Eve Johnstone
This profile was originally published as part of the MRC Annual Review 06/07: People behind discovery. The review tells the stories of just a handful of MRC scientists, the work they do and the career paths they have chosen.
Assistant university principal for mental health research and development at the University of Edinburgh.
Professor Eve Johnstone’s research into schizophrenia was supported by the MRC for 34 years.
At the age of 20 I saw my first schizophrenic patient. At the time I thought psychiatry was strange and I didn’t think I’d like it. But I was bowled over and fascinated by how this disease came out of the blue and how nobody could offer me an explanation for it. In 1974 I left Glasgow, where I had studied medicine and worked my first few years in hospitals, to go to the MRC Clinical Research Centre at Northwick Park. I was to look into the finding that many of the schizophrenia patients there didn’t know how old they were.
In 1976 we were the first to show conclusively that there were actual structural deficits in the brains of schizophrenia patients. There was a new brain scanner across the other side of London that we took the patients to. When we first took pictures, these people’s brains just didn’t look right. So we did a control study which showed that there was definitely something wrong.
The importance of participants
The Edinburgh High Risk Study, an ongoing study initiated in 1994, involves people aged 16 to 22 who are at high risk of developing schizophrenia because they have at least two relatives with it. We saw many of them become ill over time. And we showed that for those who did become ill, there were slight differences in their brain scans years before they became ill and that these differences got more pronounced over time.
We couldn’t have done any of this research without the participants. We shared the results with them and their families throughout and were surprised by how warmly they receive the findings — the idea that there is something demonstrably wrong with the brains. For the mothers who agree to let their children take part, being able to see that their boy’s brain is developing differently has meaning when he starts to get ill. If you can see there’s something physically wrong, it means there’s a chance that you’ll be able to do something about it.
MRC support
For 34 years I was supported by the MRC. The organisation believed I could do these things which others felt were perhaps over-ambitious and unattainable. The continuous support has meant that one study could build upon another and it has been wonderful. After Northwick Park, my grant support began in 1989 when I was invited to come up to Edinburgh. I’ve stayed here since, first on individual grants and then programme grants. The highlights are when you get to the end of these great big projects and it has worked — it’s marvellous every time.
I carried a full clinical load as a consultant psychiatrist at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital alongside my research work. I applied for my final grant from the MRC in 2007 and retired from my position as professor of psychiatry and head of division at the University of Edinburgh in 2010. I now hold an honorary position as an assistant university principal at the University of Edinburgh and am heavily involved in fundraising and scientific strategy for the Patrick Wild Centre, a ‘centre without walls’ which brings together researchers from across the University of Edinburgh to investigate and develop treatments for autism, fragile X syndrome and intellectual disabilities. I’d tell people who are interested in a career like mine that they shouldn’t ever imagine they can’t do it. Don’t believe that people are better or more skilled than you. You have to think big and not be scared.
Updated February 2012