To infinity and beyond : the journey of student researchers

Abstract

Many science students aspire to become researchers from the early days of their studies. As Applied Biomedical Science graduates, both of us (Juan Attard and Matthias Caruana) performed laboratory work within a clinical setting involving the analysis of various human samples. However, it was only during our dissertation work that we started to understand what research was all about. We were both fortunate enough to have our own exciting projects that required a substantial amount of independent work. We designed our own experiments and optimised or troubleshooted them when we got unexpected results, all under the supervision of Dr Sholeem Griffin, Dr Jefferson de Oliveira Mallia, and Prof. Vasilis Valdramidis. Our efforts were greatly rewarded, as our work was published and presented at international conferences. [excerpt]