Hi all!

Just want to say a massive thank you to everyone participating in the Genes Zone. I am extremely lucky to have been voted through. I hope you had as much fun taking part in “I’m a scientist, get me out of here” as I did- I loved the questions you guys come up with!

I enjoyed a lot of the fun hypothetical questions, like whether or not it is possible to make mythical creatures. I have also learnt a lot from looking for answers to questions outside my field, especially regarding space and aliens. Many thanks to my fellow scientists in the Gene Zone – you all had brilliant insight and answers. It was amazing that you covered some of the topics that I was unfamiliar with. Last but not least, many thanks to the teachers and moderators for helping everything to run smoothly.

For the A-level students involved, here is some advice that I wish my summer placement supervisor gave me as I started to choose what subject to study at University. She advised me to take maths instead of biology, but didn’t explain why. I now understand that one can contribute to medical research in many ways, from medical physicists, computational biologists, theoretical chemists, medical illustrators and photographers to medical writers. If you want to do medical research, you don’t have to do biology at university level. For everyone else, it is great to be able to read and understand how the world around us work, even if you didn’t end up being a scientist.

I hope by taking part in “I’m a scientist, get me out of here”, you have a better understanding about the world around us and life as a scientist. I look forward to making this webcomic/illustrative blog and have already started drafting some ideas down. Hopefully I can get something up and running in a few months.

Best of luck to you all in the future!