Gen Y Speaks: My obsession with zombie flicks inspired me to research groundbreaking treatments for chronic diseases

As a young boy who could not well discern fiction from reality, zombie films filled me with so much fear and fascination. If one bite or scratch was all it took to make me a brain eater, how would I react when I met one in person?
As a kid, I liked to imagine what it would take to survive a zombie apocalypse: I often conjured scenarios of fortified Housing and Development Board flats and food stockpiles, all while planning escape routes in my mind.
Not too long later, while I was studying biomedical science at Ngee Ann Polytechnic, the Ebola epidemic emerged and raged throughout Africa. I remember being horrified by detailed descriptions of the disease symptoms, how the bleeding sounded reminiscent of the zombie films that had gripped me as a child.
In an attempt to satisfy my curiosity about this disease, I read Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone. Seeing how scientific research could peer into the heart of such diseases inspired me to pursue my own research projects.
At the National University of Singapore, I was grateful to be immersed in a research university where I was mentored by outstanding professors. While studying bacteria that caused nasty infections, I found myself pushed towards the boundaries of scientific knowledge.
One experience in the lab that I would never forget was the first time my experiment confirmed a hypothesis I had. My professor remarked to me, “You are the first person in the world to learn about this.”
To peer into the unknown and then discover something new was (and continues to be) an amazing feeling, but still I craved something bigger — something that could change lives.
Upon learning that urinary tract infections are not only a common disease but also potentially deadly, I decided to study them next, in the hopes of leveraging my scientific curiosity to help the many people who suffer from it.
Besides using advanced technology to study how to combat the disease, I also shared about my work with people outside the scientific world, helping non-scientists to understand the importance of my work.
These experiences granted me my most valuable realisation yet: That my curiosity about the natural world could be harnessed towards alleviating people’s suffering. I wanted to be challenged and to explore new boundaries — even those outside of my comfortable sphere of infectious bacteria.
I eventually became acquainted with an emerging field of bacteria research, that of bacterial communities called microbiomes that reside within our gut.
My first introduction to microbiomes was through lectures and seminars by invited professors from Harvard and Johns Hopkins University. They demonstrated how gut bacteria manipulation had the potential to combat obesity. This caught my attention as a public health student, because obesity rates in Singapore are rising.
The premise was riveting: Our gut hosts trillions of bacteria, which influence our health in a myriad of ways. Despite being such tiny life forms, they can impact our immune responses and how we metabolise food.
This meant that adjusting the composition of these gut bacteria had the potential to help treat a variety of health conditions.
I wondered: Could I combine my fascination with bacteria to help address prevalent public health issues, such as the chronic diseases increasingly prevalent in our ageing population?
Thus, I pivoted my research towards microbiome therapeutics, focusing on how the manipulation of our gut bacteria can treat health conditions such as obesity-related diseases like diabetes and high blood pressure.
For me, the significance of microbial therapeutics extends beyond public health; it hits close to home. Having suffered from irritable bowel syndrome since my early teens, the prospect of being able to treat my condition is inspiring.
I dream of one day developing ‘magic’ yoghurts that are tasty remedies for gut-related diseases such as mine.
I will always be grateful that I attended university under the scholarship of A*Star. The scholarship provided me with opportunities beyond our borders: In July, I visited Japan as a representative of A*Star’s Bioinformatics Institute (BII).
There, I showcased the work I did for one year at A*Star’s BII. Despite not having a common first language with some other attendees, our passion for scientific research allowed us to transcend such language barriers.
Far beyond how we are often shown that science can be discretised into well-defined boundaries of Physics, Biology, and Chemistry, researchers at BII embrace the interconnectedness of these different disciplines. There, I answered biology questions through techniques enabled by statistics, chemistry, and physics.
It is also this embracing of interdisciplinarity which has brought me today to the University of Oxford. For my PhD here, I hope to translate our knowledge on ecosystems into insights that allow us to manipulate the human gut microbiome for better health.
We have come so far in understanding how the bacteria in our gut can impact our health. I believe that the study of the microbiome can one day allow us treat chronic diseases through novel ways that do not involve expensive long-term chemical-based medicines.
Above all, each step I take in my research journey is an encouraging reminder to keep trusting my gut.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Sylvester Lim is a recipient of the A*STAR National Science Scholarship (PhD). He has worked on various scientific research projects spanning from computational drug discovery to infectious diseases. He has rewatched films like World War Z and Contagion countless times. Today, he researches on how to manipulate gut bacteria for better health. He hopes that one day, he will be able to develop yoghurt that allows foodie Singaporeans to eat anything without worrying about health consequences.