Profile

Hi! I’m Bethan, a PhD student based in the Vet School at The University of Liverpool. I live with my boyfriend and we have a cheeky puppy called Roo 🐶 I love travelling and eating out, singing with my choir and I have just got into baking – biscoff brownies are SO dreamy 💕

It is important to learn more about diseases which affect farm animals because they have a bad impact on animal welfare and cost farmers lots of money to treat. Food security is becoming more and more important in today’s changing world. People should also be able to easily find out exactly where their food has come from and if it was farmed with good animal welfare in place 🐄

I study a parasite called Liver Fluke which infects cows and sheep in the UK. Scientists have also discovered that Liver Fluke can infect humans in some tropical countries – meaning it is  zoonotic (can infect humans and animals) – pretty gross and cool! Liver Fluke, as the name gives away, lives in the liver of its host. Farm animals infected with Liver Fluke lose weight and do not produce as much milk as normal.

Liver fluke can also live inside small mud snails (not your common garden snail do not worry)! 🐌 The snails act as a host and can transfer Liver Fluke across huge areas of farmland. The snails shed Liver Fluke onto grass, if this contaminated grass is eaten by a cow or sheep they become infected with Liver Fluke. My PhD is looking at how Liver Fluke can survive in the farm environment and what conditions could be used to kill it.

What you see here is what normally happens in the liver of a sick cow or sheep. The Liver Fluke hatch out of a cyst – you can see here some cysts are empty and the Liver Fluke are wriggling about!

7am) Wake up and get a coffee brewing. Relaxed breakfast and a quick walk with the dog ☕️🐾

9am) Arrive at my desk and check through a To Do list I have written the day before. Reply to any urgent emails. Once a fortnight I have a team lab meeting where my PhD supervisors meet up with their students in a big group (we always bring cakes) and chat through what we are working on and how we are doing 👩‍🔬

10am – 12pm) Experiments in the laboratory. This may include looking after a colony of mud snails that we have which help us better study Liver Fluke. My lab experiments also grow Liver Fluke under different controlled environments, so I can see how long it survives and what conditions it likes or finds stressful 🔬🧪 If I am out on farms doing fieldwork it will most likely be hunting for mud snails which can spread Liver Fluke! 🐌

Snail hunting!

1pm) Lunch and maybe a cheeky Starbucks or Costa, which also means a nice refreshing walk around the University campus 💕

2pm – 5pm) Continue with lab experiments or do some written work. Writing may include keeping my lab books up to date, these contain EVERYTHING I have ever done in the lab (that’s nearly 4 years of work wow). They are a scribbled mess but when it comes to writing up my PhD thesis they contain all the important details. I also try to write papers which are hopefully then published to the wider scientific community or articles for farmers to help them better control parasites on their farm.

6pm) Home and dinner. Maybe a choir rehearsal, baking or just watch Netflix.

Farmers magazines and my go to work bits and bobs!

My first paper published in a science journal!

Poster presentation at a parasite conference in the USA!

I also think it is important to say that unless I have a really pressing deadline I try to keep my weekends work free. Maintaining a good work-life balance during a PhD can be tricky, especially when it is 100% self-driven but looking after yourself is top priority🌼 This mantra is true for whatever you are working towards. I was the same when I did my GCSE’s and A levels, if things started to get on top of me I took some guilt-free time out to reset which improved my productivity in the long run 💕