Sarah De Val
Meet Sarah De Val, a British Heart Foundation Senior Basic Science Fellow and Associate Professor within the Department of Physiology Anatomy & Genetics (DPAG). Her research focuses on understanding how blood vessels grow, differentiate, and regress through studying the transcriptional regulation of vascular genes. Sarah is the DPAG advocate for researchers and their career development and is one of the IDRM's EDI champions.
Can you give a brief overview of your career trajectory so far?
I’ve been fascinated by genetics ever since science class in secondary school. I studied Biology for my Undergraduate degree (in hindsight I should have chosen Biochemistry but I’m not sure I knew the difference at the time) and became very interested in gene regulation, a subject I have pursued ever since. After my PhD at the Clinical Sciences Centre at Imperial, I moved to UC San Francisco to work on cardiovascular gene regulation and became obsessed with blood vessels - a hobby and a career all in one! I returned to the UK after my first child was born, first to run my own research group within the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research at Oxford, then becoming a British Heart Foundation Senior Fellow and joining the IDRM.
What is your research focus?
The goal of my research is to understand how blood vessels grow, differentiate and regress through studying the transcriptional regulation of vascular genes. In particular, my laboratory focuses on the identification, characterisation and delineation of enhancers (cis-regulatory elements) directing gene expression within the vasculature. This work involves a variety of model systems including transgenic mouse and zebrafish, tissue culture and in silico analysis. We use this approach to understand what makes blood vessels molecularly different from each other, to determine the signalling cascades involved at different stages of vessel growth, and to study these processes in disease states and during repair after injury (e.g. after a heart attack).
What has been your highlight this past year at the IDRM?
One of the consequences of my fellowship has been the synchronization of almost all projects within my lab into a five-year cycle. Last year therefore represented the (at least theoretical) completion of a number of projects, and it was fantastic to see everything begin to come together. I also enjoyed participating with Team IDRM at the London-Brighton bike ride.
How have you contributed to IDRM life?
I have long been a Bullying and Harassment Advisor and a Mental Health First Aider, and was happy to transfer these roles to the IDRM. I am also the new IDRM EDI champion, following on from my previous work as the academic lead for Athena Swan in my department. In addition, I have been working closely with Tomoko Watanabe, Andrew Brogden and many others to set up an annual work experience scheme to bring local sixth form students into the IDRM (our first week starts on July 8th, please do contact us if you are interested in helping). Finally, I am the Researcher Advocate for DPAG, aiming to improve implementation of the recent Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers and more generally representing the interests of all Researchers within the department and beyond.
What do you look forward to most this year?
We are starting a number of new projects this year, so I am looking forward to the inevitably unpredictable direction these will take us in.
What do you do outside of the lab/Institute?
I primarily aspire to do nothing other than hang out with my family at home, winning at boardgames and watching bad tv programs. Alas, I am also a semi-keen cyclist, hiker and village hall-style Zumba-er, enjoy pottering in the garden and, against my better judgement, also run the local youth football club café at the weekend.