THE NUCLEUS Issue 2 Spring 2024

And then you add various other antibodies and reagents that bind to that original antibody. And again, it will cause a colour change or luminescent change Then you can translate to a direct concentration in the blood, and that's the sex results that we look at. They just come through on our computer system essentially, it's like a bit of a list. So we'll get patient information, so we'll, we know a lot about them, so we'll know their name, their sex. We often know where the request has come from, because the way we handle those results are quite different. Patients on an intensive care ward are being looked after much more closely, and they're also much more likely to be really sick, as opposed to a patient that's walked down to their GP practice. You'd be a bit worried if they've got the same type of results. Sometimes we get clinical details, so we might be able to tell why they've had that blood test in the first place. So, sometimes you get them and they're a bit unhelpful and it just says unwell, and you kind of think, well, the patient's gone for a blood test, so they can't be in tip top shape. But other times you might get much more useful details that tell you they might be having fertility investigations or perhaps they've got a rash or tummy ache.

And we can give a better answer for what that pattern of results might be if we know a bit more about the patient. Joe : Almost like zooming out a bit to you and your life and maybe other people who might want to follow a similar profession as you. So I'm in year nine, I'm kind of looking at GCSEs currently, if there were like a top three GCSEs that you either need or have been really useful to you in what you've been researching, what do you think that’d be? Clare : Science, so at GCSE level, doing as much science as you can, double science, triple science and again, at A level, I did biology and chemistry I was never much of a physicist but science in general opens quite a lot of doors. Even if you don't become a scientist as such it's a really interesting and you can do lots of slightly connected jobs. You can, you could work in marketing for a science company, for example, if you've got a bit of science background. So for me, I would have always, I love science at school and maths as well. As a scientist, being unafraid of numbers is very helpful. I don't have to do masses of complicated maths. But you do need statistics. We do quite a lot of statistics, maths and science, and English, I suppose English is still really important. We have to be able to communicate properly with our clinical teams, with our colleagues.

I'mmuch better at the science.

And then once I'd done my GCSEs, I did chemistry, biology and maths at A level. Mostly because I didn't know what I wanted to do. I wanted to do something in science, but had no idea what. I Never really wanted to be a doctor. so that was kind of out, but I really like health care and working in health care. And I actually was in my second year at uni, I think, before I knew what clinical biochemistry was. So it's really great that you're so interested in hearing about all these different science careers, because I just didn't know about them when I was your age.

Oliver : It's been wonderful. Thank you very much.

Do listen to more of our Slightly Scientific podcasts.

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