• Question: why did you choose this subject ?

    Asked by allanax to Barbara, Matt, Ravinder, Sophie, Tristan on 6 Mar 2015. This question was also asked by Kia.
    • Photo: Matthew Moore

      Matthew Moore answered on 6 Mar 2015:

      I chose to do Biology at A-level because I wanted to do medical research; I wanted to learn new things about biology and for it to potentially help people. During that time I studied a module in genetics and evolution and was really excited about the idea that the very cause of disease can be determined by genetics and particularly, understood using evolution.

      So I changed my university applications from Biology to Genetics, which covered all sorts: organic chemistry of the DNA molecule, how DNA makes proteins, how genes can cause disease and how DNA and organisms can evolve.

      In my final year I did a computational project because I was most interested in quantitative approaches to better understanding genetics. For this I looked at the human genome and what clues the repetition of fragments could provide about its evolution and whether the genetic code could be considered a conventional language, according to information theories.

      From there I did a masters in bioinformatics, during which time I researched the genetics of bacteria that cause disease in cystic fibrosis (Burkholderia) at that time, before continuing this with Pseudomonas for a PhD! Working on bacteria I get to work on genetics, evolution and will hopefully help stop disease caused by them.

      Organisms are effectively systems that are controlled by their genes! It has always been that which most excited me about Biology and with the current technologies more and more genetic data is being produced to work with! 🙂

    • Photo: Barbara Shih

      Barbara Shih answered on 7 Mar 2015:

      I wanted to contribute to research in human health and medicine, however little the contribution may be; I thought this meant that I needed to study biology. My supervisor (during high school summer placement) advised me that I should do math if I was good at it, which I completely disregarded because I could not see how studying maths would help me achieving my goal. It is only after a few years of working and looking at job specifications that I learnt that “biologists” aren’t the only ones they’re looking to hire in medical research- often they ask for physicist, mathematician and computer scientists. If anything, it was probably a bad idea for me to do biology as I was not great at memorising new words. That being said, I really enjoyed my career and have gained valuable experience from it!

    • Photo: Sophie Robinson

      Sophie Robinson answered on 10 Mar 2015:

      I chose biology as I always found it fascinating to be able to study life itself. I enjoyed biology at school and have pursued it ever since. Science is a good subject to study for A-level and university as it can open many doors for you in many different types of careers as well as being very interesting to learn about.

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