• Question: How did you start researching what you are?

    Asked by anon-243414 to Pan-ngum, Natalia, Mick, Manjit, Filipe, Bruce on 13 Mar 2020.
    • Photo: Michael Schubert

      Michael Schubert answered on 13 Mar 2020:

      I didn’t know that science writers existed at all when I was young! I knew that I loved science and writing, but I thought I had to choose between them. I chose science and started studying the natural world – the human body, animals, dinosaurs, rocks, plants, everything I could think of. I kept on writing for fun, though, so when I got the chance to write about science for the rest of my life, it was like a dream come true!

    • Photo: Natalia Brodaczewska

      Natalia Brodaczewska answered on 13 Mar 2020:

      The research that I worked on during my internships and the PhD project was much more chemistry focused. I still studied the molecules within our body and how they work but I was concentrating more on how proteins work and how we can make new drugs to stop some diseases like cancer. But later on I started to feel that I would like to work in applied science – rather than researching abstract topics, I wanted to do tests that can give us some immediate results and help people in a more direct way. So I became interested in becoming a clinical scientist which is someone who does the testing for patients to find out if they’re ill and what kind of disease they have. Clinical scientists are also involved in many projects, like introducing new tests into the NHS and some research work based on the results that we get from our patients. It’s a very interesting area of science and I was especially interested in genetics of cancer so this is how I got into my job.

Comments

  • Photo: Chris

    Chris commented on :

    That’s a good question. The honest answer is that a friend and colleague suggested it! Since then (quite a few years ago), we’ve been working together with lots of other people researching the same topic: How particles called quarks behave when the temperature is incredibly high – around a trillion Celsius or more. Because quarks make up protons and neutrons and therefore the core of all atoms, they are quite important! These incredible temperatures occurred in the first fraction of a second after the Big Bang when the Universe was a lot hotter and denser than it is now. So this research is important to understand how the Universe evolved from just after it started.