ImmunoTea interview

I'm interviewed in the latest episode of ImmunoTea. Take a listen for all things Tregs and neuroimmunology!

Athenaeum Club

A short talk on diversity in the immune system that I gave at the Athenaeum Club. 

As was noted by the Club members, there is a striking parallel with the value of diversity in ideas: education and exposure to multiple different approaches to intellectualism inoculate us from destructive ideologies such as fascism. To what degree is this pure coincidence? Could it be because the same asymmetry that exists in evolutionary speeds between humans and pathogens is also found in the evolutionary speeds of humans and ideas? Could the protective effect of diversity in shielding against pathogens and ideology both be the mathematical consequences of the laws of evolution?

Interview on "Becoming a Scientist: The Graphic Novel"

I was recently interviewed by the Hindustan Times on our book, "Becoming a Scientist". Here is the transcript in full:

Tell us a bit about you and the Liston-Dooley Lab. Apart from researching how to keep the body’s immune response in check, you have also been working on improving equality of opportunity within science careers, communicating science to children through online games and books. What makes you want to update how scientific communication works today? Do you feel that there is much that people do not know about science as a field? 

Science is building knowledge faster than any person can learn, so there is always more science to communicate. This project, however, was really about filling that gap in understanding what a scientist is. The pop media tends to portray scientists as solo geniuses, capable of tinkering around and coming up with insights other people just don't have the innate ability for. That really isn't how science works - anyone could become a scientist. Science is really just about training up your curiosity, learning a few tools, being resilient to failure, and following the data over your pre-conceptions. That's it!

Tell us a bit about your own journey. You had never met a scientist and would probably have ended up as a truck driver too had you not been lucky enough to land a scholarship. Looking back, do you wish things were different for you? 

Everyone makes mistakes in their own journey, I'd rather just look at making a better path forward. I talk to a lot of early career scientists who worry about making a detour in their career through the "wrong" choice. Over and over, what I see is that it is the detours that give you a unique perspective, and in science the ability to look at an old question from a new angle is incredibly valuable. So I say be willing to take a risk and embrace the odd detour in your journey!

If making it to college was not enough, you have touched upon class snobbery and the feeling of alienation that not many people speak about. Tell us how challenging it is and how did you overcome these difficult moments? Is it something you have seen several other colleagues from not very affluent backgrounds also facing? 

I'm proud of being working class. For sure it led some people to dismiss me or look down on me, that is the point of class borders. But it is who I am, and I think it is actually a great preparation for being a scientist. Working at the very edge of human knowledge means floundering and flailing and believing the data when it tells you that you are wrong; over-confidence is the biggest risk in a scientist, while perseverance and humility are virtues. 

What are the biggest challenges that plague the scientific community today? Jargon, for instance, is one that you have avoided in your books. 

So many challenges! Funding is an obvious one. Investment in science generates more economic gains than the expenditure, but it takes time to reap the benefits. So even though it is a win-win situation, short-term pressures often stunt the growth of research budgets - you wouldn't believe the advances that are being held back just by a lack of investment. We have a potential treatment for traumatic brain injury that is waiting for funding to allow us to move to clinical trials - it can be very frustrating!

Perhaps contributing to this problem is the increase in deliberate misinformation. No one can have a solid understanding of the breadth of science, even active scientists, so I don't begrudge anyone having misconceptions or accidently passing them on. Unfortunately at the moment we have a serious problem of people deliberately spreading misinformation for political gain. Whether it is climate change, vaccination, stem cells, or any other topic, we are seeing a systematic effort to degrade the public's ability to determine fact from fiction. In a very real way, it undermines the foundations of our technology-driven civilisation. 

From children’s books to an online game and now a graphic novel, what do you keep in mind while evolving in terms of medium, language and message to reach out to a young audience. 

The only way you reach someone is to go out and meet them where they are. Anything else is just preaching to the choir or screaming into the void. If you want to connect to someone, learn their language and enter their place. 

Why did you decide to tell the stories of these 12 scientists? Was there a particular incident that triggered the thought? How do you think it can help more children consider science as a potential career, irrespective of where they are in life? 

These stories were not hunted down, they were the 12 lab members of my lab at the time I wrote the book. I genuinely believe everyone's story is interesting, so I try to learn about my team. My son is nearing the stage where he is thinking about careers, and of course he has a good idea of what a scientist looks like and how they think, but so many kids won't have that opportunity. So I thought I could write the stories of my team members and share it with other kids his age.

Once you had the concept in mind how long did it take to collate everyone’s stories, put it down in words and as illustrations and get the book ready? How did the other scientists respond to the idea of seeing their stories become an inspiration for others? Were any of them apprehensive or were they all excited to share their personal journeys? 

When writing about people you know well, it is probably faster to tell their story then it is to tell your own. Initially most of us were apprehensive - it is an insight into us as people, and normally we only write about our science. Putting a window into our hearts out for the whole world is daunting. However the feedback we have received has made everything worth it!

How has the feedback been for the novel? Any heartwarming responses from those who have read it? 

We've had lot of great feedback from scientists, but what means the most to me is hearing from people who resonated with a particular story. For example I've heard from people who came through the foster care system, some of the most disadvantages kids in society, who read James's story and felt uplifted by his success, and are now sharing it with the foster kids they mentor. Sometimes all it takes is one event during your childhood, just one time that you need the epiphany that people like you can succeed, to make a life take a different track.

Being a scientist

From an interview with Superbugs 

I didn’t really know what a scientist was growing up in Australia. My Dad was a truck driver, and everyone around me either drove trucks or worked in factories. If it wasn’t for watching nature documentaries on the TV, I probably would have dropped out of high school and become a truck driver too. Listening to David Attenborough explain how life was interconnected changed my pathway in life. I had a taste of wondering “why” and hearing it explained, and I wanted to know how the how world worked.

I got good grades in school and went to university. Although, to be honest, you didn’t need especially good grades to get into a science degree – it is rather inclusive entry, unlike medicine or engineering which are tougher to get into. I’m also not especially convinced that the grades you get during your degree in science reflect much about your capacity to be a scientist. The undergraduate degree has to give you the baseline of facts and tools, but once you graduate and become a scientist you are operating at the very boundary of human knowledge. It doesn’t matter if you are quick or slow, have a photographic memory or need to look up basic formulas each time. Science is different from any other walk in life. You can fail and fail and fail, but by succeeding just once you add something new to the sum total of humanity’s knowledge. When I think about what it takes to succeed as a scientist I think it really comes down to three things: creativity, resilience and integrity.

Why creativity, resilience and integrity? Creativity because we don’t know what the right experiments are. Once you are at the boundaries of knowledge, all you can do is take an educated guess, design the best experiment you can, and see if it sheds new light. Most of the time it doesn’t! So a creative scientist is someone who is good at coming up with multiple different ways to attack a problem. Of course, this means a lot of failure, which is where resilience comes in. Failing multiple times is a serious downer. Classical high achievers often struggle when they transition from acing every exam to failing in the lab. If you’ve got grit, if you know how to pick yourself up and try again, then you’ll eventually solve the problem. That is what science is, being wrong over and over again, until in the end you are right. Finally, integrity is key. You’ve just got to be honest in science. To make progress we need to build a tower out of data. People who are willing to fudge their results, fool themselves into thinking they are right when they are not, they start building their tower on poor foundations. The scientists who are willing to admit they are wrong, change their mind with new data, and take the slow route are the ones who end up building the highest.

I guess this doesn’t make science sound super attractive as a career! It is genuinely hard, and few people actually enjoy being wrong over and over again! But the thing is, when you are right, it is amazing. When we find something out it is actually something entire new that we have created – we have moved the sphere of human knowledge further out. There are also a lot of perks to a career in science – I get to travel a lot, don’t need to wear a suit, and the work is easier and for more money than driving a truck or working in a factory!

For myself, after a research career in Australia and America, I started to become more interested in creating a space for scientists to excel in, rather than doing science myself. I moved to Belgium and set up a lab in a hospital there. I tried to bring in a team of amazing people with different skills and backgrounds – biologists, mathematicians, clinicians, engineers, chemists and more, precisely because we never really know the best way to tackle the new problem. My job is to pick the questions we work on, and help the team to find ways to put together their skills to answer those questions. By having a team of diverse people who think in different ways we became much more successful at finding a winning formula. We have uncovered the causes of human diseases, solved riddles for why some patients are sick, started clinical trials that brought new treatments to neglected patients, even developed new drugs. Each success we have opens up a new and more interesting problem, and we are genuinely improving the world.

After a decade in Belgium I moved over my lab to Cambridge. We are still working on interesting problems in pathology, and I still have an amazing team of diverse scientists. Perhaps the best part, though, is that so many people have left my lab and have started up their own teams, in universities, hospitals and biotech companies, all across the world. That decision I made to go into science after high school has led to hundreds of scientists being trained, and humanity will build on the knowledge they create long after I am gone.

That's TV Cambridge interview

Graphic novel shows unconventional routes into science

Helen Burchell

BBC News

Stories of people's unconventional routes to becoming scientists are told in a new graphic novel intended to encourage others into the field.

The book - Becoming a Scientist - is aimed at young adult readers and was written by the University of Cambridge's Prof Adrian Liston, and illustrated by Yulia Lapko - a business administrator for the pathology department.

Both their routes could be deemed unconventional as Prof Liston was expected to join his truck-driving family's business in Australia, while Ms Lapko fled her native Ukraine in 2022 following invasion.

Prof Liston said as a youngster he did not even know what a scientist was, and hoped the stories showed the "many different pathways".

The novel told the stories of 12 members of the Liston-Dooley lab, who researched the immune system and tissues during pathology.

This was not Prof Liston's first book and he has written books for young children including All about Coronavirus, Battle Robots of the Blood and Maya’s Marvellous Medicine.

His graphic novel, however, was aimed at older readers between 12 and 18 years of age.

Stories about how the team members came to work in science are told in the graphic novel

"It was really luck more than anything else that allowed me to fall into the career I have today," Prof Liston said.

"When I looked around the amazing people in my lab, I realised that everyone had a story about overcoming barriers to enter science."

Magda Ali, Ntombizodwa Makuyana and Amy Dashwood became models for the cover of the book

Prof Liston freely admits he was not brought up to be a scientist.

In the book, he said: "I grew up in a truck-driving family in Australia.

"My parents didn't get the chance to finish high school and the only jobs I heard about were driving trucks or working the factory line building cars."

He added: "I never met a scientist. Actually, if I hadn't been inspired by the weekly nature documentary on TV I'd never have known being a scientist was possible."

Adrian Liston was inspired to follow a scientific education after watching nature programmes on television

Studying at university was "an epiphany for me", the professor said.

"Sure, there was class snobbery, but I was also able to find my group who were weird like me."

He told the BBC: "I want to see more kids with grit and creativity really look seriously at science as a potential career, and I realised that my team here at Cambridge really demonstrated just how diverse scientists are in practice.

"Every one had their own story of adversity conquered, their own role-models and their own motivations, so I thought we could simply tell their stories.

"While each one is unique, together they do show that science can be for anybody, and science becomes richer for having a diversity of talents."

Magda Ali pursued her education because she dreamt of becoming a scientist

Other stories included those of Magda Ali, who is completing her PhD at Cambridge University. Her parents came to the UK as refugees from Somalia and although she attended a school where few students even took A-levels, she continued her studies and her dream of becoming a scientist.

Visiting student researcher Alvaro Hernandez said he failed his school entrance tests in Peru at the age of five and almost did not get an education at all, having been preoccupied instead with football.

"I think my early teachers would be surprised to see me in Cambridge," he said in the book.

Their diverse stories have been illustrated by Yulia Lapko, who came to the UK under the Homes for Ukraine scheme.

Yulia Lapko came to the UK after her native Ukraine was invaded by Russia

She had been working as an artist before the war, but on arriving in Cambridge, and added: "I took a break from that because, settling in the new country, it made sense to get a full-time job for a sense of security and stability. Now that I feel settled enough I can expand the possibilities of what I can do with my skills.

"I really enjoy being here, I love the department and its people.

"Drawing people is my main speciality in art, and all the people featured in the book I actually see every day, which made it easier to capture them in a way that feels alive and effortless.

"But it’s one thing to see what people look like and the other is to really see them, to know the story behind each individual, so having all of them share their backgrounds, hopes and wishes really helped to get the whole picture of each character."

Prof Liston added: "It is guts and heart rather than brains that lead to scientific breakthroughs, and every discovery worth making happens from a team."

Read the book for free online or order a print copy.

Crafting Science Stories for Young Audiences

Finding a narrative that resonates with the audience and serving it in their preferred format helps make science engaging, relatable, and fun.

Article by Danielle Gerhard in The Scientist

In his laboratory at the University of Cambridge, immunologist Adrian Liston studies the complex inner workings of the immune system with a focus on regulatory T cells that help keep the body’s immune response in check. But beyond the bench, he whittles down the jargon-filled, methodical, and nuanced research and transforms it into digestible nuggets of scientific communication for young audiences. 

“Kids are naturally curious about how the world works,” said Liston. “They will quite happily learn about how anything works so I don't think there are topics that are out of bounds in terms of science.” 

Liston’s own journey into science communication for children and teenagers is inspired and influenced by his personal experience. “As [my son] has developed, I've developed as a father, and I've used what I've learned as a dad to keep pace in my public communication efforts,” said Liston. From children’s books to a computer game to a graphic novel, Liston has altered the medium, language, and message to evolve with the next generation’s shifting interests. 

Drop the Jargon, Focus on the Message

As a young child, when Liston’s son asked him about his work, Liston, “learned to talk in his language.” Scientists spend decades learning a precise language, chock full of scientific terminology and tongue-twisting acronyms, that allows them to succinctly and accurately communicate their findings to peers. But when it comes to communicating research to nonspecialists, regardless of age, Liston finds it important to keep it high level. 

“Sometimes people get so hooked on trying to communicate the details that the concept doesn't come across.” Liston cuts out the jargon to spin a narrative that is accessible and resonates with the intended audience.

In Liston’s children’s book Maya’s Marvellous Medicine, the title-character learns about how vaccines help prepare the cells in the immune system for battle. 

For instance, he used this technique in his children’s book Maya’s Marvellous Medicine, which follows the young title character as she learns about vaccines and how they boost the immune system. Instead of going into the specifics of vaccines, Liston focuses on a simple concept that is accessible to young children: practice makes perfect. Maya’s father uses a relatable anecdote from Maya's life—when she won a running race after lots of practice—to lay the foundations upon which her doctor explains how the immune cells in our body learn to recognize the microbes that cause diseases. 

When writing books for young children, Liston targets two diverse audience categories. “The ideal situation of a kid's book is when you're hitting the kids at one level, and the parents at another level.” 

That’s why in his book Battle Robots of the Blood, he narrated the story from the perspective of Tim, a seven-year-old boy who has a primary immunodeficiency that renders him incapable of receiving life-saving vaccines.² Frequent trips to the hospital are a part of his life, but wrapped up in the innocence of youth, Tim is preoccupied with spending time with his friends. However, this activity carries considerable risk for him, especially when his friends are unvaccinated.

The message to children is simple and clear: not everyone has a functioning immune system, so others need to get the vaccines that help to train the cool battle robots in the blood that fight against dangerous viruses. The message to the individual reading the book—often a parent or guardian—is also straightforward: getting their child vaccinated not only protects them, but it contributes to a herd immunity that helps save the lives of children who are unable to receive this marvelous medicine.

In Battle Robots of the Blood, Liston explores the life of Tim, a seven-year-old boy with an immune deficiency that leaves him vulnerable to a breakdown in herd immunity. “The idea is to try to create that empathy of the parents with the idea of a child being so sick that they could almost die, because someone else refused to vaccinate [their child],” said Liston. “If the person reading the book suddenly realizes for the first time that they have the ability to save other children's lives just by vaccinating their own child, then that's the epiphany we want them to have.”

Evolving the Medium to Match and Expand the Audience

As his son grew up, Liston saw an opportunity to learn about communicating with a new audience: teenagers. “I saw how engaged and focused he could be on computer games,” said Liston. “He could absorb information so well through that medium.” This inspired Liston to attempt science communication using video games. He teamed up with computer programmers to create Virus Fighter, a game that teaches people about the science of virology and the impact of vaccinations.

Players can choose to infect a population with one of four viruses—coronavirus, influenza, measles, or Ebola—and adjust settings that affect the virus's lethality, virulence, and incubation time to see how these properties influence viral spread. By introducing countermeasures, such as vaccinations, quarantines, and social distancing, the player can track how tweaks to these responses impact outbreaks, the health system, and the economy. Depending on the selected mode and settings, the game reveals different lessons. For example, Liston noted, “It's not just about how lethal a virus is, it's about how fast it spreads.” 

In the computer game Virus Fighter, users play the role of Prime Minister of the UK as they make decisions to control the spread of a virus. The goal of the educational tool is to teach players about viruses, immunity, and vaccinations. 

An added benefit of an online educational tool like Virus Fighter is that it expands the reach of science communication initiatives. Liston said that most science outreach initiatives are proximity-based; children living closer to a university are saturated with engagement opportunities, while children living further away, in what he refers to as ‘outreach deserts,’ are on the outskirts of the sci-comm ecosystem. “We need to make more content that can be decentralized,” said Liston. “The pandemic and the lockdown did demonstrate that we can do this, we can have innovative outreach mechanisms that are not grounded in geography.”

Science is Open to All

Throughout his career, Liston has been motivated by the inequities that exist in science and its communication. Growing up in a working-class neighborhood in Australia, Liston never had an opportunity to meet a scientist. “Science was something that was occasionally on the TV, but it wasn't something that I was ever able to encounter,” said Liston. 

As his son entered high school, Liston embarked on a new project targeted at teenagers. Using comic art as his medium, Liston imparted a message that is near and dear to him: science is for everyone. “This project is not really about science, it's about being a scientist,” said Liston. His latest book, Becoming a Scientist: The Graphic Novel, includes 12 vignettes that highlight the varied backgrounds, role models, and motivations of scientists in his research team. Although everyone has a different story, they share a resilience, determination, and a sense of wonder that fuels their journey through science.

Liston hopes that his latest project, Becoming a Scientist: The Graphic Novel, inspires younger generations to pursue a career in science. “The idea was to just create a comic book where kids are going to flick through and see themselves in one person,” said Liston. “As soon as you see yourself in one person who is a successful scientist in Cambridge, you realize that this could be you as well.”

An abiding philosophy that shapes Liston’s day to day is that science is for everyone. “If science is for everyone, then science communication has to be for everyone,” said Liston. The more stories that get told, the broader the population that gets served. “No matter how good someone is at science communication, they can't do it for everyone, because different segments of the population are going to resonate with different messages and with different messengers,” said Liston. 

To bring these important scientific messages and ideas to life, Liston collaborated with the artists Sonia Agüera-González and Yulia Lapko, software developers, and members of his research team—a reminder that good communication, like successful science, often results from the coming together of people with diverse backgrounds, skills, and views.

Becoming a scientist

A write up by St Catz College

A Fellow of St Catharine’s has produced a new graphic novel to encourage high school students from all backgrounds to pursue STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). Professor Adrian Liston (2023) has joined forces with illustrator Yulia Lapko on Becoming a Scientist: The Graphic Novel to tell the story of the twelve scientists in his biomedical research laboratory at the University of Cambridge.

Professor Liston explained, “Growing up, I didn't know what a career in science was. It was really luck more than anything else that allowed me to fall into the career I have today. When I looked around the amazing people in my lab, I realised that everyone had a story about overcoming barriers to enter science. While everyone's story is unique, what they have in common is inspiring – there are so many different pathways to success in science. I wrote this book to share these outstanding role-models with high school students, so they can find a story that resonates with them, and use that inspiration to go into STEM subjects.”

Cover of the Becoming a Scientist graphic novel by Prof. Adrian Liston with illustrator Yulia Lapko

Originally from Australia, Professor Liston is now Professor of Pathology at the University of Cambridge, a where he leads a team of researchers looking at the pathologies of the immune system. The idea for a graphic novel came about after Professor Liston’s group spent time at St Catharine’s for a team-building session, which invited each scientist to speak about their backgrounds, role models and motivations. With the group’s support, the new graphic novel devotes a section to each team-member’s story, with eye-catching illustrations provided by Yulia. Read the graphic novel online. 

Detail about Prof. Liston's story from the Becoming a Scientist graphic novel

Yulia is an artist from Kyiv, Ukraine. She balances her art career with her day job as Business Administrator for Cambridge’s Department of Pathology.

She said, “I might not be a scientist, but I can relate to the idea that everyone has the potential to become anyone they want to be. Our paths might be very different, and some of them are longer and tougher than others, but the key thing is motivation. Relatable role models help nurture our potential, and I am excited that our book offers twelve role models to inspire young people.”

Becoming a Scientist is Professor Liston’s first publication for a young adult audience (readers between 12 and 18 years of age). He has previously written All about Coronavirus, Battle Robots of the Blood and Maya’s Marvellous Medicine for children between 3 and 8 years old, all illustrated by Dr Sonia Agüera González (also known as Tenmei).

Professor Liston added, “Some readers might associate graphic novels with fiction like Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman or Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s collaboration on V for Vendetta, but there is a rich tradition of creative biographical works such as Marjane Satrapi’s memoir, Perspolis, or Art Spiegelman’s interviews with his father in Maus.

“I am privileged to go to work every day with such a talented group of people and it has been an honour to tell the different stories that brought us all together in Cambridge. I hope these diverse experiences connect with and inspire the next generation of scientists.”

Some of the scientists featured in the graphic novel with Prof Liston (centre top row) in their lab (credit: Natalie Sloan-Glasberg)

The graphic novel is also available in print from https://www.thegreatbritishbookshop.co.uk/products/becoming-a-scientist

Becoming a Scientist - out now!

Becoming a Scientist: The Graphic Novel is now available in print edition!

Becoming a Scientist: The Graphic Novel

Our latest project has just been released: Becoming a Scientist: The Graphic Novel!

The novel follows the stories of the amazing team members in the lab (or, at least, those team members who have been around since last October when we started this project!). We follow their story in becoming a scientist: the barriers they had to overcome, the role-models who helped them on the way, and the motivation that drove them to enter STEM.

This is a unique project for us, because it isn't about our science. It is about us as scientists. Where we came from, and how we got here. None of us were destined for science, yet somehow here we are, working together to better the world...

Our amazing illustrator, Yulia Lapko, brings to life each person's story. We have Magda, daughter of Somali refugees, drawing strength from her mother's sacrifice and equally determined to help others in turn. We have Alvaro, who barely managed to get into school growing up in Peru, and has now made it to Cambridge with a ripper of an under-graduate project. James, who took a long and winding route, overcoming every disadvantage life gives a foster kid, and yet somehow beating the odds and now helping others succeed. Stevi made the transition from patient to researcher, and Tombi brings her mission from Zimbabwe to help the global ubuntu. I realised, looking around the lab, that I could talk about how inspiring I find literally every person - so I put them all into a book!

I draw inspiration from these amazing team members. I could have written this story at any point over the past fifteen years - we have nearly 200 amazing alumni, each with their own unique story. I wrote these stories to provide role-models to anyone thinking about starting a career in science. Science is not for the privileged few. Science is for anyone who has ever asked "why?", and anyone who is too stubborn to know when to stop asking! Take a look into these stories - if we can succeed in science, you can too!

The book is live now to read at Issuu, and will be released soon in print. If you want to support more innovative projects in broadening participation from our lab, drop us a donation!