Fiona Watt facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Fiona Watt
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| Born | 28 March 1956  |
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| Spouse(s) | Jim Cuthbert Smith |
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| Website | http://www.wattlab.org |
Fiona Watt is a famous British scientist. She was born on March 28, 1956. She is known around the world for her work with stem cells. In the 1980s, when stem cell research was just starting, she found important things about these cells. Her discoveries helped create the basis for much of today's research.
Fiona Watt is currently the Director of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). Before this, she led the Centre for Stem Cells & Regenerative Medicine at King's College London. She was also the executive chair of the Medical Research Council (MRC). She was the first woman to lead the MRC since it began in 1913.
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Early Life and Education
Fiona Watt was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. Her father was a dental surgeon who also did a lot of research. She knew from a very young age that she wanted to be a scientist.
She studied Natural Sciences at Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge. She earned her first degree in 1976 and her master's degree in 1979. She also got her PhD from the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at the University of Oxford in 1979. Her PhD research was about how cells organize themselves.
Career in Science
After her PhD, Watt spent two years doing research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US. When she returned to the UK, she started her first lab at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology in London. There, she became the head of the Molecular Cell Biology Laboratory.
In 1987, she moved to the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute. This is now part of the Francis Crick Institute. She led the Keratinocyte Laboratory there. From 2007 to 2012, she worked in Cambridge. She helped set up the Cambridge Cancer Research UK Institute. She also helped create the Wellcome Trust Centre for Stem Cell Research.
Understanding Skin Stem Cells
Fiona Watt's main research has been about how our skin stays healthy. She studies the outer layer of skin, called the epidermis. She looks at how stem cells in the skin renew themselves. She also studies how these cells change to become specialized skin cells.
She used human skin grown in labs and genetically modified mice for her studies. She was a pioneer in finding different groups of stem cells. She also figured out how certain signals control their behavior. These signals include integrin, Notch, Wnt, and receptor tyrosine kinase signaling.
She found the first marker that could be used to find skin stem cells. This marker is called integrin extracellular matrix (ECM) receptors. Other scientists later found that this marker helps find stem cells in many other body parts. Her idea that the ECM is a key part of the stem cell's environment has been proven true.
Cell Behavior and Cancer Research
Her lab's research has also shown how different signals inside and outside a cell work together. This helps decide what a cell will become. She found how cells sense these signals and how they switch between being a stem cell and a specialized cell.
Watt was one of the first to use single cell gene expression profiling. This method looks at the genes in individual cells. She showed that different skin stem cells are not random. Instead, they are different groups of stem cells that had not been found before. She also found different types of skin cells called fibroblasts. This could lead to new ways to treat scarring.
Her work has also helped us understand how problems in the skin can lead to cancer. She found new ways that integrins can cause cancer. She also found a specific change that encourages tumors to form. Her discoveries have been confirmed in other types of solid tumors. More recently, she has been interested in how small changes in our genes affect how cells behave.
Leadership Roles
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Fiona Watt has been very important in getting the UK government to invest in stem cell research. For example, she advised the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee. She has also been the president of the British Society for Cell Biology. She was also president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR).
She was the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Cell Science for 20 years. Later, she became a founding Deputy Editor of eLife. Watt is a strong supporter of women in science. She has written articles and given interviews about the challenges women face in reaching top science positions.
At the Medical Research Council, she started a program for doctors to do research. She also worked with PhD students from diverse backgrounds. This helped them find new ways to succeed in their science careers. She also started new projects on complex health conditions, teen mental health, and pain.
In 2020, Watt led efforts to fund coronavirus research. She helped make sure that the first research grants were given out quickly. This happened as the pandemic was just starting to become clear. She remained in her role as MRC Executive Chair until her term ended in early 2022. After that, she became the director of the European Molecular Biology Organization.
Awards and Recognition
Fiona Watt has received many awards and honors for her scientific work.
- She became a Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (1999).
- She was made a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (2000).
- She became a Fellow of the Royal Society (2003).
- In 2008, she was chosen as an Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
- She received an honorary doctorate from the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid in 2016.
- She was made an Honorary Member of the Society for Investigative Dermatology (2018).
- She became an Honorary Fellow of the British Pharmacological Society (2019).
- She is a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences (2019).
- She is also a Member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (2023).
She has won several awards for her achievements:
- The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) Women in Cell Biology Senior Award (2008).
- The first Suffrage Science award (2011).
- The Hunterian Society Medal (2015).
- The FEBS/EMBO Women in Science Award (2016).
- The ISSCR Achievement Award (2024).
