What do you do all day?

There are over 4,000 postgraduate research students at the University of Manchester, each with their own story to tell. Sharing knowledge and experience can be important professionally – whether it’s collaborating on a multidisciplinary project, or getting a unique perspective from outside your own bubble. There are also important benefits of social connectedness for our wellbeing. But how often do we connect with those outside our own department? What’s it like to be a PhD student studying a different subject, in a different way? I sat down for a cuppa with Katie, a 2^nd year PhD student in Biochemistry and Cell Biology, to find out.

Katie: My project is focused on the mammalian secretory pathway – where proteins are built, modified, and directed to their required locations. Proteins are powerful machines, and knowing how they get where they need to be is fundamental to life. Yet how this happens still puzzles scientists. Firstly we need a system for investigating that process. I’ve been optimising existing systems so that they can answer some of those questions. Ultimately, I hope to develop a secretory pathway prediction tool for use in, say, the biopharmaceutical industry.

Faye: So, you’re developing a technique that could be used in future research to streamline that process, to make it cheaper and more accessible?

Katie: Exactly – well, hopefully! I’m hoping that the knowledge gained can be applied to diseases associated with defects in the secretory pathway – like Alzheimer’s, and reducing the cost of drugs by aiding the production of biopharmaceuticals.

Faye: Sounds like your work underpins lots of exciting potential applications.

Katie: Definitely! So what about you?

Faye: I’m based in health psychology and I use qualitative methods. My project is about uncertainty within genetic screening. Screening is amazing – it means that diseases can be diagnosed and treated efficiently. But an unintended problem of better screening technology is results of uncertain clinical significance, which can mean that doctors are unable to clearly say whether someone will develop the disease or not. You’ll know more about the science of it – sometimes I get imposter syndrome, like “why am I allowed to talk about this!” But that’s sort of the point – these uncertain results are difficult to understand, and there’s potentially an emotional impact to that uncertainty. That’s why psychologists are getting involved, to explore peoples’ experiences – in interviews, focus groups, and so on.

Katie: I’ve never thought about the psychological implications of improved screening before. So are you asking questions like: What should you tell patients? Can diagnosis cause more harm than good?

Faye: Exactly! From my qualitative data I’ll develop a theory of the psychological impact of uncertain genetic results. The hope is to use that theory in policy and practice.

Katie: That’s really interesting, and it follows the same structure of a wet lab PhD. You’re finding an answer to a problem. You’ve got a hypothesis, method, results, analysis, discussion. It’s the scientific method. I guess we aren’t so different after all!

Faye: From a lab perspective your question might be, is this possible, how does it work. However, we also need to ask questions about the ethical implications of that scientific development. So we should all be part of the conversation.

Katie: Definitely. Science is amazing, but it’s what you do with it that’s important. The potential applications of research really attracted me to my PhD. I wanted to go into industry, but on my placement year I found that nobody was asking fundamental questions, because they’re focused on getting a product out. So I turned to research. Personally, I need to know what I’m doing can help in the future, take us forward and really make a change to people’s lives.

Faye: I feel the same. I wonder if that’s a shared motivation among PhD students generally.

Katie: I think that need to make change is definitely an underlying motivation for lots of us. Every PhD has its own difficulties but I suppose I’m always aware of the applications of my work as a little fire at the back of my mind.

Faye: What’s a typical day for you?

Katie: Due to the nature of lab work, my week follows a fairly well-defined structure. I have office days – Mondays – for planning and admin. Then on experiment days I’ll harvest cells, prepare samples, perform cell imaging, analyse data. I probably won’t sit down all day. Cell-based experiments take days from set-up to result, so my cells really determine my schedule. It provides a comfortable structure though!

Faye: It sounds quite dynamic, whereas most of my work is currently desk-based. When I’m collecting data I’ll be travelling around meeting people, I enjoy that. For now though there’s lots of admin to make that happen. I’m also doing a systematic review. But because I can take most of that work home with me, I find that it creeps into my evenings and weekends more than it should. It can feel isolated at times too, but we have things like seminars and discussion groups which definitely help.

Katie: Some people do work like that but you can risk burnout. My building is open 24/7 and there will always be someone there working. The lab environment is bustling, but it can be isolating for me too. I need work life balance! I try to stick to my own version of 9-5 and use organisation techniques to get everything done in that time.

[Katie is an organisation queen, and I could’ve talked to her for hours about colour coded to-do lists.]

Faye: It sounds like you’ve got it all figured out. Did it all come together in your 2^nd year?

Katie: For me, yes. Like many people, I struggle with my mental health. Last year I ended up having to take a step back from my PhD to focus on getting better. UoM were incredibly supportive and gave me as long as I needed to get back on track. I didn’t know how simple it was to get a formal interruption. Having that space to heal was amazing. Since then, I’ve learnt to prioritise my health. By the end of first year I realised I’d done quite well, even though I’d taken mental health days and balanced my work load. I realised: “You can do your PhD, be happy and do it well! You CAN do this”.