Profile
Sabrina Slater
My CV
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Education:
I went to Holly Park Primary School, then Mill Hill County High School. These are both state schools in north/ northwest London are were nothing fancy!
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Qualifications:
I got 10 GCSEs (8 A*s and 2 As) at Mill Hill County High School, where I also did my A Levels in English (A*), Biology (A*), Chemistry (A) and French (AS only; A).
Then I went to Imperial College London where I did a lot of things, including a Bachelor of Science degree (BSc) in Biochemistry, 2 Master of Research degrees (MRes) in more specialised bioscience-related subjects, and my PhD in Microbial Pathogenesis.
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Work History:
My first job (when I was 16) was tutoring school children. As I progressed through my A levels and university degrees, I have always found time to teach as it’s a really fun way to help more children into Science.
I spent a lot (maybe all!) of my summers and free time volunteering in local labs all across London. I learned a lot about scientific techniques and met some great adults, especially women, who helped me explore what I found interesting.
I saved up as much money as possible to do this all over the world, and I’ve been employed as a scientist in Vienna (in Austria) and Vancouver (in Canada). Now I’m a full-time Scientist in London, and I’m about to go to the Texas in USA to carry on researching bacteria.
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Current Job:
Microbiologist at Imperial College London.
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About Me:
I’m a microbiologist at Imperial College London 🔬 I skateboard everywhere but will 10/10 stop to pet any and every goodboi 🐕.
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I’m a London-grown microbiologist, so my favourite things are teeny tiny: bacteria, cells and mini pizza bites 🍕.
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I hold a PhD in Microbial Pathogenesis, which is a fancy way of saying I spend a lot of time thinking about how bacteria got so smart 🤔. In fact, bacteria have evolved a load of tools to cause chaos in our guts🌪… and I’m out to find them!
I work in a lab, and I work a lot with toxins that E. coli make. E. coli is generally a good guy and everyone has a healthy amount of E. coli in their guts. Sometimes, however, E. coli get hold of DNA that lets them make toxins. These bad E. coli can even inject (yes, like with a syringe!💉) these toxins into cells in our guts. I try to understand what these toxins are and how they work, so that we can undo the damage they do, or even stop them being made and injected in the first place 🤓
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My Typical Day:
As I work with quite dangerous bacteria, all of my research is done in a Lab at Imperial College, next to the Science Museum. My diary is full of plans for experiments, so when I’m finished preparing all of my petri dishes and chemicals I can get cracking! Most of my work can be done by seeing how bacteria grow with various foods or even poisons. By doing this I try to understand how to help good bacteria and how to kill the bacteria that cause disease.
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I work with live bacteria so I plan my day around when they’re ready. I normally let them grow overnight in a nutritious broth and then do experiments on them during the day.
I do a lot of different kinds of experiments, like mini infections on human cells in a dish, looking at bacteria down the microscope, growing bacteria on different kinds of agar jelly, and making custom pieces of DNA that gives special abilities to the bacteria (like glowing green or making them unable to grow when certain antibiotics are around).
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
Small but mighty
What did you want to be after you left school?
A scientist
Were you ever in trouble at school?
I had a lot of fun...
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Anything alternative-R&B.
What's your favourite food?
Mmm... pasta.
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
1) Be wiser 2) Be stronger 3) Have access to unlimited naptime.
Tell us a joke.
Sorry I don't have my catalogue of dank memes right now.
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