• Question: You said you dont work in a lab but some of you colleagues do. Do you think it is easier to work out of the lab?

    Asked by to Bethany on 23 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Bethany Dearlove

      Bethany Dearlove answered on 23 Jun 2014:


      I’m not sure ‘easier’ is the right word, and really depends on where your interests lay. If you’re a person that isn’t great at sitting still all day, then working all day at a computer might not be for you! However, I think when things go wrong, working out of the lab can be less problematic. Firstly, there’s no risk of becoming infected with whatever you’re working with, as it’s just on the computer screen (though I have made the computer crash from trying to open huge bacterial sequences in the past!). Secondly, microbes are tiny – and if an experiment has gone wrong, it can be difficult to work out why when you can’t actually see what you’re working with. In fact, one of my lab-based colleagues has been having exactly that problem today! On my computer, I can check the data and code for my experiments line by line if I need to, and rerun it many times if necessary to check my results. Finding errors can still be tricky, but at least there’s a more logical basis to finding them.

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