Dr Stephen Doyle. Image credit: Onur Pinar / Wellcome Sanger Institute
Dr Steve Doyle has been a Career Development Fellow for almost five years at the Sanger Institute. He leads an independent research group after being awarded a UKRI (UK Research and Innovation) Future Leaders Fellowship in September 2020.
“By becoming a Career Development Fellow, I was able to really develop my own lines of research, and gain the independence I needed to steer my research in the direction I felt was necessary. We’re the only research team at Sanger focused on parasitic worms, and so most of our collaborators are from around the world. The Sanger Institute is a great place to do this, because of our remit in global health, so becoming a Career Development Fellow to progress my research here made sense.
“I have been asked many times - what exactly is a Career Development Fellow? Broadly, it’s an independent researcher who leads a small team, usually for the first time, and our salary and expenses are funded by external grants. It is a little different from the Faculty group leaders, who primarily receive funding from the Institute. We do, however, get lab and office space, logistics support, core facilities, and access to other opportunities within the scientific programme we’re based in, such as collaborating on big projects in which Sanger Faculty are involved.”
Steve and his team study parasitic worms that infect both humans and other animals. He is currently part of an exciting international collaboration called STOP2030, which aims to evaluate a combination therapy of two commonly used anthelmintic drugs in order to improve the treatment of soil-transmitted helminths afflicting over a billion people worldwide. Steve’s group is focused on understanding the genetic responses to drug treatment by these parasites and monitoring the emergence of drug resistance.
““Becoming a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow has opened up a great network of peers, including researchers in other institutes who are also UKRI future leaders who I get to chat to, share ideas, projects, concerns and tips. However, I also receive great mentorship from other group leaders at Sanger to share learnings or challenges.”
Dr Stephen Doyle,
Career Development Fellow, Wellcome Sanger Institute