• Question: Did you mean to follow this career path of Chrystallography, or like many scientific discoveries, did you come to it by accident?

    Asked by josiahk to Ben, Dave, Ed, Sam, Susana on 19 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Benjamin Hall

      Benjamin Hall answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      No, I didn’t.

      I fell into using structural data gained from crystals because it’s a really powerful tool for improving your research.

      I don’t really think of crystallography as ‘my field’. I’m a plant pathologist. Crystallography is just a really helpful tool to help me answer questions.

    • Photo: David Briggs

      David Briggs answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      I sort of fell into it during the final year of my Biochemistry degree – I found my protein structure lectures absolutely fascinating, and decided to follow that up and specialise in it. I did a Masters degree in Structural Biology, and was offered the chance to do a PhD whilst I was there.

    • Photo: Sam Horrell

      Sam Horrell answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      I also fell into it during my degree. In my second year I got a summer placement in a structural biology lab in The University of Leicester and in my third year I continued working there for my final year lab project. I really enjoyed the work so kept doing it.

    • Photo: Ed Lowe

      Ed Lowe answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      No I didn’t plan it. I came across it as a useful tool during my PhD and decided I wanted to carry on doing it.

    • Photo: Susana Teixeira

      Susana Teixeira answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      I fell into it during my degree, very much by accident. I then kept on using it to study anti-cancer drugs, because this was something that interested me, and moved on to proteins. Crystallography just became a tool I use a lot!

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