Dr Adriana Vallejo-Trujillo on genetics and resilience

I grew up surrounded by science. My dad was a professor of tropical parasitology at the University of Tolima, Colombia, and my mum was a science teacher, in chemistry and biology. From age five I was joining my dad and his students on field trips – he made me a miniature butterfly net – and I always helped him in the lab. Our family holidays would be to the forest, or to see wildlife, always learning. 

Our house was full of science books, and I was always interested in evolution, which took me towards genetics. My parents are my greatest role models. Science, and academia, were always in my future.

I went to study biology as an undergrad, at Xavierian Pontifical University in Bogota. My final year project was in the genetics of tropical monkeys, which focused my interest in population genetics and evolution. 

I followed this with a masters in livestock production at the National Agrarian University in Peru, with a focus on genetics. I studied wild camelids – vicuñas – whose wild populations are semi-managed; their fur is gathered once each year. I studied the effect of this on their genetics.  

In my masters, I saw the hard reality of small farmers, in extreme poverty, in an extreme environment, using animals that were able to adapt and survive these environmental pressures.  

After this I started working in the National Institute of Agricultural Innovation in Peru, leading research for animal genetics. I travelled the Andes in the south of Peru. 

I was interested to see livestock, such as cattle and sheep, at 4,000 or 5,000 metres above sea level, with little access to water, and poor pastures, yet they were able to survive.  

In 2014 I moved back to Colombia to lecture genetics at Tolima University. I wanted to get involved in academic research, beginning with a PhD. I saw this as an opportunity to go abroad with my young sons, for them to learn English. I arranged to do a PhD in avian genetics with Professor Olivier Hannote, at Nottingham University. I arrived not knowing anyone, with my seven and nine-year-olds. 

It was incredibly busy, studying and raising my children. There were some really hard moments, and it was an education in every sense. My sons adapted quickly and now, 10 years on, they appreciate the experience they’ve had. Giving them that has been really rewarding. 

The PhD allowed me to create a new niche, integrating genetics and adaptation with ecology to measure adaptation in animals in Ethiopian landscapes. 

After my PhD, I moved to a post-doctoral position the Roslin institute to research whole genome phylogenetics and machine learning, with Professor David Gally and Food Standards Scotland. I learned a lot, and the team was really supportive.  

Then, three years ago, I took up another postdoc opportunity in Dr Jacqueline Smith’s lab, in genomic adaptation in chickens, which has been incredibly good. It allowed me to get skills working with transcriptomic data, with epigenetics data, towards the key questions I have always had, which are: how do animals adapt, why are they resilient, and how does that work at a genomic level? I am able to explore my own ideas, and that seems to be very common across the Roslin Institute. 

I work with the Centre for Tropical Livestock Genetics and Health to understand adaptation in indigenous chickens in hot, arid environments and in cold, high-altitude environments. We are using different layers of genetic diversity to understand how chickens survive in those places.  

Genomics tells you just a little part of the story. Transcriptomics – how much genes are expressed – and phylogenetic, or evolutionary, analysis are also important. We can pull all the layers together and see which regions of the genome point towards genes linked to resilience for heat or for cold. 

I have also started developing a way to study the biology of resilience. I want to target variations within genes that make an individual resilient to a specific environment, and regulatory elements within DNA that influence gene expression linked to how individuals survive. My hope is that this can be applied to any other species, not only in livestock.  

There is the opportunity of discovery, to pursue a question and advance to a eureka moment – for me that is freedom. Academia is less discriminatory than other sectors. You are valued by what you can achieve as an individual, not because of your background.  

Gender equity in academia is a long way off – but it is good here, compared with many places, and in the UK overall it’s not bad compared with other countries.