Whiterose

Where did you go and what did you do?

I completed my internship at the Leeds FBS Mass Spectrometry Facility, where I was primarily involved in a range of projects related to proteomics and intact mass spectrometry. My main responsibilities included sample preparation for proteomics analysis and overseeing the running and analysis of intact mass spectrometry samples as part of the facility’s service.

A key aspect of my role was method optimisation—I worked on refining protocols for a new column in the intact mass spectrometer, ensuring improved performance and reliability.

I was also involved in method development for a liquid handling robot, which aimed to automate sample preparation of proteomics samples, thereby increasing efficiency and consistency in laboratory workflows.

Outside of the lab, I was responsible for driving the application for our LEAF Bronze Award, which recognises laboratories implementing sustainable practices, and we were awarded the LEAF Bronze award recently. I also created a poster showcasing the facility’s capabilities and potential applications, which was presented at the Astbury Open Day 2024—and it was awarded first prize!

What made you want to do that particular PIPS?

Mass spectrometry is a powerful analytical tool with a wide range of applications. As I previously had only limited experience with running mass spec samples as part of my own PhD project, I was keen to learn more this technique, from sample preparation to data analysis, and gain some more hands-on experience.

Beyond the technical aspects, I was also interested in understanding how a research facility operates. This internship provided valuable insight into the day-to-day management, service provision, and method development processes that support a wide range of scientific projects in a variety of disciplines.

What skills have you gained from your PIPS?

From a technical standpoint, I gained hands-on experience in intact and proteomics mass spectrometry, whilst also improving my proficiency with commonly used analysis software, writing SOPs for other users to assist in their data analysis.

Furthermore, I gained experience in science communication through the design and presentation of a facility poster showcasing our capabilities and potential applications. Leading the application for the LEAF Bronze award also strengthened my project management skills.

Developing a method for the liquid handling robot required a lot of problem solving, and for both this, and many other aspects of my PIPs, I needed to be able to understand and apply a wide variety of information. This allowed me to build upon the skills developed during my PhD, but challenged me to employ these skills to digest a much broader range of material, on topics I was unfamiliar with.

What has been the impact (or likely future impact) of your PIPS?

Starting out in the mass spec facility was more challenging than I thought it would be, as I was moving from a lab where I was an ‘expert’ in my own project, to an environment where I had little to no technical expertise. This meant a steep learning curve! However, by being involved in running the facility and developing my technical skills dramatically improved my confidence, as I realised there were many transferrable skills that I had gained from my PhD which I could utilise during my placement in the facility.

I hope that my contributions, such as method optimisation, SOP development, and automation improvements, have streamlined workflows and will benefit future users. Leading the LEAF Bronze Award application also promoted sustainable lab practices with a lasting impact.

Most importantly, I’ve built lasting friendships with the amazing mass spec team, making this an incredibly rewarding experience both professionally and personally.

How would you sum up your PIPS experience?

Overall, my internship provided valuable hands-on experience in mass spectrometry, method development, sustainability initiatives, and scientific communication, allowing me to develop both my technical expertise and transferable skills.

What advice would you give to other PGRs about PIPS?

I would encourage other PGRs to choose a PIPS placement that challenges them and helps them develop new skills. It’s a great opportunity to gain hands-on experience in an area you’re interested in but may not have had formal training in.

Don’t be afraid to reach out to places that aren’t actively recruiting— many opportunities aren’t advertised, but asking around or just having chats in the corridor can lead to unexpected opportunities!

Where did you go and what did you do?

I completed my PIPS placement at the Open Innovation Team (OIT) who carry out policy work for different UK government policy departments. The primary focus of the team is to bring academic voices into the policymaking process and to provide policymakers with up-to-date research on an issue.

Whilst at the OIT I worked on several projects across a diverse range of policy areas. Initially, I was placed on a team who were looking into decarbonisation strategies for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) for the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ). I was involved in interviewing academics and other stakeholders and was able to lead a few of these interviews towards the end. I also was involved in the report drafting stage and delivered the final presentation to DESNZ in their Whitehall offices.

Following this, I then worked on a project looking into the adoption of generative AI in schools which was commissioned by the Department for Education (DofE). I helped to organise a series of panel discussions by identifying academic experts who were invited to discuss several key questions areas on this topic.

As a cohort of placement students, we attended training sessions to get us up to speed on conducting interviews, drafting OIT reports/slide decks, and also to provide a more general understanding of the civil service structure.

What made you want to do that particular PIPS?

I was open to a number of PIPS options, though I was leaning towards a policy-based placement as this is an area where I had little experience. The diversity of topics that the OIT worked on was also attractive.

What skills have you gained from your PIPS?

Carrying out and conducting interviews was an area which I had little to no experience in before my PIPS placement. At the end of the first project, I was confident enough to lead several 1 hour + interviews which required prior research of the academic and the generation of a tailored set of questions.

The drafting process involved in producing OIT output for the client was very fast paced, dynamic, and different to what I had experienced before. Initially, this was a big learning curve, but I soon got to grips with the process.

Lastly, owing to working on a diversity of policy areas it was important to be able to orientate yourself with the general background research of that topic in a timely fashion.

What has been the impact (or likely future impact) of your PIPS?

I was able to contribute to several projects at the OIT, some of them still ongoing. Owing to the small team at the OIT, PhD placement students are necessary to facilitate the project work. In return the placement offers an experience whereby you are given a good deal of responsibility early on.

The impact the PIPS placement has had on me has been to continue my interest in working on research that has policy impact. It has also provided me with a greater understanding on the different ways that academics can achieve policy impact with their research.

How would you sum up your PIPS experience?

My PIPS experience was entirely positive. It provided me with a supportive and interesting environment to experience what it is like to work in policy.

What advice would you give to other PGRs about PIPS?

I would take time to think about what skills/experience you have and what areas you would like to gain experience in. It is very rare in your career path that you are going to be given the freedom for 3 months to try something completely different so don’t waste it.

Read more about the Open Innovation Team.

Where did you go and what did you do?

For my PIPS I did a UKRI Policy Internship Placement based at Defra. My main job was to take a systems thinking approach on Defra’s Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP).

Read moreEmily Magkourilou – Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Where did you go and what did you do?

I completed my PIPS placement at Exciting Instruments, an innovative start-up specialising in the development of high-throughput scientific instruments. My primary focus during the placement was performing Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy (FCS) and Fluorescence Cross-Correlation Spectroscopy (FCCS) experiments to support the development of their latest high-throughput instrument. This involved optimising experimental protocols, analysing data, and troubleshooting technical challenges.

Read moreSophie Fountain – Exciting Instruments

Where did you go and what did you do?

I went to the Diamond Light Source (DLS) in Didcot, Oxfordshire. I worked alongside crystallographers at the VMXi beam, and was supervised specifically by Dr. Halina Mikolajek. The VMXi beam at DLS specialise in in situ crystallisation, wherein X-ray crystallography data is collected from crystals at room temperature from inside the 96-well plates within which they initially grew. A benefit to collecting data in situ is that you can collect data from multiple microcrystals in time-resolved crystallography experiments.

Read moreAbby Walklett – Diamond Light Source

Where did you go and what did you do?

I went to the Julia Garnham Centre, which is a partnership between the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Children’s Hospital. The centre trains university students to carry out some of the large volumes of work that NHS genomics staff are tasked with.

Read moreCharlie Cranston – The Julia Garnham Centre

Where did you go and what did you do?

I did my PIPS with the charity Sense about Science, an organisation that was set up to promote the public interest in sound science and evidence. Through various projects Sense about Science advocates for transparency in all areas across Government, research, and industry. I was able to get involved in many of these projects, the biggest of which was Evidence Week.

Read moreIsaac Reynolds – Sense About Science

Where did you go and what did you do?

I attended Oxford Nanopore Technologies, a company that creates next generation sequencing technologies for long read sequencing of cDNA or direct RNA, enabling the detection of interesting features such as modifications and splicing.

Read moreEilidh Ward – Oxford Nanopore Technologies

Where did you go and what did you do?

I recently completed my placement with the Royal Microscopical Society (RMS), a prestigious non-profit academic society.

Read moreMalika Zahedi – Royal Microscopical Society

Where did you go and what did you do?

I decided to do my PIPS with an organisation involved in policy-making and public engagement. I was able to connect with Yorkshire Cancer Research, which is a charity that aims to save lives in Yorkshire and beyond.

Read moreFoteini Bifsa – Yorkshire Cancer Research

Where did you go and what did you do?

I undertook a teaching placement at York St John University on the Biomedical Science program. During my time on placement, I was put in charge of organizing the biochemistry lecture series on metabolism.

Read moreJack Stenning – Biomedical Science Teaching Program

Where did you go and what did you do?

I undertook my PIPs at the Protein Production Technology Facility at the University of York, under the supervision of Dr Jared Cartwright. During my time there, I worked on the expression and purification of large complexes from a range of eukaryotic host organisms.

Read moreJames Barrett – Protein Production Technology Facility

Where did you go and what did you do?

I went to York St John university to assist in teaching the undergraduate Biomedical Sciences course.

Read moreKatie Buttriss – York St John University

For her PIPs, Katie worked for Farm Carbon Toolkit. Read more about her experience here!

Read moreKatie Shaw: Farm Carbon Toolkit (FCT)

Joanna went to CN-Bio Innovations in Cambridge for her PIPS placement, a bioengineering company that specialises in developing single and multi-organ microphysiological systems and innovative lab technologies. They interact with many different pharma and biotech companies to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of preclinical drug testing with clinically translatable systems.

The featured image is the logo of CN-Bio Innovations.

What did you do?

I worked with the research and development team to try and introduce and integrate immune cells into their established organ on chip systems. A couple of previous preliminary experiments had been done, but my main role was to get this project up and running and generate a core dataset to understand how it can be introduced into other systems. I also participated in team meetings, journal clubs, Toastmaster and wrote a research proposal for the CEO to outline the plan for the project and future applications of my findings.

What made you want to do that particular placement?

I was keen to explore what research outside of academia looked like and see first-hand how a relatively small biotech company worked.  The research that they are doing was also very different from anything I had done before and offered me the opportunity to apply my immunology background in a very different scenario – with a more application-based outlook.

How did you go about finding and planning your PIPS?

I did quite a lot of searching for biotech companies around areas where I had friends and family so I could have a chance to live in a different location for 3 months.  Through family and friends links I heard about CN-Bio and emailed them to introduce myself.  I then had quite an informal phone conversation/interview to find out more about the company and talk about what a placement might look like.  It kind of just went from there with just a few more emails to finalise details and agree dates (~6months from the initial phone call).

What have you gained from doing your PIPS?

I have really appreciated being able to talk to so many of the different employees from different areas of the company (CEO and management, engineers, marketing, production and R&D) to learn about all the different roles and how they have come to be working for CN-Bio. I have gained confidence in my communication skills, presenting to different audiences and collaborating with many different people. It has also been good, but quite challenging, to be starting a new project from almost nothing and doing a lot of the initial proof of concept work, set-up, background research and problem solving.

How would you sum up your PIPS experience?

It has been a really good chance to try a very different area of research with very different end goals and targets compared with my PhD. I have learnt a lot about the workings of a company and really appreciated the healthy work life balance they encouraged.

What advice would you give to other PGRs about PIPS?

Start looking early and be willing to try something out of your comfort zone/completely new. Use any connections that you may have from friends and family to help you find your placements. Talk to as many people as you can wherever you are and find out about their career path/what they do.

Where did you go and what did you do?

Phase BioLabs at The University of Nottingham – working in the Biodiscovery Institute in Prof Nigel Minton’s large and extremely well-equipped synthetic biology lab. My PIPS supervisor and boss was David Ortega, an ex-PhD student of Nigel’s and the founder of a recent start-up called Phase BioLabs – https://www.phasebiolabs.com/

The featured photo at the top of this article is the view from the Biodiscovery Building at The University of Nottingham.

David wants to produce solvents, plastic precursors and other high-value commodities from anaerobic bacteria using waste CO₂ and renewable hydrogen as the only two feedstock gases. If performed at scale, this technology could be carbon neutral and make use of vast quantities of waste CO₂ from the fermentation industry.

I undertook a mixture of lab work and online research. The lab work was split between proof-of-concept work regarding the gas fermentation technology used by Phase Biolabs and engineering new systems into the organism to enhance the range of products the company could manufacture. The online work was mainly market research and research into lifecycle assessments and emissions data for new chemical products, as well as searching for EU funding calls for the company.

What made you want to do that particular placement?

David was the first to respond from five or so renewable or climate change-focused companies to which I enquired. His website was impressive, and his mission statement and his enthusiasm were encouraging, so I was happy to organise a meeting with him over Zoom. He introduced me to the field of anaerobic bacterial research and suggested some papers to read. The project sounded really interesting and there happened to be plenty of non-lab work to go alongside, enabling me to work remotely for the beginning and end of the placement.

How did you go about finding and planning your PIPS?

Keen to find a non-academic enterprise working in climate change or sustainability science, I spent three hours or so gathering information for companies in the UK that had an impressive mission statement. All it took then was several emails explaining my background and offering my help.

Once David was on board, the PIP was delayed due to the ongoing lockdowns. David and I were in frequent communication so finding a suitable three-month period was not too tricky. 

What have you gained from doing your PIPS?

My time at Phase Biolabs was brilliant. I experienced a fleeting but illuminating insight into the world of anaerobic bacteria research and the synthetic biology involved in engineering metabolism, especially towards engineering the production of chemicals from microbes.

I now have a much better understanding of market research as a concept and a practice. Finding out about the market you are aiming to disrupt is far more difficult than I envisioned, with many summaries and reports behind steep paywalls, key figures and references hidden in gigantic reports and relevant organisations unwilling to talk freely over the phone.

From a peek into the world of commercial funding, I now also have a sliver of understanding about work that goes into sourcing money for a start-up like Phase Biolabs.

How would you sum up your PIPS experience?

A welcome break from my research field. Hard work, but rewarding, interesting and mentally refreshing.

Alina Capatina, a third-year student at the University of York, completed her 3-month placement at Random42, a medical communications company situated in central London, specialised in producing 3D medical animations, documentary films, augmented and virtual reality as well as interactive experiences.  The placement was completed remotely due to the COVID lockdown.

The featured image is a screenshot of Alina with her PIPS colleagues in an online team meeting.   

What did you do?

During my placement I worked as part of the science team at Random42. I was sitting on client calls and taking notes regarding the scientific background of their desired animation, recording their visual and design preferences, as well as keeping track of their timeline and key deadlines. I was also in charge of doing the scientific research for several different projects and putting together scripts, which included both the narration of the animation and the scene directions.

Once the scripts were approved by the client, I would be in charge of designing a storyboard that would visually represent the content of the script, allowing the production team to understand the dynamics of the animation. This was particularly challenging, as scientific accuracy regarding not only the crystal structure of the proteins involved, but also their correct topology (e.g. for membrane proteins), was required.

Additionally, I also had the opportunity to record several voice-overs that would be added to the videos, until the animation was finalised, to help the production team synchronise the text and the visuals.

Overall, the placement allowed me to experiment with a variety of activities, each of them involving a different set of skills. I was thus able to become more flexible and self-confident and I learned to adapt very quickly, not only to different research topics, but also to different tasks, in order to complete my work as quickly and efficiently as possible.

What made you want to do that particular placement?

My current PhD project is entirely lab-based and during my undergraduate degree I completed several lab-based summer internships, in an academic context, as well as a 12-month industrial lab-based placement. Therefore, I do have experience with experimental work, and I love being in the lab, which is why I thought that I should take advantage of the PIPS opportunity in order to experience something that is still related to science but that is completely different from what I have been doing so far. I am also a relatively quiet, introverted, and creative person that does not enjoy the spotlight that much, but prefers working behind the scenes. So, I thought I would look for a placement that would allow me to employ and develop my non-lab related skills.

When I discovered Random42, I instantly knew it was the right opportunity for me, it was a chance for me to be creative, play with images and put together stories, while learning more about different scientific topics. I saw a chance to use my scientific background to make information more accessible to the general public in a fun way. The work I have been doing at Random42 taught me to always question (‘What is the final purpose of my research?’, ‘How is it going to impact people?’), as well as reminding me that I should not get caught up in little details, but always try to detach myself and see the bigger picture. It was an extremely valuable experience both on a personal and a professional level.

How did you go about finding and planning your PIPS?

For me, the process of finding my placement was very short and straightforward. I started by looking at the list of places where other WR DTP students have completed their PIPs in previous years, and that is where I found Random42. I spent a few good hours reading about their work on their website, had a look at some of their videos, I even watched a documentary that they contributed to, and I really liked their work. So, I sent an email to them with my CV, expressing my interest in their company. On the same day I got a reply saying that they would be very happy to have me. Just before completing all the paperwork, I also got in touch with the student who completed her PIPS with this company the year before, and she had very good feedback about the work and the people working there. That gave me a lot of confidence about the company, so I decided to go through with the paperwork and in the end it all turned out very well.

What have you gained from doing your PIPS?

I really enjoyed my PIPS, mostly for the fact that it allowed me to experiment with a variety of activities that are very different from my daily lab work. I think one of the most important things that I gained from this placement was more self-confidence. In this placement I was put in a completely new environment with completely new tasks and I had to learn and adapt very quickly, and complete all my work according to specific deadlines, which would often change throughout the day. It was a type of work that required a lot of flexibility and plasticity as well as teamwork and good communication with supervisors and co-workers. The fact that I managed to face this challenge in a way that made my supervisors very happy, and the fact that I felt valued and appreciated for my work, gave me great confidence in my skills and knowledge, and I became more open-minded and braver in terms of my aspirations regarding future career choices.

How would you sum up your PIPS experience?

One known fact about our memory is that we tend to forget actions and facts, but we always remember how something, or someone, made us feel. Therefore, if I was to sum up my placement experience in a way that is meaningful to me, I would say: exciting, creative, empowering, and eye-opening.

What advice would you give to other PGRs about PIPS?

I think it is very important to make the most out of every opportunity we have. I m very happy working in the lab right now, but that might change in the future, and I wanted to use this PIPS opportunity to research what else it is out there that I could happily do. I think the best advice would be to try and use the PIPS as a chance to learn more about yourselves, see what else you like, get out of your comfort zone, and just try something different. It is an amazing opportunity to experience because you have nothing to lose, but you might just gain a lot more than you think.

Editor’s Note: You can find information on how to apply to do your PIPS with Random42 here.