Meet the scientists!

My work: I am interested in how infants respond to vaccines because in the Gambia children get a lot of vaccines including tuberculosis, hepatitis B, polio, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, measles, yellow fever. Often young children don’t respond to them very well so we try and find out why that is. I have just completed a study that looked at the vaccine for tuberculosis that is not very effective in Africa although it is very good in places like the UK. We thought that this maybe because of what these children are exposed to in the environment that stops it from working well. Now the study has finished I have to write a scientific paper about all the work which I hope will be published so people can read it from all over the world. One of the best things about my work is that I get to go to many conferences around the world. I have been to Madagascar, South  Africa, US, Canada and Turkey in the last few years.

Outside work: I love cycling, swimming, running and traveling. My husband and I sponsor the Gambian Cycling team so they have races on a regular basis as they get no sponsorship from the country. I also love making jewelery which is great here as there are so many nice African beads.

Here is a picture of all the members of the infant immunology lab

I will tell you about a typical Monday.

8am meeting with fieldworkers out in the countryside. The fieldworkers job is to go out into the villages collect a small amount of blood from the infants that are in our studies, check their health status and then take the blood to the lab where we look at how the cells in the blood are working.

10am lab meeting to see what work everyone has to do and if there are any problems in lab

Before lunch prepare for what blood samples will be arriving at the labs that day

After lunch work with the blood samples, sometimes we have 30 samples in one day. I have to set up many different things in the lab to work with the blood. It is only a very small amount (a teaspoon) so I have to be very careful with what I do.

When I finish the lab work I look at the results on the computer.

I also check that all the lab equipment is working and sort out any problems during the day because I am the lab manager.

I also have to read my emails, read papers about other scientists work in the same field and sometimes go to meetings about other aspects of my job.

I finish about 6-8pm and then go to the gym.

As the Medical Research Council in the Gambia we like to host regular open days for the mothers and children that have participated in our studies in a town called Sukuta, however we cannot always fund these, see website http://www.mrc.gm/ for details of the previous Open Day in the MRC TAMA newsletter. The £500 would be enough to fund a day of actvivities that would review the work that has been done at the institute involving the mothers and children and help educate the local community (many who are not even literate) about basic health and science issues. These often include drama groups and exhibitions.  If I won the money I would really like it if the children involved in ‘I’m a Scientist, get me out of here’ could be involved in thinking up new ideas to communicate health and science issues to the local community here.