Julie Williams: Science in the public sphere

Chris Smith and Julie Williams discuss science's growing role in politics...

Chris - The thing that strikes me is that, while all this was going on in your life, in the middle of it, you suddenly depart and go into politics and you become government Chief Scientific Advisor for Wales, second person to do that job. Wasn't that the wrong time to go into science policy? Or was it?

Julie - Well, I'd just got some funding to do a big collection of early onset dementia so I knew I couldn't do a lot of the science for about three or four years until we had the sample. I wondered why we weren't doing so well in Wales with science so I thought, yes, I'll have a go, see if I can make a difference. I was lucky enough to be appointed and the First Minister said to me, 'I want you to look at why we aren't actually creating as many good scientific successes and bringing in the funding for science as you would expect from our population. Go away and have a look at that.' That's what I did, and what I found is that we didn't have enough scientists. It wasn't that the scientists were not good, they were actually punching above their weight, but we didn't have enough of them. So what I did was get some European structural money, and we were able to put about 50 to 60 million into bringing in scientific fellows and groups of scientists to come and address some of the major issues. A lot of them are still there in Wales I'm pleased to say.

Chris - How did you identify, though, that the problem was you just didn't have enough scientists? It's easy to say that, but how did you attack the problem of why Wales is lagging a bit and where the actual problem lay?

Julie - Well, we counted the number of scientists that were working in the various areas, mainly in universities. We don't have a lot of centres or institutes in Wales, and it was obvious that we were low, mainly in the more expensive areas of medical science, computing, engineering. That was the issue. That's what brings a lot of the funding into areas from those research councils and that was the problem. The way to solve it is to bring in some good scientists that could build on the strengths that we had, but produce the numbers.

Chris - Effectively be a nucleus then A nidus around which, once you've got momentum, there's embodied momentum there and money begets money.

Julie - Exactly, and strength begets strengths. This was built around the strengths that we had. We attracted some really fantastic fellows who wanted to come and work with individuals already in Wales. Also, we brought in whole groups of individuals working in certain areas and that is working. But, I must say, I would hope that that would continue on, but we need a bit more money put into Welsh science from the Welsh government, actually,

Chris - You did that for four years. Had you had enough by then or did you think, 'Right, I've done what I wanted to do.' Because as a good friend once said to me, you're best in the job in the first couple of years because after that the problem's become your friends. But what she was getting at is that you come in with a completely blank sheet, no biassed opinions, this is what I think I want to do. Is that what happened to you or did you think, 'No, I need to get back to Alzheimer's.'

Julie - Well, I think it was more the latter because, at that time, the medical research council and research charities got together and decided to put a lot more money into dementia research. I applied to host one of these centres and was lucky enough to get it. That's why I went back. So you need to invest in research to get the results and this was a great opportunity.

Chris - And your present role as the director of your institution, where does that put you? Does that put you at the lab bench or does that mainly put you in your strategic role where you can fall back on perhaps some of that politics and policy experience you had, to then guide?

Julie - I think more of the latter. I think they would ban me from the lab at the moment. That's my role, is to look at science in an overarching way, to bring people together to work more productively, to bring more funding in, but also to try and influence those that can make those decisions. That's probably what I'll do a little bit more of in the next few years.

Chris - Alzheimer's is a terrifying prospect, though, in terms of the risk to the world population. We're an ageing population, more people are making it to the sort of age where they may get Alzheimer's, so far we've dwelled really heavily on the genetics that underpin this, the mechanisms of the disease, and therefore the risk factors. We haven't talked about what the interventions might look like. Is that something that you have your eye on? Now, we're in a position where we can tell people what they're going to get wrong with them, but their next question is going to be, what do I do about it?

Julie - This is what the centre in Cardiff is focused on. So we work on Alzheimer's, Huntington's disease and Parkinson's disease. We are taking the genetic information on now to understand the disease mechanisms. One of those that I haven't mentioned is the complement system, which is about inflammation in the brain. And that is is implicated by a number of the genes that we have found. We're confident that maybe within the next five to seven years, if we can get these complement drugs into the brain, we will have some therapies there because these are already used for other diseases.

Chris - So that's Alzheimer's. What about the other diseases?

Julie - I think there are amazing things that Vincent Dion in my group is doing with Huntington's, using genetic therapies. You have biological scissors, this CRISPR technology, that can be put into each cell in the brain and reduce down this region of the Huntington gene. If you have repeats in this gene, if you have over 30 repeats, you get Huntington's disease. If you have less, you don't. What Vincent is doing is cutting that area down so that it becomes less than 30. And it's working, it's working in cells, it's working in in animal models. If that works, then that would cure Huntington's disease in a one-off treatment. So there are amazing things going on and I think genetic therapies in a different form can also be used for these more common diseases, and that's something that we are working on also.

Chris - So your hopes for the next five years?

Julie - I think we'll have a much greater understanding of the true complexity of this common disease and we will have some therapies that are, if not in the clinic, close to the clinic.

Chris - And how about a reflection on politics, policy, that kind of thing, having dabbled in that space. Any particular things you think, in retrospect, I wish I'd done that or I'm going to lobby for my successor to do?

Julie - It's a difficult thing. Getting science into politics, we need more of it. We also need to appreciate that many of the ministers and politicians that work in this area don't understand science and we need to make them feel comfortable about asking the stupid question because that's important. We need to support as well as advise I think, in the short term, until we can get more science understanding into government. Science covers every bit of progress probably that's going to come in the next 20 or 30 years. We really need to get to grips with it.

Chris - Tomorrow's World did a good job on you, didn't it?

Julie - Well, my father did probably as well.

Chris - I used to love that programme and I think nowadays we're deluged in science news, all news, but science news especially. Very accessible. But it was the go-to thing, wasn't it? It was a midweek thing that gave you a glimpse into the future, that programme.

Julie - It was and I think we need more science on television and radio and we need to try and understand it at a level that people can relate to because it's exciting. It's what the future will be about and I think people will be interested in it.