Profile

Moving to Oxford for work was a huge life change for me especially as I knew literally no one before moving down here. However, it is such a stunning city and I love my current job so it was all worth it! I have also made some amazing friends down here who I have daily Love Island debriefs with during our break at work.

I am training to be a clinical scientist which is a role which essentially bridges the gap between doctors and the pathology labs. I am currently being trained to be able to perform various immunological assays and interpret the results in order to report back to requesting clinicians their significance and also offer clinical advice on what the best care pathway for the patients i.e. are there any appropriate follow-on tests which need to be carried out.

As part of my training programme I have to complete an online portfolio which demonstrates my capacity to do this role. I complete pieces of work called work-based competencies (which you can think of almost like coursework) where I demonstrate my understanding of the assays we perform in the lab and how the various results are linked to disease as well as the clinical understanding of various immunological diseases.

I have time allocated during the year to complete my MSc in Clinical Science. Here I learn more about the immune system and how dysfunction or dysregulation can manifest as disease in addition to learning about the techniques we can use to identify this.

I am currently working on the lab’s Autoimmunity and Allergy Bench. Here, we run assays and experiments to investigate potential autoimmune disorders (where the immune system starts attacking the body and not harmful bugs like it is supposed to do) a patient might be presenting with.  We can also investigate whether a person is likely to allergy to range of different things from different types of nuts to bee venom and grass.

I have also trained on our Cellular Immunology bench which primarily investigate causes as to why the immune system is not responding properly to infections. On this bench I use a technique called Flow Cytometry to monitor a specific subgroup of patient’s white blood cells called lymphocytes to see if they are present and working properly.