Profile – Disease Detectives Zone

Education:

Primary school: Martock, Somerset
Secondary school: Huish Episcopi, Somerset
College: Taunton, Somerset
University: St Anne’s College, University of Oxford
PhD: University of Glasgow
Qualifications:

GCSE: Chemistry (A), Biology (A), Physics (A), Maths (A*), Statistics (A*), Geography (A*), English (A), German (A), Electronics (B), World Studies (B)
A levels: Chemistry (A), Physics (A), Biology (A), Maths (A)
AS level: Archaeology (A)

Master of Biochemistry (Oxford)
Master of Research (Glasgow)
PhD in Genetics (Glasgow)
Work History:

Before and during university
Sales assistant at Peacocks
Workshop staff at GKN Westlands
Car park attendant at Tesco

As a Scientist
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine working on malaria
University of Keele working on malaria
Current Job:

Post-doc at the University of Liverpool working on trypanosomiasis

About Me:

I’m Craig, I’m a geek and I work on the genetics of parasites trying to understand how they hide from the immune system and how they change in response to us trying to treat them. I spend most of my time working at a computer, analysing data produced by people in the lab.
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I live on the Wirral, near Liverpool with my wife and our two cats Sputnik and Mir. My hobbies include lots of gaming, mostly roleplaying games (like Dungeons and Dragons) and board games (my current favourite is Ticket to Ride). I also used to play a lot of video games. I am a big fan of science fiction TV shows and books as well as the Marvel comics and films.
My Typical Day:

A typical day for me starts with the two same things – making coffee and feeding my cats who meow loudly until they get their breakfast. After getting ready I take the train into Liverpool to get to work (but I work from home at the moment). I spend most of my day working on a computer, looking at data and trying to find patterns in it. I also spend a lot of time helping our students and teaching them how to look at their own data.

Craig Duffy