A little behind-the-scenes of a day in the laboratory I built:

An unexpected joy of lab life: the enthusiasm on my one-year-old son’s face on liquid nitrogen delivery day. Unsurprisingly, breaking down big boxes of consumables is his other favourite way to help me - I’m excited to show him more science as he gets older.

Later, I’ll jump into the lab for a few hours to passage some cells. I’ve been trying to get access to a wide range of new cells lately - to expand the range of primary and immortalised cells that my serum-free media has been used to culture - so there’s a lot of cell culture in my future!

I’ll readily admit when I committed to building something new, it felt scary. When people asked what I did for work, I stumbled through my answer.

Four months on, it doesn’t feel that way anymore. I have moments where I wish I could do more or move faster (probably the realities of shifting from leading a team of 30 to becoming a one scientist team), but when I take time every month to look at what we’ve accomplished, I’m always pleased with how much happened in 30 days.