VIDEO
Dr Sarah Spencer, Senior Research Fellow
Dr Sarah Spencer has a growing national and international profile in the research fields of stress and perinatal programming of disease.
AUDIO: Ambient music
VISUAL: Sarah seated and speaking to the camera.
DR SARAH SPENCER SPEAKS: One of the reasons why I was really excited to come to RMIT was because of the burgeoning research culture.
VISUAL: Lab equipment. Sarah working in the lab looking through a microscope.
DR SARAH SPENCER SPEAKS: In the last few, five years, gotten in a number of new researchers who are really dynamic got really good reputations and it really feels as though the place is moving forward and it's going to do really well in the future.
VISUAL: Sarah seated and speaking to the camera.
DR SARAH SPENCER SPEAKS: So my research is looking at perinatal programming of adult metabolism and stress. So basically I look at early life diet...
VISUAL: Sarah walking with another woman in the lab
DR SARAH SPENCER SPEAKS: ...and early life stress and how these influence long term to either become obese or lean or to have exacerbated or really efficient stress responses.
VISUAL: Sarah seated and speaking to the camera.
DR SARAH SPENCER SPEAKS: One of the key components that I'm interested in is the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis which is the major way that the body responds to stress or one of the major ways.
VISUAL: Close-up of hands working with lab samples.
DR SARAH SPENCER VOICEOVER: Another important component of the developmental phase is a part of the brain called the hypothalamus. Various parts of the hypothalamus start to
VISUAL: Sarah placing samples on a microscope
DR SARAH SPENCER SPEAKS: become connected with each other in the first couple weeks of life. And they are triggered to become connected to each other by a hormone called leptin.
VISUAL: Sarah typing and viewing samples on a computer.
DR SARAH SPENCER SPEAKS: So leptin is secreted from the fat and is normally a signal to tell you that you've had enough to eat, to stop eating. In the baby it is also a signal to trigger these brain regions to start talking to each other and grow connections towards each other.
VISUAL: Sarah seated and speaking to the camera.
DR SARAH SPENCER SPEAKS: Now if you have the wrong amount of leptin when you are a baby you can disrupt the connections of these pathways. And these are the pathways that will later control feeding and later control stress.
VISUAL: Sarah working with another scientist in the lab. Looking at and pointing to a map of the human brain in a book.
DR SARAH SPENCER SPEAKS: So you can see that if you have too much fat when you are a baby, you have too much leptin, you may trigger connections in this region of this region of the brain too early before they are ready to be developed...
VISUAL: Sarah seated and speaking to the camera.
DR SARAH SPENCER SPEAKS: ...Or you may trigger it so that they continue to develop and become sort of overdeveloped. And the outcome of this would be to disrupt your feeding and stress responses later on. I suppose for everyone in my position my future plans are going to be very well funded [laughs] and to publish fantastic research, which is a genuine plan and hope. So RMIT has actually been very helpful in helping me to progress in my research goals. There are a number of really fantastic researchers here I've been lucky enough to collaborate with.
VISUAL: Sarah walking around RMIT Bundoora campus
DR SARAH SPENCER SPEAKS: Part of the research vision for the School of Health Sciences is now looking at chronic disease...
VISUAL: Sarah walking into an empty lecture theatre preparing for a lecture. Students arrive at the lecture theatre.
DR SARAH SPENCER SPEAKS: ...and so given my interest in developmental programming of disease it certainly fits with their chronic disease element and I've been able to recruit others in terms of PhD students and things like that into my research group that will push RMIT's research program forward.
VISUAL: Sarah seated and speaking to the camera.
DR SARAH SPENCER SPEAKS: I was really excited to be accepted for the VC fellowship. It's very encouraging to have that kind of validation of your work in addition to obviously having the position and going forward in your career it's nice to know that people recognise what you've done and believe that you'll be part of what they are wanting to build up, so yeah it's very exciting.
TEXT ON SCREEN: Find out more at www.rmit.edu.au/research/research-fellowship-schemes. RMIT University logo.
[End of Transcript]
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