A Paper That Took Time to Grow

I’ve just had a research paper accepted for publication (https://doi.org/10.1093/femsec/fiag004), and I wanted to share why it means so much to me.

The work began ten years ago, in 2016, when I was a PhD student. By 2018 it formed Chapter 6 of my thesis, though I wasn’t sure it would ever become a full paper. Some scientific projects stay unfinished for a long time — not because they aren’t interesting, but because it wasn’t the right time.

I study how tiny organisms called bacteria help keep the atmosphere in balance. Plants release a trace gas called isoprene in huge amounts every day. While this gas is natural, too much of it could affect air quality and climate. Luckily, certain bacteria can “eat” isoprene, and they do this using specialised proteins called enzymes.

The enzyme at the centre of this study is called isoprene monooxygenase (IsoMO). For years, scientists knew it existed, but we didn’t know what it really looked like or how it worked in detail. Understanding an enzyme’s shape is important, because structure helps explain function.

During my PhD, I isolated new organisms (https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2019.02700) and grew and studied them in the lab. I then moved on to comparing their genetic information and creating gene probes to help quantify and detect them (and their enzymes) in environmental samples (https://doi.org/10.1186/s40168-018-0607-0). Last year I realised that computational tools made it possible to build a detailed model of the enzyme’s structure — and that’s what allowed me to finish the paper.

My MSCA funding gave me the freedom to return to this project and complete it properly. While the work originally started during my PhD, the final study was led and written by me, and this is my first paper as the main contact author. It represents professional growth: a project that followed me from being a student to becoming an independent researcher.

There’s also a wider message in this story. In science, especially early in our careers, many projects are left behind as people move jobs or funding ends. Sometimes that’s unavoidable. But some questions are worth holding onto. As I start 2026, this feels less like an ending to this part of the story and more like a beginning of what will come next in my research career. It’s the result of patience, curiosity, and trust — and it reflects the kind of science I care about most. I hope I can continue working on these questions, learning more about microbes, and understanding how they quietly help keep our planet in balance.

A huge thanks to my PhD supervisor, JC Murrell who followed the journey of this paper even after his retirement in 2024. To my co-author Leo de Oliveira Martins and Csenge Nagy for the beautiful featured image!

Blog illustration by @nicki_lab_rat (Instagram)