Hi! My name is Gerda, and I very proudly count myself among the number of medics currently undertaking a PhD in Cancer Biology. Having been inspired by Rowan on the sister MB-PhD TRAM Programme (who’s put out a wonderful piece of writing which you can find here), I thought it might be nice to write […]

“Agile Project Management” by VFS Digital Design is licensed under CC BY 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/?ref=openverse Research. The Cambridge Dictionary1 defines research as ‘a detailed study of a subject, especially in order to discover (new) information or reach a (new) understanding’. The word ‘research’ may evoke an image of […]

Image reference: Created using Google Gemini (1.5 Flash) Quick question, do you also aspire to become a scientist? If you dream of becoming a biomedical scientist, you probably picture yourself in a white lab coat, big goggles on your nose, surrounded by test tubes, and maybe even a few white mice nearby. Or, if space […]

About Me Hi everyone! I’m Alsadeg, a fifth-year medical student at the University of Edinburgh, currently in the first year of the PhD phase of my MB-PhD. I’d like to tell you a bit about this programme and, hopefully, shed some light on why I’ll be at University for nine years and how I ended […]

There it was… I knew immediately that this was a path I wanted to take. Hello everyone! My name is Rowan and I am currently in the middle of my first year of the TRAM MB-PhD programme. I shudder slightly as I transition from saying start of my first year to middle of my first […]

How can early career researchers, such as PhD students, integrate the expertise of several labs into their research? This post aims to introduce why we research rare diseases, particularly craniofacial disorders, and share the experiences of students working across labs with complementary expertise. Congenital malformations are conditions which emerge early in development. Researching the genetics […]

Above: Comfy sofas for scientific discussions   In September 2023, I began my 4-year MRC Human Genetics Unit (HGU) PhD journey at the Institute of Genetics and Cancer (IGC) in Edinburgh. Despite consistently nearly being blown away by the wind, I shall still head to the IGC for my experiments and PhD training. I am […]

Where do I want to be in 5 years? Move to a new city? Masters…then PhD? Gap year? Job? Just over a year ago as my 21-year-old self was creeping closer to being released from the comfort of my undergraduate environment, these were just a selection of the many questions surfacing in my mind as […]

Dr Duncan Sproul is a CRUK Career Development Fellow at the MRC Human Genetics Unit and Institute of Genetics and Cancer at the University of Edinburgh. His work focusses on understanding the molecular mechanisms behind deregulated DNA methylation in disease. I met with him to chat about his career, his thoughts on how epigenetics will advance […]

The path to becoming a scientist is littered with decisions and serendipitous events that shape a career. For young scientists it is next to impossible to decide which University, degree, and projects to go for. After all, the choices may feel equally good at times but could influence which position you find yourself in twenty […]