IRR People: Francesca Hearn-Yeates

We don't really know why. It's very under-researched. There isn't a cure, and so there's a lot more work that needs to be done. A lot of the research into the gut microbiome so far has looked at the bacteria in relationship to the progression of the physical aspects of the disease rather than what I'm doing, which is looking at how these things could potentially be impacting pain and fatigue via what we call the gut-brain axis.

To do this I have been collecting patient samples. I collected stool samples from 50 women. I then extracted the DNA and metabolites, and that allowed me to get big datasets, so I can look at their gut bacteria and gut metabolites, and try to piece together how there might be some trends related to their symptoms. 

What is your background? 

I'm from Brighton. I did my undergraduate in biochemistry at University College London, and I picked that because it was the broadest related subject that I could find. I wasn't entirely sure what I wanted to focus in on. I did a Master's at Imperial College London in molecular and cellular biosciences. After that I worked at the University of Sussex as a Research Technician for about two and a half years in a microbiology and structural biology lab. I was interested in women's health and wanted to find a way to marry my personal interests, of women's health and the gender health gap, and my professional interests, in science.

Then I saw this PhD which is a four-year PhD program with one year's worth of public engagement, and I had some previous experience in public engagement, so I thought, ‘that looks cool’. And here I am. 

What exciting things have you been working on this year? 

The last year [of public engagement] has been more of an independent project that I've been working on. I developed, and with many other people, created, this project called The Wandering Womb. I worked primarily with an artist called Rutie Borthwick down in London who had previously worked on women's health art type projects.

She designed this big red tent that I was then able to take to different events where people come into the tent and it was kind of a safe, cosy space where people could talk about menstruation and learn about different menstrual health conditions.

There were so many people going and learning, but also those that were actually really thrilled to see the condition that they had displayed and showing their friends. At Green Man Festival, there were so many very open conversations between parents and children about menstrual health and menstruation and we all felt that those conversations never really been had when we were kids. It was always still something that was quite hushed and not really talked about. 

How did the project grow into what it ended up being?

I wanted to get people talking about these things and then I spent a lot of time chatting to Faye Watson, and she was the one who put me in touch with Rutie.

We had meetings and developed the idea of what we wanted to do, and then I actually organised a workshop on International Women's Day this year. It was a kind of practice run of what we wanted to do in the actual Womb, and we got feedback from them - what they thought of the idea or anything that was missing.

It was super useful and so beneficial. It's something that people always talk about with public engagement, working with your target audience and getting the feedback from them. And it turns out they're right! It's a really good thing to do. 

For example, things like the condition called PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder) which is kind of talked about as a severe PMS, but I don't think that quite encompasses quite how serious it is. And before this workshop, I had never heard of it. But there was a woman at the workshop who said, ‘well, you've got these conditions that you're talking about, but most of them are physical conditions. You haven't talked about any of the emotional conditions that come with menstruation’. And I realised, wow, you're right. I hadn't thought about that. I went and did my research and I learned a bit about PMDD and I included the information sheet about at the Womb.

Then from there Rutie made this incredible structure and I was able to take it firstly to the Meadows Festival, to Green Man Festival down in Wales, and then to RSE Curious Festival downtown.

Did anything surprise you about the project or the festival appearances?

There were some really, really interested men, and that shouldn't surprise me, but it did. There was one guy who came along and he said he has two daughters, still quite young, but when they do start their periods, he wants to be involved and he wants to learn as much as he can.

But actually, I think what surprised me the most was the amount of interest that we got and how willing people were to talk about their problems. People don't really get to talk about their periods, ever. And so when you give them the opportunity to do so, they take it, they have a lot to say. So I think that was surprising and really nice. 

Watching strangers opening up to each other and being able to facilitate those conversations was really amazing.

Would you recommend other postgraduates get involved in public engagement alongside the science? 

That's a very tricky question. I think public engagement in science is really important. As people have said before: What's the point in doing the research if no one knows you're doing it? I think it will help bridge that gap between how people view scientists and how easy it is to be involved with science. Having said that, the funding and time is not currently given to scientists to be able to do public engagement as well as they need to.

So public engagement is really important and really fun and really necessary, but people need the support to be able to do it. It's so time consuming taking something from that very early stage all the way to the end. It's very expensive. I'm really glad I've been on a PhD program that's allowed me to do that.

And the translational skills are so valuable. You know, as a scientist, a lot of your skills are often writing and lab work. So to have these other transferable skills that if I didn't want to stay in science or even as a scientist I can use, are super valuable, but it definitely needs to be better supported.