• Question: I love science and i'd love to know what it is like working in a lab [my favourite subjects are also science and history i love the tudors]!

    Asked by Mimi to Bex on 13 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Rebecca Thompson

      Rebecca Thompson answered on 13 Jun 2016:


      You clearly have excellent taste Mimi 😀 I’m really glad to hear you love science!

      Working in a lab is a really variable experience depending what area of research you are in, and where you work. I’ve worked in a few different labs now, and depending what research you are doing has a massive impact on the sorts of experiments you do, and how flexible your day is.

      The first lab I worked in was a biochemistry lab in Cardiff University, during my undergraduate degree, where I spent 3 months engineering a protein called green fluorescent protein to light up in different colours. The aim of this was to make new tools for researchers. In this project, I was using bacteria (e.coli) to make proteins for me by introducing the DNA instructions into the bacteria. I loved this project, it completely hooked me on being in the lab!

      When I moved to Leeds for my PhD, I started working on human cells, which I found fascinating. Studying the response of cells when you treat them in different ways was really fun. Around this time I also started working with electron microscopes, which took me out of the laboratory, and meant I was working more sat in a normal room on an electron microscope, or at my computer processing data. In my job now I do a mixture of working in the ‘proper lab’, making samples to look at in the microscope, and imaging and processing data.

      In terms of combining science and history, I’ve always thought anthropology would be a cool job, using both history and science to describe how humans lived/live!

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