-
Asked by smarty to Enda, Jean, Kate, Kev, Tim on 12 Nov 2012.
-
Jean Bourke answered on 12 Nov 2012:
At the moment my PhD is my job. I have to admit that I’m not entirely sure exactly where I’m going to go from here. As part of my PhD I did a bit of teaching undergraduates, initially just in labs. I found I loved it and started seeking out more teaching work that I could do while doing my PhD.
I started off as a lab demonstrator, then I started working with second year students on their broad curriculum projects (a module I now jointly run), and this year I’ve also become the Trinity Access Program chemistry tutor (www.tcd.ie/Trinity_Access/ ).
I suppose you could count all those things as jobs as well, which means I currently have 3!
My degree consisted of biology, chemistry and maths for the 1st year then I did biology and chemistry in 2nd year. Regardless of what area you are going into, in TCD, you start off in science and pick the necessary modules to go in the direction you want. You pick your course at the end of second year and begin having more specialised lectures in 3rd year as well as continuing certain basic topics. In 4th year you do a project and learn loads about your chosen area.
There are of course bits that stood out for me, we did some really interesting modules on drug design and targeting drugs to certain regions of the body. We learned how diseases worked and how ways we could try to combat them. Of course it’s now up to us to find new ways to fight disease!
-
-
Tim Downing answered on 12 Nov 2012:
I studied genetics at Trinity College in Dublin for my undergrad. We did general Biology, Chemistry and Maths and then more detailed genetics later. This gave me a good general background in genetics, and especially in my main interest, which is evolution and infection. I did a final year project on cystic fibrosis patients in Ireland, and then decide to learn more skills in a masters degree at DCU doing computers & biology (bioinformatics).
Doing this opened new doors for me in terms of my analytical abilities, and so I did a PhD at Trinity College looking at the adaptation of immune system genes in Irish and global birds. I got to go round Ireland plucking chicken feathers!
Putting these all together meant I had good skills in genetics, bioinformatics and evolution to study how DNA changes in a population. So I apply this to interesting and relevant questions, like how drug resistance arises in parasites. -
Enda O'Connell answered on 13 Nov 2012:
HI Smarty
I studied Science in UCD, which starts off as a general degree, so I took Biology, Chemistry, Maths and Computer Science in 1st Year. In 2nd year I took 3 lab based subjects Microbiology, Biochemistry and Chemistry. In 3rd and 4th year I specialised in Microbiology, which was broken into about 6 different topics like Genetics, Medical Microbiology and Industrial Microbiology (brewing, biopharmaceuticals).
In 4th year I spent 3 months working in the Public Analyst’s lab, where they tested water and food samples every day for bacterial contamination, or during a court case when somebody found something in their bag of chips that shouldn’t be there. It was like CSI but for food, but nothing quite as glamorous as that. It was great to see a real lab in action and there was a really nice bunch of people working there.
After I graduated I spent a summer in Chicago with my friends working in a restaurant (Bubba Gump’s Shrimp Restaurant) and when I came back I started my PhD in UCD. My work involved discovering which genes in a bacterium called Rhodococcus equi caused pneumonia in young horses and people with poor immune systems. R. equi is a cousin of the bug Jean works with called Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which causes TB so any discoveries we made might be applicable there too.
A PhD provides great training for a scientist as you learn lots of lab techniques, have to show you can manage a research project and get to present your work to other scientists, sometimes at international conferences. You learn a lot about Science but also about yourself.
At the end of my PhD I started my current job in NUI Galway as a Senior Technical Officer, responsible for Functional Genomics and High Throughput Screening. Basically, I work with other scientists (mostly PhD students, Postdoctoral researchers and Lecturers) on their research projects for a few months at a time, if they are interested in working with genes or want to do a drug screen with Janus the robot to find a compound which has an effect on the cells they are working on. I find the job really rewarding as I get to work on lots of different projects, usually more than one at a time, so every day brings something new.
-
Kevin Lomasney answered on 13 Nov 2012:
I began in University College Cork with a course known as biological and chemical sciences. This was basically a general science course and in first year we did everything from plant science and zoology, to physics and maths! I chose this course because in school I studied all the science subjects and I did geography also which is a science in itself I think. I found that I couldn’t decide exactly which kind of science I like best.
After my first year in college I had to make a choice which kind of science I wanted to continue studying and I chose biological sciences. So in my 2nd year I studied Biochemistry, Microbiology, Neuroscience and Physiology.
I loved all of these! So interesting! However, after my 2nd year I had to choose again between these and it was tough! But I chose biochemistry. In biochemistry I learned a lot about how the body works at the microscopic levels and beyond! I studied how DNA shapes us and how our environment and experiences can shape our DNA! It was a really fascinating degree! I studied this for the remaining two years of my degree and I graduated in 2010 with BSc (Hons) in Biochemistry!
So how did I end up working in bacteria? Well this kind of goes back to my original curiosity for all the biological sciences! In my PhD, I work with bacteria so I need to know the microbiology. However I also need to know how these bacteria work biochemically and physiologically so I can figure out what effects they are having in the bowel itself!! My work also focuses a lot on how these bacteria effect the nervous system of the gut known as the enteric nervous system. The enteric nervous system is incredible, it can work completely independently of the brain! It has so many neurons some people call it the second brain!!! This second brain is also though to communicate with our real brain, and scientists in our lab have shown that bacteria in the bowel can send signals to your brain!!
So as you can see I also need to know a good bit of neuroscience as well! So, that is why I chose this PhD, it allows me work on not just one, but all the biological sciences I was interested in before during my degree!
Comments