Question: What made you specialize in genes?

Judith Sleeman answered on 18 Jun 2012:

I work on the way cells express genes, so the answer to this is pretty much the same as the one to ‘what interested you about cells’ asked by sanjana15:

Hmmmm…..tricky question. I was always interested in how diseases are caused and also forensic science. I found that if you look closely into the causes of disease, you often end up looking at cells and the way molecules work within them. I also had some interesting lectures when I was at university about embryonic stem cells: how they can form every different cell type within the body and how they can be used to put new genes into mice (and sometimes other animals). So then I did a PhD working with stem cells and just sort of followed the path of my research from then onwards. To be honest, I never really took a step back to think about what area of research to choose overall: I just picked the subject that interested me most at each stage. I think it’s worked OK for me, although I sometimes have a twinge of jealousy when my colleagues come back from field trips to exotic places and I’ve just spent a month shut in a small dark room looking down a microscope!