A scientist called Erica

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Month: June 2017

Mental Health PhD

CBT progress- PhD chilling out (finally!)

Posted on June 23, 2017 by A Scientist called Erica

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#10yearchallenge Back in 2019 I had been having a pretty rubbish year! I was repeating my second year of A-levels having failed to get into Uni the previous year. I was panicking trying to learn the tricks to pass my A-level exams and get into Uni and do optometry! 👉 swipe right... 10 years on... I have gone down a route I never would have believed. In the autumn of 2009 I got into Lancaster to do Biochemistry, and since then I have stuck around in science to do a Masters and PhD and I am now a PostDoc in plant science! I have come a long long way in 10 years. My 19 year old self would never have thought any of this was possible! • • • • • #10yearchallenge #thenandnow #science #scientistsofinstagram #womeninSTEMM

My first foray into wheat involved threshing, which is where you loosen and seperate the grains from the husks and straw. This can be quite time consuming, but its also really relaxing! You can do this process manually like I am, or in a more automated process. I am manually threshing the wheat as my samples are precious and I want to collect all the wheat grains- using more automated processes are faster but can cause loss of materials. I am excited to start my next experiments on these little grains of goodness! • • • • • • #biology #plantsci #plantbiology #instascience #postdoclife #postgrad #science #scicomm #lablife #researcher

It's just like magic 💫 The first picture shows my western blot membrane. Yesterday I ran a load of proteins on a SDS gel, before transferring the marker (which you can see) and all the proteins (which you can't) onto a membrane. I then incubated the membrane with a primary antibody, which sticks to my protein of interest, before incubating with a secondary antibody-which attaches to the primary. My secondary antibody is a HRP conjugate meaning it is bound to horse radish peroxidase. When hydrogen peroxide is added the HRP enzyme is oxidised. This catalyses the conversion of a chemiluminescence substrate- which we can see at a certain wave length of light, revealing bands of protein of interest! The bad thing is you never know if the blot has worked or not until you expose it... it can be a nervous few minutes waiting to see if your blot develops bands or not! But when it works, it's magic! • • • • • • #instascience #lablife #biology #postdoc #plantsci #postgrad #science #scicomm

Hi everyone and happy new year! I wanted to give a exciting life update 📣and thought I would tie it in to a re-introduction of myself 😊 For anyone new here my name is Erica 🖐, and as of tomorrow I will be a PostDoc @johninnescentre 😁 In my PhD I engineered 🍅 to produce high levels of medicinal compounds. I then analysed the biological activity of these compounds on human skin. Before my PhD I had never done 🌱 science before (my degree was in Biochemistry, and my masters in molecular microbiology!). But during my 4 years I absolutely fell in 💕 with plant science. (There is so much more to it than the photosynthesis, xylems amd phloems you get taught about in school!). I knew I wanted to continue in plant sci, and after finishing my PhD I was fortunate enough to get a job continuing the research of another Post-Doc- looking at starch in 🥔- 👀 at the differences brought about by mutations in key starch regulation genes. Now that project is nearly over, but I am not leaving the 🌍 of starch! My new project will be unravelling the mystery of of starch synthesis!! Prepare for the starch-based sciency goodness coming your way in 2019! If you had asked me where I was going to be now- 5 years ago, I would never have said this. I have been so lucky 💖 Finally, my message to you is to never give up. If you love science then do science. If I had taken the route my school teachers had said... quite simply I wouldn't be here now. • • • • • • • • #plantsci #plantbiology #biology #researchlife #postdoc #postgrad #instascience #science #scientist #lifeupdate #lovescience #scicomm #scientistsofinstagram #scicommunity

Happy New Year! 🎆 A lot has happened in 2018- and most of it in the last 3 months! 📍PhD done 📍Viva Passed 📍Got a PostDoc! I am super excited to be continuing my 🌱science adventures in the realm of Starch in 2019! In the meantime I will be bringing in the new year in a chilled fashion with the family and enjoying the rest of my holiday before diving in to work next week! Hope you all have lovely new years! • • • • #byebye2018 #hello2019 #newyearseve #womeninscience #scicomm #sciblogger #scientistsofinstagram #scientist #researchlife

Winter walks at Waddeson Manor with the fam. 👨‍👩‍👧‍👧🎄 #winterlights #wintertime #walkinginawinterwonderland #itsthemostwonderfultimeoftheyear

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#10yearchallenge Back in 2019 I had been having a pretty rubbish year! I was repeating my second year of A-levels having failed to get into Uni the previous year. I was panicking trying to learn the tricks to pass my A-level exams and get into Uni and do optometry! 👉 swipe right... 10 years on... I have gone down a route I never would have believed. In the autumn of 2009 I got into Lancaster to do Biochemistry, and since then I have stuck around in science to do a Masters and PhD and I am now a PostDoc in plant science! I have come a long long way in 10 years. My 19 year old self would never have thought any of this was possible! • • • • • #10yearchallenge #thenandnow #science #scientistsofinstagram #womeninSTEMM

My first foray into wheat involved threshing, which is where you loosen and seperate the grains from the husks and straw. This can be quite time consuming, but its also really relaxing! You can do this process manually like I am, or in a more automated process. I am manually threshing the wheat as my samples are precious and I want to collect all the wheat grains- using more automated processes are faster but can cause loss of materials. I am excited to start my next experiments on these little grains of goodness! • • • • • • #biology #plantsci #plantbiology #instascience #postdoclife #postgrad #science #scicomm #lablife #researcher

It's just like magic 💫 The first picture shows my western blot membrane. Yesterday I ran a load of proteins on a SDS gel, before transferring the marker (which you can see) and all the proteins (which you can't) onto a membrane. I then incubated the membrane with a primary antibody, which sticks to my protein of interest, before incubating with a secondary antibody-which attaches to the primary. My secondary antibody is a HRP conjugate meaning it is bound to horse radish peroxidase. When hydrogen peroxide is added the HRP enzyme is oxidised. This catalyses the conversion of a chemiluminescence substrate- which we can see at a certain wave length of light, revealing bands of protein of interest! The bad thing is you never know if the blot has worked or not until you expose it... it can be a nervous few minutes waiting to see if your blot develops bands or not! But when it works, it's magic! • • • • • • #instascience #lablife #biology #postdoc #plantsci #postgrad #science #scicomm

Hi everyone and happy new year! I wanted to give a exciting life update 📣and thought I would tie it in to a re-introduction of myself 😊 For anyone new here my name is Erica 🖐, and as of tomorrow I will be a PostDoc @johninnescentre 😁 In my PhD I engineered 🍅 to produce high levels of medicinal compounds. I then analysed the biological activity of these compounds on human skin. Before my PhD I had never done 🌱 science before (my degree was in Biochemistry, and my masters in molecular microbiology!). But during my 4 years I absolutely fell in 💕 with plant science. (There is so much more to it than the photosynthesis, xylems amd phloems you get taught about in school!). I knew I wanted to continue in plant sci, and after finishing my PhD I was fortunate enough to get a job continuing the research of another Post-Doc- looking at starch in 🥔- 👀 at the differences brought about by mutations in key starch regulation genes. Now that project is nearly over, but I am not leaving the 🌍 of starch! My new project will be unravelling the mystery of of starch synthesis!! Prepare for the starch-based sciency goodness coming your way in 2019! If you had asked me where I was going to be now- 5 years ago, I would never have said this. I have been so lucky 💖 Finally, my message to you is to never give up. If you love science then do science. If I had taken the route my school teachers had said... quite simply I wouldn't be here now. • • • • • • • • #plantsci #plantbiology #biology #researchlife #postdoc #postgrad #instascience #science #scientist #lifeupdate #lovescience #scicomm #scientistsofinstagram #scicommunity

Happy New Year! 🎆 A lot has happened in 2018- and most of it in the last 3 months! 📍PhD done 📍Viva Passed 📍Got a PostDoc! I am super excited to be continuing my 🌱science adventures in the realm of Starch in 2019! In the meantime I will be bringing in the new year in a chilled fashion with the family and enjoying the rest of my holiday before diving in to work next week! Hope you all have lovely new years! • • • • #byebye2018 #hello2019 #newyearseve #womeninscience #scicomm #sciblogger #scientistsofinstagram #scientist #researchlife

Winter walks at Waddeson Manor with the fam. 👨‍👩‍👧‍👧🎄 #winterlights #wintertime #walkinginawinterwonderland #itsthemostwonderfultimeoftheyear

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