The spotlight shines on Sarah Watters, Sonic Healthcare UK’s Innovations, Research and Development Manager.
Sarah joined Sonic Healthcare UK in April. While she describes her new role as acting as facilitator for research, development and innovation activity, this description doesn’t do justice to the scale and scope of the portfolio.
Each year, the organisation receives scores of approaches from NHS partners and clients, academics and commercial organisations with requests to undertake a wide variety of research projects.
Assessing them and progressing any viable projects takes both a detailed understanding of techniques and processes across the whole company, as well as considerable coordination skills.
The SHUK Research and Innovations team is one of the smallest in the company, consisting of Sarah and Siddra Noureen (Research Portfolio Manager). Sarah has oversight across all laboratory areas and disciplines.
When a research request is received, Sarah and Siddra need to take into account the research governance implications, capacity of Sonic laboratories, whether a new test or sample pathway needs to be introduced to enable the study, as well as contracts and costings. Given the breadth of the company, the team gets a variety of enquiries, and there have been plenty since she started.
Defining research
Research is a broad term and Pathway asked for some specific examples that are attracting particular interest. Sarah highlights metagenomics.
“Metagenomics is a new-ish method of identifying an infectious disease - but without having to know in advance what the infectious agent might be. Unlike traditional methods where we would undertake a PCR panel for specific viruses, culture bacteria/fungi or perform microscopy for parasites, metagenomics is a single method that sequences everything present in a sample. The bioinformatic pipeline plays a key role in identifying what organisms are present and their percentage of the sample, then a multidisciplinary team (MDT) comprising clinical and scientific staff decide what organism(s) is most likely to be causing the illness.”
While the test makes turnaround considerably faster (potentially overnight), it is not a test the lab can perform in isolation without working closely with clinical colleagues to interpret the result. Metagenomic testing will therefore only be employed for specific patient cohorts.
The road to Sonic Healthcare UK
Sarah’s career path to Sonic has been varied and full (she describes it as “wiggly”!)
Having graduated in biology and completed a Masters in molecular medical microbiology, with her long-standing interest in viruses, she started out as a lab research assistant working on influenza. A biomedical scientist role in virology at the Royal Free London followed, then working as a trainee clinical scientist at UCLH.
Sarah’s career path to Sonic has been varied and full (she describes it as “wiggly”!)
Having graduated in biology and completed a Masters in molecular medical microbiology, with her long-standing interest in viruses, she started out as a lab research assistant working on influenza. A biomedical scientist role in virology at the Royal Free London followed, then working as a trainee clinical scientist at UCLH.
“It was a surreal, but comforting, experience to walk into the Halo and see so many familiar faces from the past.”
The “cycling Brit”
Part of her clinical scientist training included having to complete a research project which included a collaborative visit to the National Institute for Health (NIH) based at Fort Detrick, an American army research facility. It was this visit that really sparked her enduring passion for research and led to a collaborative PhD project between the NIH and UCL funded by the Wellcome Trust. Sarah lived in small town America for two years and became famous as the “cycling Brit”.
Sarah gained her PhD from UCL with her thesis looking at the individuals who were HIV positive and had cancer. She was interested in the effect the cancer chemotherapy had on the virus. In a postdoctoral position at UCL, she worked on a paediatric HIV project which included coordinating a global network of labs.
After a spell at Genomics England, Sarah worked as research manager at the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at UCLH before arriving at SHUK in April 2023 with a wealth of experience under her belt.
Involvement with every part of the company
“It’s an amazing job,” she says. “It’s a great opportunity to set something up from scratch, and there’s such huge variety. The beauty of this role is it touches every part of the company. I haven’t met everyone yet - but with lots of enquiries about clinical trials and research, being in the Halo, I can visit a lab to help me understand the practicalities of what’s involved.”
Research Symposium
One of Sarah’s key objectives is to reinstate the Sonic Healthcare UK Research Symposium. This will be a biennial opportunity for Sonic UK staff, partners and clients to showcase and explore innovation and research. The next one is now in planning for November 2024.
Outside work, Sarah loves cycling and “runs” (tortoise rather than hare) half-marathons. She is also treasurer for the Friends of Crystal Palace Dinosaurs.