Profile

I work in a genomics lab which means we are interested in looking in DNA. Your DNA is in every one of your cells. It carries the instructions that tell your body how to work!

In our lab we sequence DNA to learn the genetic code (or letters). DNA is made up of 4 letters A, T, C and G. The order and combinations of these ‘letters’ help to tell scientists more about the person they are looking at, as they can decide whether this change in the instructions causes a change in your body. The reason you are different from your friend is because everyone has a slightly different DNA sequence which might mean you have blue eyes and blonde hair whilst your friend has brown eyes and brown hair!

We have special equipment that allows us to do other experiments that other research labs cannot do, so they send samples to us and we work on different projects.

Some scientists spend their whole life studying the sequence of DNA. Many illnesses and diseases are caused by changes in the DNA.

We don’t just look at the DNA from people however. We have looked at DNA from things such as strawberries, stick insects and cows!

My day mainly consists of the following:

– Following experimental protocols. A protocol is a fancy scientific word for the instructions to an experiment! You need a written protocol so that each time you do the experiment it is done exactly the same, no matter who does it. This means you can compare the results with experiments done before.

– Making up stocks of chemicals and solutions

– Cleaning 🙁

– Logging DNA samples and storing them

– Analysing data. We check that the data we send back to research groups is good; to do this we have controls inbuilt into every experiment.

– Updating computer records so we know exactly what samples are in what stage of processing.

– Maintaining equipment. We use liquid handling robots in our lab that allow us to process many samples in one go. These need to be flushed with bleach to ensure they are clean.

– Disposing of dangerous chemicals

– Updating protocols

– Talking to customers, e-mails and weekly meetings with my manager