Professor Liam Morrison on cattle parasitology
This article first appeared on the Roslin Institute website on 03/07/2024
From training as a vet to pursuing a career in parasitology, Personal Chair of Veterinary Parasitology Professor Liam Morrison applies his knowledge to carry out foundational work researching African trypanosome resistance in livestock.
Could you tell me about your background and your research?
I studied to be a vet originally, but realised that I didn’t want to be a practising vet, so did a parasitology degree due to my interest in parasites and their biology. Then, I went straight into doing a PhD in molecular parasitology at the University of Glasgow. I then did a post-doc and ended up getting a fellowship, which I brought here.
My focus of research is trypanosomes, parasites that cause disease in cattle and other animals across Africa. Initially, my research focused on the trypanosomes that cause human disease, but I moved to Roslin because of the ability to study parasites causing disease in cattle.
My upbringing definitely influenced my career choice. My father, Professor Ivan Morrison, also worked on parasites of cattle here at Roslin, and I grew up in Kenya, which exposed me to the challenges that people face in that environment.
Why move from veterinary medicine to parasitology?
Although I enjoyed the vet degree, I was just more attracted to the academic side, and thinking about research problems just was a more attractive route for me to go down.
Whilst studying veterinary medicine, I intercalated for two years to do a parasitology degree, during which I had some time to think and read at my own pace, and realized that I found parasites really interesting, and I could see myself spending way more time studying them.
What does your work as Personal Chair of Veterinary Parasitology involve?
Being based at Roslin, the majority of what we do is research, but I also do a little bit of teaching. The biggest part of the job is getting grants and managing projects. I enjoy the job in terms of thinking about people’s data, thinking about future projects, and collaborating with good people.
What are you working on currently?
A lot of our work is focused on African trypanosome drug resistance. It’s a big problem about which we know very few details. We know a little bit more about the diseases caused by these parasites in humans, and we’re using that knowledge while working with collaborators who develop new drugs to try and figure out ways of mitigating drug resistance in livestock. We’re working with pathogens that are not well studied, so a lot of what we do is developing resources and capabilities for the livestock pathogens that cause African trypanosomiasis.
We do a lot of foundational work, without which we can’t do more advanced studies. Until very recently, researchers would’ve said a vaccine against livestock trypanosomiasis was impossible, because these pathogens quickly mutate to get round the host immune system.
However, there is recent work on a mouse model where they have identified a protein that confers sterile immunity, and we’re involved in trying to adapt that experimental mouse model to cattle. Studies into how the parasites evade the immune system have also always been applied in mice, and we’re wanting to shift the understanding into cattle models.
Are there any recent findings or technologies that you’re keen on exploring?
I’m interested in exploring drug and vaccine development in depth. My colleagues and I have been developing methods to interrogate every gene in the parasite genome for any particular phenotype of relevance to infection duration or severity. We’re in the process of creating a library using genomic approaches, we go gene by gene, and either knock down the expression of every gene or over-express every gene. Developing these capabilities to observe how parasite genes interact with the cattle host can open a multitude of projects in terms of drug or vaccine target identification, for example. It also helps in understanding how these pathogens cause the disease that they do. We are expecting to get exciting results.
What’s your favourite project that you’ve worked in to date?
The projects that I enjoy the most are those where I’m collaborating with colleagues, working together to answer a question. To date, we’ve had a series of big interdisciplinary projects looking at drug resistance which has involved collaborators in Glasgow, Liverpool and Tanzania. They’re wonderful people, everybody works really well together, and we’ve had some really interesting data out of that.
What sort of challenges do you face in your work?
On a general level, it’s the continual uncertainty of funding, applying for one grant after another can feel a bit like being in a hamster wheel. Retaining good people can therefore be challenging as well. On a personal level, imposter syndrome is a constant and sometimes I feel the need to validate myself and what I’m doing as a scientist
What advice would you give to a scientist who’s just starting their career?
My biggest bit of advice would be to follow what you’re genuinely interested in, because the only way you can persevere is if your work is really something you feel passionate about. My only other suggestion is just keep going, and reach acceptance that things don’t work most of the time, especially in pioneering, foundational research.
What does a typical work day look like for you?
It changes, but a lot of it is spent in committee meetings and completing grant applications. There’s a lot of admin involved, and I do feel like a form filler sometimes. I think that is a word of caution about this career; the further you advance in a science career, the further away you are from the bit that you enjoyed when you started the career. I spend very little time in the lab now, and I miss it sometimes, but I still have very enjoyable discussions about data with people in my research group or collaborators.
If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be and what would you eat?
Nelson Mandela, I think. He’s genuinely inspirational. I can’t go past a curry, so that’s what we would have to eat. It would be a good night.