Profile
Matthew Edwards
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About Me:
I currently live in Abingdon just outside of Oxford. For my job I test and help develop genetic medical tests, I’m involved in with a local musical theatre society and am completing a part-time Masters online.
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I’ve done musical theatre as a hobby from 8 years old and continued it throughout my time at school and at Uni. My current society does two shows a year in a local theatre. It’s a really great way to make new friends and create something really cool. I’m also really interested in nature and ecology. The current Masters I’m doing is in “Conservation genetics and wildlife forensics” which basically means you can look at the DNA of endangered species and use that information to try and help protect them from climate change and other things people are doing to the environment.
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My pronouns are:
He/Him
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How I use Science in my work:
We perform experiments to test if important parts of our tests work well, or are able to achieve certain results. We can hypothesise that something may be causing an anomalous or strange result and create an experiment which controls for everything except the one thing we want to test.
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My Work:
My team tests tests/assays which use DNA from a patient to tell if they’re sick from different illnesses, or if the bacteria they’re infected with is resistant to certain antibiotics.
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We’ve been working on three tests. One which will tell a doctor if a patient with Tuberculosis if certain antibiotics will be effective at treating the disease. Another detects the presence of bacteria or viruses in your respiratory tract and lungs. The third can tell you if you or your children are likely to get certain types of cancers.
All of these tests work by sequencing DNA which we do on the devices the company I work for produces. The benefit of this is it can give more information much more quickly than traditional tests.
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My Typical Day:
A really busy day would be waking up at 7:15, getting to work for 9:00 and performing different parts of the test over the course of the day. Lunch is an hour from 12:00. I would go home at 17:30, have dinner and be at rehearsals from 19:30 to 22:00.
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In a busy day like that I would probably do a PCR or dPCR in the morning which is making more of specific bits of DNA so there’s enough to be sequenced or telling you how much DNA you have in a sample. In the afternoon it would be what we call “library preparation” which is cleaning the DNA and attaching things to it which allow it to be sequenced.
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Education:
My secondary school was John Hampden Grammar School in High Wycombe. I did my BSc in Biology with a year in industry at York University, then a MSc in Zoo Conservation Biology at Plymouth University and am currently doing an online MSc with Edinburgh University.
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Qualifications:
GCSEs in Maths, Geography, History, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, English language and literature, German, Religious studies and Design and Technology.
A-levels in Maths, German and Biology.
BSc in Biology with a Year in Industry at York University
MSc in Zoo Conservation Biology at Plymouth University.
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Work History:
My year in industry was unpaid though accommodation was provided. I worked at the Pirbright Institute in Surrey in the Arthropod Genetics Group. We were designing a “Gene drive” in mosquitoes which means genetically modifying them so they can no longer spread certain diseases and they pass this trait on to their offspring very quickly, so that in just a few generations the whole population has it.
My only other job has been my current one.
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Current Job:
Development Scientist
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Employer:
Oxford Nanopore Technologies
They produce lots of different DNA sequencers for different used but all using the same base technology.
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My Interview
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What did you want to be after you left school?
Definitely something to do with Biology but I wasn't sure yet
Were you ever in trouble at school?
Not really. I had detention a few times but it was mainly the teacher getting annoyed at the whole class
If you weren't doing this job, what would you choose instead?
There's loads of fields I'm interested in. Biodiversity and conservation, Astrobiology, Physics, Palaeontology, Linguistics, Animal Behaviour and Communication.
Who is your favourite singer or band?
A youtuber Dodie was my favourite musician growing up but I mainly listen to musicals now. My favourite is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
What's your favourite food?
Vietnamese
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
Play a musical instrument, do a wing suit flight, get into the field of conservation genetics
Tell us a joke.
What's yellow and dangerous in a kitchen? A canary with a machine gun.
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