• Question: what is your job? and what does it involve

    Asked by kingie to MarkF on 13 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Mark Fogg

      Mark Fogg answered on 13 Jun 2010:

      I’ll try to give you a summary, it’s not that tedious so keep awake if you can 😉

      I’m a university Research Fellow, meaning I don’t give lectures and, on a day-to-day basis, spend virtually all my time in the lab or at the computer. I investigate proteins (the products of genes) from disease causing (pathogenic) bacteria, including Anthrax, MRSA and Campylobacter, and some of their more benign relatives. I want find out how the proteins work, what controls them and what they do in the bug. The specific aims are to expand scientific knowledge and combat bacterial disease, by finding medicines that target proteins and kill the bacteria. Alternatively, in my lab we also determine if particular proteins can help make something useful for us, like other medicines, better washing powder, food and increasingly, Biofuels.

      Asleep Yet??

      Here’s the job description, what I’m expected to do

      1. Think about questions that need an answer
      2. Devise and carry out experiments to answer the questions
      3. Write research papers and reports for publication, detailing the results and how we got them
      4. Write funding applications to get research money so we can answer more questions
      5. Supervise the lab work of PhD and other project students
      6. Get out and about by attending national and international scientific meetings and conferences
      7. Talk to other scientists in the field
      8. Work as part of a great team, all with different specialties
      9. Increasingly, help the public understand the value of the research

      The practical work

      1. Grow bacteria
      2. Extract and purify protein from the bacteria
      3. Determine biological properties of the protein
      4. Grow crystals of the protein
      5. Determine the 3D structure of proteins using X-ray crystallography, a synchrotron (particle accelerator) and some pretty powerful computing.
      6. Find a way to inhibit the protein and kill the bug, without killing us!

      Hope that’s useful, if you want more detail just ask and I can bore you some more. 😉

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