Meet the scientists!

I wanted to do a job I could tell my Mum about. It’s tough to work on something your friends and family can’t understand and I have always loved medicine. So I decided to do a PhD in leukaemia research and although I still do some work with leukaemia, my work is also relevant to solid tumours.

I usually start work around 8am. I like my job as I can chose what I do each day but of course the work needs to get done. I usually check e.mails on my laptop or on my iPhone in case anything needs to be dealt with urgently and then I have meetings with students (undergraduates, postgraduates) and my staff. I spend one day a week in Southampton and that’s the day I do research. We are growing cancer cells to see if we can get t cells to kill them. The lab work is varied and we use different techniques to look at how we can stimulate the T cells. 

I am organising Luton Science Fair 2012 (www.beds.ac.uk/lsf) to coincide with National Science and Engineering Week (http://www.britishscienceassociation.org/web/NSEW/) and we will be encouraging anyone who wants to, to come along. It will be held on Saturday 10th March, 12-4pm, at the University of Bedfordshire Park Square campus. We have staff from many different parts of the University who will be demonstrating how science is used in their work. The Science department will have people from biomedical, medical, biological, environmental, forensic and nutritional science. We’ll have science and dance as well as science and the media presentations,  performing arts demonstrations and  midwifery presentations, computer science will be telling us about the science of secrecy, opportunities to meet a sport scientist, tours of the psychology, electron microscopy and University TV labs and a science magic show to name a few things to see and do. So I’d use the money to print brochures to send out to local schools and higher education institutes to advertise the event, and hopefully make it a success.