Research: Answering Unanswered Questions • Prof. Charlotte Deane

(Head of Department of Statistics, University of Oxford || UK)

“I think about the evolution of proteins. Everyone’s excited about genes, but genes are just a list of instructions. Proteins are the active molecules in biological systems — they actually do stuff! We’re predicting the shapes and structures using large datasets and looking at their interactions with other proteins and small binding molecules. I want to know why we have the proteins we have as opposed to other ones we don’t.

•

Research is different from other jobs — no one knows the answer to the question you’re asking, or even how to go about answering it. In other jobs, you’re generally doing things that have been done before. I get goosebumps every time I find something that no one else knows. There are moments when you suddenly realise that you and a few of your students are the only people in the world who know something.

•

If you’re interested in science and research, you should try it out as early as possible. During my degree, I realised I loved research because it finally allowed me to think for myself about really interesting topics. Becoming an academic was challenging because you get trained as a scientist, and then you have to start doing all these other things you’ve never been taught like bringing in money, teaching, administration. But it’s nice because you can design your own career, which is really rare I think. Like do you want a large group or a small one? Lots of collaborators or none? Industry connections? What kind of teaching do you want to do? And lots of other things. You also don’t have a boss, which is nice too as no one is telling you what to do! And I feel incredibly lucky to work on something I truly care about.”