A day in the life of a post-doc – Dr Joanne Davis
My role as a post-doctoral scientist (post-doc) gives me the opportunity to design and run experiments, mentor students, and organize the administrative side of things, such as writing grants and papers, and managing ethics. I find that I have a burst of experiments, then while I’m analyzing and planning the next steps, I fit in the admin (with many cups of green tea by my side!). Many senior scientists find that they miss doing hands-on research, and I still enjoy the challenge that basic research brings. There is great satisfaction in performing an experiment over a number of weeks, then discovering something new and unexpected at the end. The question then is, which direction to pursue next?
When we started to look at the function of a bone marrow transplant recipient’s immune system, we discovered that a protein called perforin was crucial in regulating bone marrow rejection. We then found another lab that had unique models and tools to help us investigate this further, published a paper, and now we have formed a strong collaboration, where we share a top international student, design experiments and analyse data together. This has helped us to expand our research, with the hope that one day we may be able to use this knowledge to design clinical trials to improve bone marrow transplant outcomes.
To sum up, my typical day is a fusion of lab-based research, lots of time at the computer analyzing data, reading scientific papers and doing admin, plus a few meetings added in for good measure! Then there’s always tomorrow to look forward to….
