• Question: What was your favourite experiment in your job and do you enjoy your job?

    Asked by anon-342507 on 21 Nov 2022.
    • Photo: Katie Pickup

      Katie Pickup answered on 21 Nov 2022:

      My favourite experiment is getting my stem cells to form new cell types. The way I do it is by changing the cocktail of nutrient juice that they grow in, and I also make them grow in a 3D ball instead of growing flat on the plastic plate. This makes them form a mix of different cell types like muscle cells, brain cells, skin cells etc, and sometimes they form heart muscle cells that move together like a beating heart! Have a look on my profile for a video of that!

      I do enjoy my job because I get to do cool things like this, and also every day is different so I get to do a mix of different things which means it’s hard to get bored!

    • Photo: Ailish Tynan

      Ailish Tynan answered on 21 Nov 2022:

      My favourite experiment is when I label the cells I am growing with different fluorescent colours to see if switching on and off a specific gene changes the expression of other genes within the cell. There is a picture on my profile where I labelled one gene called CHIP in red, another called VGF in green and then stained the nucleus of all the cells in blue. I can change the activity of the CHIP gene and see how that affects the VGF gene by looking at how the fluorescence changes. It is mostly my favourite though because of all the pretty pictures I can take on the microscope!

      I do enjoy my job, some days are longer and more stressful than others but generally I love that every day is different and every day I learn something new!

    • Photo: Matthew Swift

      Matthew Swift answered on 21 Nov 2022:

      My favourite experiment is staining sciatic nerve for certain proteins, you end up with an absolutely amazing image. You can see it on my profile, the final photo 🙂

    • Photo: Charlene Kay

      Charlene Kay answered on 22 Nov 2022:

      My favourite experiment is extracting DNA and RNA from frozen breast cancer tissue. I get to use liquid nitrogen which is pretty cool (no pun intended!)

    • Photo: Sharon Madzorera

      Sharon Madzorera answered on 22 Nov 2022:

      I definitely enjoy my job, I am not sure if I have a favourite experiment. I truly enjoy all of them.

    • Photo: Charli Corcoran

      Charli Corcoran answered on 28 Nov 2022:

      It’s not really an experiment, but one of the favourite parts of my job is screening the fish embryos to check that genetic modifications have worked. We usually try to add a fluorescent protein to the gene we are modifying/inserting, so that we can monitor it. I get to check that these are working, by looking at the baby fish (usually 3 days old) under the microscopes and looking for the glowing colour, usually green or red. It reminds me of Christmas lights whenever I see them.

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