Meet the scientists!

I work for the University of Dundee on a grant funded by a drug company based in Paris. New chemical structures are made at a site in Budapest and sent to me for initial testing. Many of the chemicals are thought to have memory enhancing properties and therefore I look at the effect of the chemicals in a laboratory model of learning and memory. If the chemical is successful in the model it then goes on to being examined in behavioural tests. Chemicals which promote learning and memory may be used in the treatment of conditions such as Alzheimers disease, which affects more than 400,000 people in the UK.

I usually arrive in work between 9 – 9:30am and spend the first hour and a half preparing solutions and other material which I will need for my experiments. I have a coffee break around 11am and then read a couple of journals or do some analysis of my results from the previous day. About 12pm I start my experiment, each one takes an hour and a half to two hours so I do either 2 or 3 experiments a day. I have lunch about 12:30pm and another coffee break in the afternoon. On Thursday afternoons there is often a seminar at 4pm which is given by a visiting scientist which I attend if it is relevant to my work – or just sounds interesting to me. There are 5 other people who work in the same laboratory as myself – all working on different projects – so there is a lot of chatting (most of it not on science). Most days are quite similar but I enjoy being at work and it is really exciting when a new chemical works in the model of learning and memory.