What sorts of things do you do in your work?

Question: What sorts of things do you do in your work?

Asked by kierakieraxd to Alexandra, Dean, Jess, Luisa, Sian on 17 Jun 2010 in Categories: Your Research.
- Sian Foch-Gatrell answered on 16 Jun 2010:
  
  Lots of DNA related things 🙂
- Dean Whittaker answered on 16 Jun 2010:
  
  I do lots of things. I make samples by pouring glass at 1600 degrees from crucibles, I do some work in a glovebox (not the car type – a thing that homer simpson uses in the intro to simpsons, where you handle things that are sealed up in a box so air doesn’t touch them). I travel to conferences mostly in the UK, France and America. I do data analysis on a computer, plot things and write papers and I go to Oxford to do big neutron experiments where I have to fiddle with lots of mechanical things and make them work.
- Alexandra Kamins answered on 16 Jun 2010:
  
  Wow, a lot of things. Do you want to know what questions specifically I’m trying to answer or what I actually do with my time?
  
  As a taster, I have been doing LOTS of interviews in Ghana, asking people about their meat eating habits and how they feel about bats (disease-wise…). I’m looking to answer what kind of people would be most likely to touch bats, and thus are at the greatest risk for diseases from bats. Next step–look at human blood samples and see if they’ve gotten any of these diseases!
- Jessica Housden answered on 16 Jun 2010:
  
  I am in the design phase of my mission at the moment. So, this is things like working out how the propulsion system (all the mini rockets on board) will be designed, or if we change one part of the design what will the impacts be and will we need to do analysis on another part. On a day to day basis, it is some analysis, and lots of discussion. Problem solving.
  However, for a bigger picture part it is thinking long term about a project and how we can start with a very basic design and end up with something very complicated.
  I do use different computer programmes and also justify our design in documents.
  Once our project is started in the build phase then Ii will be able to see our design become a proper spacecraft which I can’t wait for!
- Luisa Ostertag answered on 17 Jun 2010:
  
  Writing: emails, assays, articles, protocols
  Reading: emails and articles mainly, sometimes books
  Lab work: taking blood and do some tests with it to look at platelet function, isolate platelets from blood and see what’s inside them, extract compounds from plasma and urine and analyse the extracts with fancy machines (mass spectrometry, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy)
  Human studies: I had a study ongoing last year where I gave different types of chocolate to people and took blood and urine samples before and at certain time points after they had eaten the chocolate. Blood and urine were analysed as described above. But for this study I also had to write a protocol, which had to be approved by an ethics committee (You can’t just go and feed something to people and take their blood without ethical approval.). Then I had to recruit volunteers for the study (I designed a flyer and distributed that all over the campus and I advertised the study on the internet.). I had to discuss the procedures with the volunteers and do some initial tests with them. Well, and in the end they would come in for the chocolate …
  Talks/ posters: I have to prepare talks or posters to present my work at scientific meetings or conferences.

Question: What sorts of things do you do in your work?

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