Profile

At school I really enjoyed science and so I chose to do separate sciences at GCSE.  I wanted to carry on with Biology and potentially do science at university so I did Biology, Chemistry, Maths and also German and General Studies at A level.

I did my undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences , which meant that I did a wide range of subjects and learnt about things from molecules that send messages in plants to what happens when a virus infects a cell.  In my last year, I specialised in Biochemistry looking at subjests such as cancer and control of genes.

In my final year and then during my masters I did two researh projects in labs.  The first looked at the way a particular group of genes were regulated.  The second looked at the genome of the virus Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).  This started my interest in viruses.

After a short break, I started my PhD working on one of the proteins in HIV.  After 3 years in Cambridge, I then moved to London to work in Kate Bishop’s lab  at the MRC National Institute for Medical Research where I am a “postdoc”.  In my time here I have looked at a new virus linked to human disease , prostate cancer and I’m now looking at a human protein that was just found to inhibit HIV in some cells.

As well as my research I also organise activities for other postdocs in my institute and try to explain our research to school children and other interested people.

Outside of work I love comedy, music and I am very busy at the moment as I am getting married on Saturday – eek!

My normal day usually involves some of this

looking after my cells
experiments
keeping a record of my results
trying to figure out what the results of my experiments mean
using the results to plan the next experiment!
asking people for help
helping other people

And sometimes:

writing presentations to show my data to other scientists
putting my results together to publish in a journal (scientific magasine)
helping journals decide what data to publish
having meetings to organise events at my institute
teaching students or visitors
going to seminars or days out to network with other scientists

and occasionally:

going to scientific conferences in the UK or abroad to talk about our work
finding out how decisions about science are made by the government
Talking to schools about the science we do at the institute