I used my karyotyping expertise to pre-karyotype real patient cases for the bone marrow oncology and stem cell teams

"I completed my bachelors degree at the University of Sheffield in Genetics and Biochemistry and thoroughly enjoyed it both as a university and as a city to live in. I chose my masters degree to experience working within a lab setting for long periods to help ascertain whether I would enjoy a career within this field and to expand my knowledge in my subject of interest.

"I cannot commend the course and the people that run it enough, not only was the teaching of the highest standard but opportunities made available through the course were brilliant and unique to this course. The course was very student focussed and promoted critical thinking and independent problem solving skills. Through this tutorship I gained confidence in laboratory techniques which lead us to work in small groups researching peroxisomal disorders and work towards creating a functional genomics pipeline which will hopefully be presented to the NHS in the near future.

"During the masters, opportunities to learn clinical scientist skills such as karyotyping were offered, through this I gained NHS professional certification that meant I was able to participate in a unique Human and Molecular Genetics - NHS work placement hosted by the Sheffield Genetic Diagnostic Service. I used my karyotyping expertise to pre-karyotype real patient cases for the bone marrow oncology and stem cell teams. In addition to this I worked with constitution genomics teams to help reduce turn-around times for patients with unclassified variants, as part of the 100K Genomes and Deciphering Developmental Delay projects. This meant I had the chance to experience both clinical genetics with constitutional problems and haematological malignancies while making a real impact by reducing analysis times for the service.

"Hematogenix is a global biotechnology company that focuses on cancer research and clinical diagnostics. Blood, bone marrow and solid tumours are sent from clinical trials patients and analysed at the lab. In addition to this, at the request of the sponsor Hematogenix will cryopreserve DNA and white blood cells at each stage of the treatment cycles. The UK branch, in Manchester, was looking to open a new cytogenetics department to which I applied, as a cytogenetics scientist. I will start my new role for Hematogenix as part of the flow cytometry team and later rotate into the cytogenetics group. I am constantly learning new skills such as generating reports on complete blood counts, extracting DNA from patient blood samples for cryopreservation and good clinical practise. My masters course was essential in gaining this position as the company does not usually hire people without a masters degree. In addition to this part of the interview consisted of showcasing my abilities to identify abnormalities from a karyotype and how to efficiently use a fluorescent microscope."