Profile
Tom Speight
My CV
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Education:
Rivington and Blackrod High School, Runshaw College, Lancaster University, University of Edinburgh
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Qualifications:
BSc Biomedical Science, MRes Biomedical Sciences
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Work History:
Iceland Foods, Bolton Hospice
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Current Job:
PhD Student
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About Me:
A PhD student in Edinburgh helping doctors look inside of people’s lungs
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Heyy!
I’m Tom, I live in Edinburgh and I’m studying for my PhD. I actually come from Bolton but decided living there wasn’t cold enough so moved even further north to Scotland!
After I got my A-levels in Biology/Chemistry/Psychology I went to Lancaster University to study Biomedical Science and learn about how the kind of things you are taught in Biology are linked to diseases people can get, and how we can use our knowledge to help people.
All of that led me to studying for a PhD here in Edinburgh.
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When you breathe air into your lungs, sometimes your breathing in other stuff as well. Sometimes that can be bacteria which can give you a pretty bad infection. But our body has a pretty good army of white blood cells ready and waiting to fight off any of this bacteria we can breathe in. What I’m interested in is a type of white blood cell called the alveolar macrophage. These guys live in the deepest parts of your lungs and they’re the very first white blood cell to meet bacteria or other stuff we could breathe in. They do a pretty good job of noticing the rubbish that shouldn’t be in your lungs and turn into a kind of Pac-Man and eat up things like bacteria. If they’re up against a lot, the macrophages can also send a message out to get help from other white blood cells to make sure anything that shouldn’t be in the lungs get removed.
In some people, these macrophages stop acting like Pac-Man. They stop eating and that lets bacteria damage the lungs and make it more difficult to breathe. We think we can make drugs that would help these macrophages start eating again, but how can we know for sure they’ve stopped eating? How can we know we’ve got them eating again if they’ve stopped?
I work with a huge team of scientists who have built an amazing camera that is on the end of a fibre no bigger than a strand of hair. Because it is so small it can go deep inside of a lung and show on a computer screen what’s inside. My job is to make sure we can go as far as actually seeing alveolar macrophages while they are still living in the lung and see if they are eating like they are supposed to.
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My Typical Day:
It involves being woken up by an annoying hungry cat, cycling in the freezing cold and drinking too much coffee
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I usually get woken up around 7am from my cat basically screaming from my living room to be fed (there are worse alarm clocks I guess). I have breakfast with my girlfriend and then get ready to cycle into work. If it’s in the Winter like it is now, this basically means wearing enough layers, hats, buffs and gloves to easily do a tour of Antartica.
My day at work can be split between working on my laptop in an office or doing experiments in the lab. My office has quite a lot of people who I work with. We’re all good friends and it’s pretty cool having a good environment to work in because the work can be tough sometimes. Some of the things I do in the lab can be to take some blood from a willing volunteer and take out the white blood cells (which I still think is kind of magic) in order to perform experiments such as feeding them bacteria and watching them eat.
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What I'd do with the prize money:
Try to reach as many people as possible to show the difficulties facing the patients I’m trying to help
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
let me think...
What did you want to be after you left school?
I think doing a job I know I'd be happy doing!
Were you ever in trouble at school?
Don't sneak out at lunch to go to the local chippy. Eventually you get caught.
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Arctic Monkeys
What's your favourite food?
Anything out of Mexico is always a winner
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
To see into the future, To be the best at EVERY sport, To win I'm a Scientist?
Tell us a joke.
Two snowman are standing in a field. One of them sniffs a couple times and asks, "Oi, do you smell carrots?"
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