Making A Scientist

This week, my guest is Dr Mick Jones, who is a Reader in Molecular Medicine at Imperial College London. Mick spent his career working in Genome Analysis, and was one of the early researchers in DNA sequencing, Cloning and Protein Chemistry.

Mick’s career has been fascinating - he had the opportunity to work in 2 separate groups where the group leaders subsequently went on to win Nobel prizes, however he stayed true to himself and followed the work that he was really passionate about. He later rubbed shoulders with many other Nobel prize winning scientists, including Fred Sanger and Aaron Klug.

This is one of the most deeply honest and thorough interviews from one of the most brilliant and humble researchers I know.

Mick gives a whole load of incredible advice and discusses the various decision he made during his career, including about when he moved to Denmark for couple of years. All that money spent on Danish lessons and he still can’t speak the language! He tells the story much better - looking forward to sharing this episode with you all!

This week, my guest is Dr Faith Uwadiae who is a Post-Doctoral Immunologist at The Francis Crick Institute. Faith’s work investigates the mechanisms that link a rare cancer called Burkitt’s Lymphoma with Malaria.

Hear all about Faith’s unconventional path to #PhD, her outreach work, her work on diversity in #STEM and becoming an amateur brewer during lockdown!

This was an incredibly enjoyable conversation for me - I wish I could have heard Faith’s advice a lot sooner in my PhD! Hopefully you will take something really useful away from this podcast!

This week my guest is Dr Matthew Walker, who is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the centre for cellular microenvironment at the University of Glasgow.

In this episode, hear all about Mechanobiology. This includes HOW cells are sensitive, what this actually means and why cell sensitivity is important within the different organs and tissues in our body. Matt gives an excellent overview the latest tools and technologies that are used to research mechanobiology. He also recounts his path from his Barnsley beginnings up until present, providing insight as to the choices that he needed to make.

This week, my guest is Dr John Tregoning who is a Reader (associate professor) in Respiratory Infections in the Department of Infectious Disease at Imperial College London.

In this episode, hear all about RNA vaccines, what they are, how work in the body, how they are being used to combat covid and how this technology can be leveraged in future to tackle other major global health problems.

John is a scientist I really admire. He is very focused on the idea of making academia more accessible and fair and provides regular honest views and opinions on this through his science blog, which I would strongly encourage you to check out, and is also a regular columnist for nature careers.

This week, my guest is Professor Sian Harding, who is a Professor of Cardiac Pharmacology at the NHLI, Imperial College London.

She is the Director of the BHF Cardiovascular Regenerative Medicine Centre and is also Campus Director, Hammersmith/White City. She is also one of the worlds leading experts on Broken Heart Syndrome.


Sian is London born and bred and gives a deeply honest account of her experiences, which is very humbling from a scientist at the top of her field.

In this episode, hear Sian and I discuss Broken Heart syndrome, Hearts out of sync and Artificial Hearts.

Sian tells us all about her path to professor, discusses what it is like as a working parent and highlights how interfacing with the arts has been influential in her creative thinking process.

Our very first episode explores the life of Dr Tom McKinnon, Senior Lecturer in Immunology and Inflammation at Imperial College London.

Tom shares some brilliant, hilarious and thoughtful stories about his journey in science, dating right back from his schooldays to provide an inside view on the decision processes he made at each stage of his career. A truly fascinating conversation!