Profile – Cerium Zone

Education:

Newstead Woods School for Girls (1997-2004) University of Leeds (2004-2007) University of Westminster (2007-2011)
Qualifications:

PhD in exercise and cellular physiology, BSc in medical sciences, some A-levels, some GCSEs and a phlebotomy certificate which means I can take peoples blood.
Work History:

My first job was in Boots. Since then I’ve worked at a couple of pharma companies, one in London and one in Bergen, Norway and at a University.
Current Job:

My official title is “Post-Doctoral Research Assistant”

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Cartilage is on the ends of all our bones and helps protect them by stopping them banging together at the joints.

Cartilage is made of cells called chondrocytes anddifferent molecules called proteins, which are made by the chondrocytes.

Here is a picture of the chondrocytes in a piece of cartilage

Chondrocytes are very clever and can sense when we exercise or move. They then make extra proteins to make our cartilage stronger. But chondrocytes are also very delicate and if they are damaged or killed then they do not replace or repair themselves. So when chondrocytes die we have less and less, so we can make less and less proteins and our cartilage becomes weak.

In my work I take chondrocytes from cows knees and put them into a jelly-like substance called agarose. The I squish them and try and find out how they sense when we exercise, how they talk to each other and how they die. Hopefully one day we will find out how to stop them dying and how to replace them.

This is a picture of cows knees and the chondrocytes in agarose and the machine I use to squish them.
My Typical Day:

Taking care of cells, staring down microscopes, cleaning dirty cow legs, drinking tea, running a lot of stairs, turning the numbers from my experiments into pretty graphs and fixing equipment
What I'd do with the prize money:

I think I’d probably use it to arrange for schools to visit working laboratories and see all the cool and different stuff science can do.

Eleanor Parker