Case studies: Postgraduate student in translational medicine: Kirsty Davies

A year in industry and a Masters degree helped Kirsty secure a PhD studentship at the University of Cambridge...

After taking my A-levels, I was fortunate to be accepted onto the University of Sheffield  biomedical science degree course.

Early in the second year I attended a careers talk about the prospects of working in the research industry and how we were able to take a year out after second year to complete a work placement at a pharmaceutical company. I was keen to do this and looked into several jobs, arranging work experience with two of the pharmaceutical companies in the UK.

I applied for a clinical research scientist placement at GlaxoSmithKline's clinical unit in Cambridge, and after an interview, I got the job. I spent a year working on human experimental medicine trials for obesity and gained experience in the implementation and conduction of a clinical trial.

The unit collaborates with the University of Cambridge  and I spent a lot of time working with professors and scientists designing trials and deciding which experimental measures to use. I also gained a wide range of skills in writing protocols and study reports, ethics applications and presentations.

This experience gave me the opportunity to develop transferable research techniques but, more importantly, allowed me to understand how a scientist thinks and how to approach and solve a scientific question. It also made me realise that I enjoyed research, but did not enjoy being in a laboratory. This may sound strange as many people believe that all research is carried out in white laboratory coats and huge science goggles, but it is not true.

After returning to university to study my final year, I was determined to undertake a Masters and PhD degree. I therefore applied to the University of Cambridge to undertake a Masters in Translational Medicine and Therapeutics as this degree allowed me to do a clinical project at GSK, Cambridge.

My project involves analysing data from a brain imaging study of obese participants and comparing this data to questionnaire data of their personality and eating behaviour. After hopefully finding some interesting results, the aim is to produce a thesis and publish a scientific paper.

My experience from my Masters, together with my year in industry and my undergraduate degree, has enabled me to obtain a PhD studentship at the University of Cambridge.

If you are thinking of doing research, or you know you would like to do a PhD, I would recommend getting lots of laboratory experience and applying for a summer or year-long research placement to get some real-life experience of what it is really like to be a research scientist.

When applying for PhDs, enthusiasm is important in the application and interview in order to obtain that studentship. This is much easier when you apply for a project you are really interested in and that you have really researched and understand.

AGCAS

Sourced by AGCAS editors

Date: 

March 2012

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