• Question: why did you choose to study science?

    Asked by danturner711 to Darren, Gavin, Liz, Panos, Vijay on 4 Dec 2011.
    • Photo: Liz Murchison

      Liz Murchison answered on 2 Dec 2011:

      I was interested in wildlife and conservation at school and I also really enjoyed genetics. Then I heard about the human genome project and how it could help us to understand genetics. So I ended up studying the genomes of wildlife and wildlife cancers.

    • Photo: Vijay Yadav

      Vijay Yadav answered on 2 Dec 2011:

      To understand how my body parts function, and to learn new things.

    • Photo: Panos Deloukas

      Panos Deloukas answered on 2 Dec 2011:

      I started as a chemist and the main drive was to understand how molecules interact and give rise to what we see around us

    • Photo: Darren Logan

      Darren Logan answered on 2 Dec 2011:

      I was always fascinated by the natural world when I was young and did pretty well in science in school, so decided to study biochemistry at University. It turned out that I wasn’t that great at biochemistry, but at University I read a famous book called The Selfish Gene and from that day onwards I knew I wanted to study genes.

    • Photo: Gavin Wright

      Gavin Wright answered on 4 Dec 2011:

      I’ve always loved nature and the natural world. When I was at school, I was always spending my free time (if not playing cricket) at my local pond catching frogs and fish – I even caught a mole and a snake once so I could have a closer look! I enjoyed (and still do) watching David Attenborough on the TV. I found that my sense of wonder at living animals and plants only increased as I learnt about them and how they work at school and university and so this is why I chose to study biochemistry.
      In terms of a job, I don’t think I’ve ever seriously considered anything other than being a scientist. I still remember the first day in a laboratory and couldn’t believe you could actually get paid for thinking up ideas to investigate the unknown and then actually doing them in the lab. It was such great fun seeing things for the first time – you really are an explorer. At this point in my life I’d also tried doing a few summer jobs to earn money and they were so boring in comparison.
      As a scientist I also like the idea that you’re making a difference to the world and contributing something useful.

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