Profile

I currently live in Nottingham with my husband but I have also lived in Essex (where I am from), France and Australia. I love to travel and recent trips have been to Malaysia, the US and Canada. In my spare time I also like to cook, practise yoga and pilates, grow veg in my allotment and go hiking – especially in the nearby Peak District.

My work as a researcher is mainly to make fluorescent molecules for proteins at the cell surface. These proteins transmit messages from outside the cell to the inside and tell the cell which processes to start or stop. You can see the fluorescent molecules bound to their target if you excite them with a laser and then examine the cells under a very powerful microscope. These molecules can be used for many different experiments. For example, you can investigate where the proteins are in the cells and also how well new non-fluorescent molecules can bind to the proteins. This helps us to investigate how the proteins work and to develop new medicines.

This photo shows test tubes containing some fluorescent molecules that I have made.

This photo shows fluorescent molecules that I have made bound to cells (red image)

My day usually starts by checking my emails in the office, then making my way to the lab where I will check my reactions that have been running overnight. I will then start new reactions and purify some compounds that I have made.

You can see a short video of a reaction that I have done here: Reaction clip

At lunchtime I sometimes go for a walk around the university campus with friends and have a coffee. The campus is very pretty and has a lake. There is a lot of wildlife to see such as squirrels and geese.

I will then return to the lab to check the reactions that I started in the morning, and if they are finished then I will purify the compounds and then analyse them to make sure that they are pure.

This photo shows a purification technique that I use to purify compounds called preparative layer chromatography. I use this technique, in addition to others, to separate mixtures of molecules that I have made in my reactions.