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Asked by danrumford to Cat, Daz, Holly, Johnson, Pamela on 13 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by will123, georgehurdle, laurenmarie14, meganoshaughnessy, woojedward, caitlinhoare, emilygoatman, carrietrewern, appaloosa, hannahwills, owen10, mikeneary9, u28hargreavesa, jack101, erin95, mrmikes92.
Question: Why did you choose to be a microbiologist?
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Darren Braddick answered on 13 Jun 2011:
Hi Dan, and everybody else who asked this question.
Frankly I didn’t choose it, although I did choose micro’s parent subject – biology. I choose that because I enjoyed it, I found biology very interesting at school, and although it was my weaker science, it was by miles the most exciting.
Some people say its better to choose things you are good at, some say its best to choose what you enjoy. I think if you have both, that’s great, but otherwise, its really about where you see your life going in the future. So far I admit to not planning much and kind of.. Following things as they happen. That will change when I get a job though!!
I hope that helps!
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Pamela Lithgow answered on 13 Jun 2011:
Hi all,
I choose microbiology because it was what interested me most. When I went to university I wanted to be a vet. I didn’t think about doing a PhD until a lecturer asked if I had ever thought about doing one. Once I started to think about it I realised that I had a real passion for microbiology above all the other subjects I did. I thought about it for a long time and eventually specialised in microbiology and immunology in my final year (I did immunology which is studying the immune system as it is related to microbes!) . I find microbes fascinating they are so tiny and they can do so much, it is incredible really.
Hope that helps
Pam -
Cat O'Connor answered on 13 Jun 2011:
Hi guys,
The reason I became a microbiologist is all due to my old pony Storm. When I was 14, Storm got really sick with a disease called Strangles. It was awful! He had to be put in quarantine away from all his other friends (horses do not like being by themselves), he had a constantly snotty nose that made it hard for him to breath and he had a big lump under his throat (in a place called the guttural pouch) that eventually burst and was full of pus and blood. It was totally gross, but thankfully he did get better and about 6 weeks later we were back show jumping again! But seeing how sick he got, made me research on the internet and in vet books about why he got so sick, what caused it and what could I have done to stop him getting sick. And there began my love affair with infectious disease! And would you believe, I did actually manage to do some research on the bug that made Storm sick too 😀
Cat
Comments
danrumford commented on :
The range of specialities within microbiology seem to be very diverse, what made you decide to focus on your speciality? ( and thanks for your answers)
Pamela commented on :
For me it was luck really. My university course did let me “try” all sorts of biology things and I like micro organisms most so then I worked in a few different areas of microbiology. I decided I liked viruses most and I was lucky enough to get a cool project to do my PhD on.
Cat commented on :
Hi again Dan, keep the questions coming, It’s great to hear from someone so interested!
Yeah, there is so much you can do with a microbiology degree, this disciplines touches so many other disciplines! I left my interests lead me to my specialty really, I’ve always liked disease so it was an obvious choice to specialise on the medical side. Having a passion for a subject makes learning it and thus getting a good degree (:D) a whole lot easier!
I started out in a general science degree, in second year I specialised in biological subjects like ecology, zoology, physiology, anatomy, biochemistry and microbiology. Then in 3rd year I knew I wanted to do Micro so I did a wide range of micro subjects from soil microbial ecology to virology to molecular biology. And then in final year I went for all the medical-y subjects! I really think that going down the route of a general science degree to start is great because you really get a feel for all different sciences. It’s worked really well for me because right now my work involves maths, microbiology, statistics, ecology, computer science and epidemiology!
Hope this helps,
Cat
danrumford commented on :
You work with the African Swine Fever virus, is there a possibilty that this could infect humans like the swine flu virus infected humans?
And do you think you would have chosen this speciality if you hadn’t had the chance to try different areas of microbiology?
Pamela commented on :
No African swine fever virus does not infect humans. In fact it does not infect anything other than pigs. As it only infects pigs at the moment it is not very likely that it will start infecting other animals as there is probably something that the virus needs to survive that it only gets in pigs.
I don’t know if I would have chosen this speciality without the chance to try different things……I think you can only really chose from what you have tried otherwise you don’t know if it is for you. I think I probably would have ended up in microbiology as I have been drawn into it but I think I could happily specialise in other areas of microbiology
danrumford commented on :
How can you treat a pig with African Swine fever?
What other areas of microbiology could you happily specialise in?
Cat commented on :
I’ll let Pam answer the questions on ASF! But I thought I would stay working in a hospital lab before I went down my current path so I think I could go back to that. In recent years I’ve become really interested in the ecology of microbes in an environment so maybe I could have done something in that subject areas too!
Pamela commented on :
At the moment you can’t treat pigs with African swine fever. The worst strains of ASFV kill pigs in 7-10 days so normally farmers kill their pigs if they get ASFV. We are working to find out more about the virus so we might be able to treat it or even better prevent it. Viruses generally are hard to treat because they go inside the cells and this makes it difficult to target them so it is better to make vaccines which make the pigs immune system ready to fight the virus when it first arrives so the pigs don’t get sick and spread the disease.
At the moment I am pretty specialised on ASFV so from there I could happily work on any virus I particularly like how the viruses interact with the animal or human so this is something that I would be interested in keeping as part of my work. I could probably work on bacteria too, especially ones which go inside cells.
Really what I enjoy doing is solving problems so if you give me an organism and a problem I would be pretty happy to specialise in it and try and solve the problem.
danrumford commented on :
If you solve the ASFV problem, which problem do you think you would like to solve next?
Pamela commented on :
That’s a tricky one. I am thinking of working on the vaccine strain of smallpox virus. This virus is similar to ASFV so I can use some of my experience. It is a really interesting virus as like ASFV it is a really big virus, a bit like a giant compared to most viruses but still extremely tiny really. Pox viruses pose a threat to human health although there are vaccines and treatments these are not good so I would like to work on it and improve these things so that I could help people that get the diseases.
However, I am pretty good at finding the interesting side to anything so when I get a new job I will probably be able to tell you why that is the best possible thing to work on 🙂
carrietrewern commented on :
Are there any known viruses like ASFV that you base your research on?
Pamela commented on :
Yeah the pox viruses (which I might move on to working on) are quite similar to ASFV. This means we can use the information they find to try and work out more about ASFV. What we find however is that although some things are similar between the viruses many things are different. But it does help give us some direction in what to research.
danrumford commented on :
Do you have any regrets regarding your microbiology career? For instance not doing something to do with the ecology of microbes?
Cat commented on :
Nope, not at all! Anyway I can also research into this in the future if I want! But I think I love researching animal diseases so i think i’m going to stick with them for a while!
What sort of microbiology are you interested in Dan?
danrumford commented on :
I’m not really sure, I think I would quite like to do something to do with animal diseases, but I dont really know that much about the different areas of microbiology.
Cat commented on :
There are loads of different subject areas in Microbiology and as soon as you start looking at them you’ll be blown away how important micro is for nearly everything! Why don’t you do a little bit of research? Go on google and try and find a special tab that says google scholar. Using this you can look at the abstracts from research that has been published. A lot of it may go over your head, honestly i havn’t a clue what some of it about, but you’ll get an idea of all the different things people study. You could search some stuff like “Infectious disease cats” or “microbial ecology lake soil” or just look up particular bacteria like the one I research “Mycobacterium bovis” or the one that causes nasty hospital infections “MRSA” or look at reports from outbreaks say “SARS outbreak Canada”! There also is a pretty cool website called Microbiologybytes.com which tells you all the latest microbiology news. And there are even free podcasts on itunes on micro and infectious diseases!
Let me know if you have any luck with this or you’d like me to recommend something for you to read!
Cat
danrumford commented on :
What area of microbiology would you recommend?
Cat commented on :
Can I be biased and say veterinary microbiology! Nah Dan, it really depends on what tickles your fancy! I have a friend who specialised in fungus….he was the only guy in our class to do so but he loved them!!! I think you’re going the right way about though and asking all the right questions! I’ve bet you’ve learned a lot so far this week right? 😀
danrumford commented on :
Yes, thanks for all your help and advice! I think im pretty sure i’d like to be a microbiologist, maybe one day i’ll be a scientist on I’m A Scientist!! 🙂
danrumford commented on :
Is ASFV the first disease that you have worked on or did you do anything before working on ASFV?
Pamela commented on :
I have worked most extensively on ASFV but I worked on a bacteria that goes inside cells (mycoplasma hyopneumoniae) when I was at university. Other than these two I have worked a little bit on things (at university) but nothing else in as much detail.
Pamela commented on :
it sounds really cool that you are so interested in animal disease and microbiology! There are a number of veterinary/animal science courses at university which would probably be great for you. I would recommend my course at the Royal Veterinary College because I think it was great. The vet/animal science courses don’t only teach you about disease and microbiology they teach about the whole animal healthy and ill. I think this is a really good thing, it give you a really good basis to try and study disease from. It also give you the chance to try lots of different things and decide what you like best. There were people on my course that did neurology (studying brains) others did movement mechanics (watching animals run!) then there were the ones that did disease including microbiology. I think it is good to try different things and decide what you like.
danrumford commented on :
Thanks:)
Pamela commented on :
Hi all,
Here is a good site with a guide if you are interested in doing biology
http://www.societyofbiology.org/newsandevents/news/view/318?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter