoral fellows. Indeed, my first PhD student was Madan Babu who joined my lab from Anna University in Chennai. He had earlier carried out research at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. So it has been wonderful from a scientific point of view. At the same time, I have faced challenges as an outsider in the UK since I’m of German/US origin, and as a woman. This has required me to be particularly committed and creative. I look back on these challenges as learning experiences that have enriched my understanding of human behaviour and societies.
Q You started your own research group quite early on in your career. How was it possible?
It was indeed unusual, and was a result of having been unusually productive with interesting scientific discoveries during my PhD and postdoctoral research years. This meant I was approached by several places offering me faculty positions when I was only 25 or 26 years old. While it was hard to gain authority when I was a very young female faculty, I benefited from getting an early start to an independent career trajectory as I gained a permanent tenured position at the age of 30. This gave me a level of stability, which meant I was able to start a family and continue my career parallelly without any issues or concerns.
q Has it been difficult balancing professional and personal commitments?
Having two children has not always been easy, especially in the early years when my two daughters were born. Having a permanent position at a relatively early age, and having the support of my husband was helpful. In fact, since 2019 my husband has stayed at home and taken care of the house and the children full-time. This has meant that I’m completely free to commit to work and travel, such as this delightful trip.
q You mentioned that you faced extra challenges as a woman scientist. Could you please elaborate?
Like all women in science in most countries around the world, I still belong to a minority and this comes with particular challenges. At the same time, through the previous generations of women and also my generation, we have achieved increased equality in the workplace. This has markedly improved both the quality of science and the work environment over the past three decades in my opinion.
q What is your advice to budding scientists?
Follow your curiosity and passions so that you enjoy your work, and seize the day. At the same time, always be kind to and supportive of colleagues. This will be returned to you in the long run. That is why the motto of my laboratory is “Be bold. Be brilliant. Be kind.”
