What advice would you give to people starting out in research?

If you want to progress in research, make whatever you’re working on your own. Often people feel that their mentor or supervisor knows much more, and it’s tempting to just do what you’re told. But you should take the initiative with your work.

What have you found most rewarding about your career?

For me, the best moments have been when, through doing experiments, I've been able to answer an interesting question about how life works. Then you have the pleasure of telling the world about your success, going to conferences and explaining your results, and putting them together in a paper for publication. Depending on the field you might only publish one research paper every year or even every other year, but on a smaller scale you get the same feeling of satisfaction day-to-day. It feels really good when you figure out how to do a particular experiment to get a clear answer, or you get a technique to work that has been causing problems, or you work out the best way to approach a piece of writing. 

What other advantages does a career in this field have?

The nature of the work dictates that you often have to relocate to continue research in a particular area. This can be an attraction, particularly when you are young. It also has the advantage that within any research team or laboratory, there are people from around the world, which I personally have enjoyed a great deal. Of course, if you have a family and commitments, moving around a lot can mean difficult choices.

I particularly enjoy the opportunities for travel and the international nature of research. In this career there is plenty of opportunity and encouragement to spend some time in another country (often as a ‘postdoc’, after finishing a PhD). There are always international conferences to attend as well.

What are the challenges of a career in molecular biology?

Currently one of the challenges in this area of research is the unpredictability of funding. The large funders can change their policy on what they fund from year to year. Currently the availability of new genome sequences has lead to an increase in funding for bio-informatic analysis.