It can be hard to know what you want to do for a career when you are at school, and when it comes to STEM careers, the phrase “If you can’t see it, you can’t be it”, really does resonate.
Over the summer of 2018 and 2019 the Wellcome Sanger Institute Malaria programme opened its Lab doors to a group of A-level students, to enable them to meet and hear talks from a range of scientist from Group leaders to PhD Students, experience life working in the lab carrying out processes such as DNA extraction, PCR and Gel electrophoresis as well as dissecting mosquitoes. They were also were trained in the use of Bioinformatics tools to analyse complex data. There were also plenty of opportunities to get to know the scientists and find out about the many varied career paths there are within this area of genomics research.
The video below shows the experiences of our 2019 students and scientists.
Our Summer Placement Alumni
Isabel – 2018 Placement Student
I took part in the malaria work placement with you in summer 2018. It was a fascinating and valuable experience which has stayed with me and influenced some of the decisions I made afterwards. Everyone I got to meet was really passionate and interesting to have the opportunity to talk to. I especially appreciated learning about people’s PhD work at the Sanger.
I am about to start a biochemistry degree at Wadham college in Oxford. The placement inspired me to apply to Oxford in the first place, I wrote about it in my personal statement, and the interviewers wanted me to tell them about it, especially nanopore sequencing, so I am very grateful for the experience! Please pass on my thanks to everyone involved in running the placement; as you can see it was really worthwhile for me.
Megan – 2019 Placement Student
“I am currently applying for bioscience courses at university. I was originally going to apply for animal sciences, but decided after the summer school that I wanted to do something more research and lab work- based after thoroughly enjoying the lab practicals during the summer school. Before the summer work placement I had the impression that laboratories were closed-off, serious places where people worked in isolation. In fact I found it open and friendly, with fascinating work being conducted in a family environment. I also found the talks from the PHD students about their paths into science research particularly inspiring.”