Hi everyone, I’m Anna and I’m a lab manager at Cardiff University’s Division of Infection and Immunity.

When I was at school I loved understanding how things worked, I liked to take things apart and look at how they work, and my favourite subject was science. I was particularly fascinated in how the human body works, I kept thinking of all cells in my body doing thousands of different things a second, even when I’m asleep, and I knew I wanted to study human biology. I was also interested in understanding diseases and finding treatments and cures for those diseases.

After school I studied a degree in Neuroscience and I spent a year working in a lab as part of my degree. I loved working in the lab, spending every day learning new things as well as learning about diseases, and I knew I wanted to work in science after I finished university.

When I graduated I worked as a lab technician supporting the research at Cardiff University. I looked after the labs and did experimental work. Lab technicians are very important — they make sure all the equipment works, they keep the labs clean and tidy, and they run important experiments.

After a few years and a lot of lab experience I became a research assistant. Research assistants support the scientists with their work, keep the lab stocked with all the essentials, run experiments, analyse data — they do most of the things a scientist does, except the main difference is research assistants don’t plan the work or write the reports at the end of the project.

Now I work as a lab manager. I’m responsible for making sure all the labs of our research team run smoothly, I do all the things in the background to make sure that the scientists can come in and do their life saving working every day.

Being a lab manager is for people who like to be organised, and being able to teach other people is important, too. I love being a lab manager, I get to organise things, work with lots of different people, solve problems, and I get to do that while learning new things, and understanding and curing diseases.

Every day I do what I loved most at school, I get to learn how things work, understand diseases and sometimes I get to take things apart, too! 😊

               To find out more about the work I do please visit www.tcells.org.