From human milk to flying yoga: a PhD journey

Imagine four academics in a room - a mathematician, an Eastern ethicist, an organic chemist, and a clinical nutritional researcher - and you have Clara Han’s family (dad, mum, older sister and Clara herself) when they sit round the dinner table. 

Do the sparks – or the formulae – fly? 

Not at all, laughs the youngest daughter (and latest PhD recipient) in the clan. “We’re just like any other family when we’re together.”

This month Clara’s proud parents will come to New Zealand from their native Korea to watch her graduate - again. Having arrived in Auckland to study at the age of 14, already settled on science as a likely career, Clara has completed school, undergraduate, masters and now a PhD.

“I started in biomedical science," Clara says. "Back then I didn't know it was very broad - from immunology and cancer to genomics. But out of all the topics, I was most interested in nutrition; in the fact that what you eat can influence your health.”

Clara’s PhD thesis, ‘Maternal nutrition supplementation during preconception and pregnancy and human milk composition’ is part of the 1700-participant international, randomised clinical trial known as NiPPeR (Nutritional Intervention Preconception and during Pregnancy to maintain healthy glucosE levels and offspRing health). The study, involving researchers in Aotearoa, Singapore and the UK, started in 2015.

Clara’s part of the study involved looking at what happened to the nutritional composition of human milk when mothers were given additional nutritional supplements (zinc, vitamins D, B2, B6 and B12, probiotics and myo-inositol) before their babies were born – rather than while they were actually breastfeeding.

“The goal of NiPPeR is to optimise infants' nutritional status. Even though the mums stopped taking the supplement when the baby was born, some nutrients can be stored in the mother’s body – for example zinc is stored in bones and vitamin D in fat tissues.

“The concentration of those nutrients in human milk increased in the intervention group, as compared with the control group, even though they were taken before lactation started.”

Research into the impact of their mum’s nutrition on children in the study is still ongoing; Clara is helping with the 6-7-year follow-up of NiPPeR children, particularly in terms of neuro-developmental outcomes. 

She’s also continuing to examine the association between maternal genetics and human milk oligosaccharides, or HMOs, which are a complex mixture of carbohydrates – and the third most plentiful component of human milk.

Clara has six research papers either published or soon to be so, says Professor Wayne Cutfield, one of Clara’s PhD supervisors. He calls her “an outstanding undergraduate student who has gone on to become an outstanding PhD student”. 

“She has led pioneering work on the composition of human milk and how supplements taken in pregnancy can positively influence human milk composition. Her work on human milk oligosaccharides, which are crucial to nourishing and supporting the infant gut microbiome, is completely novel.”

Clara says doing her PhD at Liggins has provided a great start for the next move in her career, which she hopes to be in the bigger research pool in the US. 

“Liggins is seen internationally as far away but powerful,” she says. “It provides good opportunities, guidance and training for those who want to do high impactful research.” 

Liggins has also provided her with a field she’s keen to explore further.

“There aren’t a lot of research institutes that focus on pregnancy and early life health, so I feel my experience here has helped me deepen my understanding of how important early life health is. There is a lot of evidence it has long-term health implications into adulthood."

While she waits for news of her next stage, Clara has found herself another passion – flying yoga. Sometimes called aerial yoga, it involves performing traditional yoga or pilates exercises while suspended fully or partly by (or sometimes in) a sort of silk hammock.

“These days I’m doing it two or three times a week.”

Now there’s something for those family dinner conversations!