Profile

Hey 🙂 I live in Nottingham but I was born in Birmingham. I moved to Nottingham when I started university and I’m now a PhD student here.

I love visiting new places and being outdoors. The great thing about science is that it can take you anywhere in the world. Whilst at university I did a work placement in The Netherlands, and last year I spent 3 months working in Australia for a cancer organisation.

Interesting fact: I started Taekwondo when I was 8 years old and I’m now a blackbelt.

I’m a PhD student investigating brain cancer. I grow different types of brain cells to see why they function the way they do. This involves recreating the brain environment to see how the cells move through different things. We look at the cells under the microscope and make some of them fluoresce bright green, just like in the picture below! We also do lots of experiments to look at the DNA of the cancer cells to see why they are different from normal cells.

I get up, get ready and head to my office. I’ll go to my computer to read my emails and check what experiments I have planned for the day. Some of my experiments  involve lots of steps and can take a whole week to complete! So it’s important I keep an up-to-date diary of what I’m planning to do each day.

Everyday I have to go to the lab and check on my brain cells to make sure they’re happy and growing. Like humans, they also need to be constantly fed, but we use a special pink liquid that contains lots of different components, including antibiotics, so that they stay nice and healthy.

I’ll then set-up my experiment which can sometimes take a couple of hours to do. Whilst my experiments are running I’ll have a lunch break and catch-up with my friends in the building. Towards the end of my day I’ll have a look at my results and analyse my data to see what interesting things have happened.