Jennifer:

I’m a protein biochemist and I’ve spent the last [redacted] years comparing the proteins in blood from pregnant women to find biomarkers for a pregnancy disorder called preeclampsia. It causes high blood pressure and swelling, and can lead to big problems, but I’d never heard of it before I started this PhD work. What I do is use a technique called “proteomics” (study of all proteins, like “genomics” is the study of genes/DNA/RNA) to produce two-dimensional maps of proteins in blood where each protein looks like a spot, and then I compare the spots between samples to find spots that might be associated with preeclampsia. It’s interesting, but I’m glad it’s coming to an end.