November 2022
Science Beyond the Textbook
A Day in the Life of a PhD student
Deannah Blackley
Hi, I’m Deannah, a second year PhD student at Warwick Medical School. A PhD is a research degree where you are trying to answer a question no one else has asked before! I work with fruit flies, the kind you find around your fruit bowl towards the end of summer. I am particularly interested in how the fly kidney develops in the fly egg.
This could help us understand how our own kidneys develop!
I start my day by collecting flies from my ongoing crosses. Crossing flies means I get to make new types of flies, called fly lines, with different properties. To cross the flies, I collect males and females separately, to avoid them mating, then put together the males and females I want to mate at the end of the week. I’m currently trying to create a fly line in which I can see two different cell types in two different colours. After collecting my new flies, I go onto tend to my fly cages. I use fly cages to help me collect fly eggs. At the bottom of the cage, I have special food, in a dish, that has apple juice and yeast to encourage the female flies to lay lots of eggs. I would usually change this food a couple of times a day to make sure the flies never go hungry.
Next, I go through my emails then update my electronic lab book where I keep notes of all of my experiments, talking about how I did the experiment and anything I observed while doing the experiments. This is extremely helpful when something goes wrong as I can compare my notes to see if I did anything differently. After that, I take my lunch break and have a catch up with some friends before attending my weekly seminar. The seminar is usually a good chance to see how everyone else is doing and what research they’re working on.
I then head down to the basement of the lab to work on the microscope for a few hours to look at my fly eggs. I use confocal microscopy which is a special form of microscopy using lasers. This allows me to look deeply into the fly eggs which is super useful as the eggs are 0.2 mm thick which is pretty big for a microscopy sample! I later analyse the images I take in detail by looking at the shape and position of the different cells. Finally, I go back up to my floor and collect more flies for crosses before heading home for the day!
Scientist Spotlight
Professor Nick Waterfield
Professor Waterfield works at the University of Warwick, part of the Microbiology and Infection research sector. This means he works in a place studying nasty germs that make us ill! He supervises a team of PhD researchers, teaches, and even has his own spin-out company. We asked him a few questions about how he got into science!
What do you research?
Myself and my team of excellent students and colleagues work on bacteria, germs that make us sick. I look at how these bacteria infect insects, and how they can evolve to infect people. Many very nasty human bacteria were first found in the insect world, such as plague and anthrax.
What did you study at university?
I did my degree at Bath University (great uni and lovely city) in what was called Applied Molecular Biology, looking at how tiny machinery in our cells works. I spent 6 months every other year working at a placement, so no summer holidays for me! The first placement was for a cosmetics company, testing for contamination, the second looked at images of body tissue samples, and the final placement took place at the Babraham institute in Cambridge. Here my supervisor extracted a blood sample from me which made me pass out as he took it a bit too quickly!
Was there someone that inspired you to work in science?
I found my biology teacher at school very inspiring, he made me want to keep pushing to understand. One of my old students became a maths teacher, I’m proud to have had a small influence in his progression to such a valuable profession. What really grabbed me though was using my great grandfather’s old brass microscope to look at the wee beasts in our pond water, my dad also helped me make a flower press which I will always remember.
What motivates you to continue working science?
Simple to answer – curiosity and a desire to “make a difference”. Have you got any advice for someone interested in science and wanting to learn a bit more? Do it, the future needs people like you. Read the New Scientist or BBC science page, it’s quite good!
Competition Time!
Show off your artistic skills by sending us your most creative drawing of a fly or other bug! Go all out and the student with the best submission will receive a £50 voucher!
Student submissions must be made by teachers.
Deadline for submissions is 30/01/23.
Upload your submission here: Submission Form