Tammy Piper is a Tissue Bank Manager at the Edinburgh Cancer Research UK Centre. She recently won the MRC Medical Zone in the I’m a Scientist competition.    What is your role? My role as a tissue bank manager is to facilitate the collection, processing and archiving of thousands of breast cancer tissue samples […]

Takeshi Fujisawa, is a Senior Scientist and Laboratory Manager at the BHF Cardiovascular Biomarker laboratory in Centre for Cardiovascular Sciences in the QMRI, BioQuarter and shared some thoughts on his experience of becoming Professionally Registered as a Chartered Scientist (CSci)   “I was thrilled to be awarded Chartered Scientist from the Science Council and gain […]

In the University of Edinburgh we have more than 1,000 technicians – highly trained and experienced individuals with diverse skills working across all subject areas. Across the UK the technical community has been recognised as being at the forefront of the higher education and research sector’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  At the start of the […]

Designed for an internal University of Edinburgh audience the site provides a space where colleagues across the University can share work in progress, learning, insights, ideas, plans and resources as we prepare for the move to hybrid teaching for 2020/21.  We curate content built around a set of key and emerging themes.  We welcome your […]

Stuart Reid is a research assistant in Malcolm Dunlop’s Colon Cancer Genetics group at the IGMM. This is what he has to say on his Professional registration experience:   “I had been thinking of becoming professionally registered for a while. When the Professional registration fund was launched in Sept 2019 it gave me the impetus […]

Stuart Martin is a Wet Laboratory Support Technician in the School of Engineering and shared the School’s experience of hosting a Foundation Apprentice in their team.   “There has been a bit of concern amongst technicians about the sustainability of our jobs and the work that we do due to the lack of visibility around […]

Alistair Craig is the Technical Learning Services Manager for Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) and shared some thoughts about continuing professional development (CPD) with the Bulletin Magazine.   Photo by Sam Sills “I’ve been a technician at the University for 25 years; the first 15 as a workshop technician, and the last 10 as a technical manager. […]

As a research technician within the Genetics Core of the Edinburgh Clinical Research Facility my role primarily involves extracting DNA and RNA from a range of sample types for biobanking or further genomic investigation. This was my first job after graduating from University and over my time in this post, my role has greatly expanded, […]

The research sector is widely seen as producing great work. However, there are concerns about the culture that has developed to support it. Last year the Wellcome Trust released a report on Research Culture – https://wellcome.ac.uk/reports/what-researchers-think-about-research-culture. It contains the results of a literature review, interviews, workshops and a survey of over 4000 researchers. It describes […]

Neil Johnston, Laboratory Manager at the Centre for Cardiovascular Science, tells how the centre is saving energy after using the Sustainable Campus Fund to purchase more efficient freezer equipment. New efficient freezers and energy-saving items Neil applied for £10,600 of funding to purchase seven efficient ultra-low temperature (-80°C) freezers and one efficient -20°C freezer, along […]