I look at the screen and smile. After an intensive six-hour lab session involving lots of careful pipetting, I’m ecstatic that the experiment I’ve spent weeks on has succeeded at last.
At the moment, I’m based in a biology research unit at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies on the planet. I’ve been on placement here for over nine months; I still can’t quite believe it some days.
Vacation Research Project
During the summer I worked alongside scientists in the Institute of Cellular Medicine in Newcastle University to complete a 8-week research project in Complement Immunology, and was paid £200 a week to do so! I produced a poster to communicate my research and defended it at the university wide Celebrating Research Scholarships & Expeditions presentation evening. I was awarded a Commendation for oral defence of the poster and also won 3rd prize at the School of Biomedical Sciences Summer placement poster presentations. Continue reading “My summer research really ‘complemented’ my degree”
Continue reading “Antibiotics from bacteria? My Year in Industry”
After a very rainy 45-minute trek into Fenham to the Campus for Ageing & Vitality, I was feeling a little lost and unsure of what to expect from my very first day of placement. Of course, that all changed once I met my supervisor, Dr Kirsty McCaleese.
Kirsty certainly did not strike me as the stereotypical white-coated mad scientist (well, at least not fully mad!). Honestly, she is one of a kind and I feel eternally grateful for each lesson she taught me, not just in on the project but for life in general. Continue reading “My Summer of Brains”
