“I’m a human studies facilitator, and I support the smooth running of human studies conducted at the Quadram Institute. This often involves gaining informed consent from participants, conducting study specific appointments, processing human samples and managing the storage of these samples.

Before joining the Quadram Institute, first as a study support officer, I was an editor for a short while working remotely. Previously, I completed a master’s degree in Microbiome in Health and Disease at King’s College London; however, this was during the pandemic and my final project, which was originally laboratory based, was changed to writing a grant proposal.

One of our human studies is the PEARL study, which I’ve been supporting since March 2022. The PEARL study is a longitudinal observational prospective study of 261 pregnant women and their newborns. The aim of this study is to understand how gut microbes contribute to maintaining health during pregnancy and early life.

The PEARL study involves collecting lots of samples including blood, stool, skin swab and breast milk samples along with questionnaires and routine clinical data collected during pregnancy, birth and up to 24 months post birth. We collect samples from the participant’s homes every third timepoint. This month is our last sample collection.

The study team and I have collected samples from all over Norfolk. I’ve driven to the coast many times and collected samples from PEARL participants living in Wells-Next-The-Sea, Sheringham, Cromer and Great Yarmouth.

There are also participants who live in South Norfolk such as Diss, Loddon and Long Stratton and in the Breckland District such as Thetford and Attleborough.

It’s been quite challenging collecting samples when the participants have recently moved to a newly built house, as the postcode is not recognised by Google Maps, there have been occasions where I’ve driven around for a while, trying to find the street name.

In the wintertime, with the lack of street lighting in areas, it was quite difficult to find the isolated houses in the countryside. It felt like you were in the middle of nowhere!

Some participants live in the centre of Norwich, so sometimes we don’t need to travel very far to collect the samples.

I’ve enjoyed collecting samples from participants and seeing the lovely parts of Norfolk that I wouldn’t usually get to see. It’s been great seeing the PEARL newborns grow into toddlers and meeting the participant’s friendly dogs has been a highlight too.

We have collected a huge number of samples and health questionnaire data, the next exciting phase is to test and analyse these.

This research will provide an invaluable resource to study the importance of the early life microbiome.

The data from the PEARL study will be critical for identifying and developing new therapies and health- associated practices to improve health, both in the short- term and across the life course.”

• Find out about our current human studies and how you can take part in research