#WhyMyScience

Entomologist Dalton Ludwick‏ @EntoLudwick introduced #WhyMyScience to hear what led scientists to choose their careers. The replies have been overwhelming...
#WhyMyScience
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You are a scientist. Spending long hours in the lab? Perhaps pipetting tiny amounts of DNA primers and consuming huge amounts of coffee? Spending weekends over the 43rd version of a manuscript? Arriving late at dinner parties because you had to first make that grant deadline? Your family and friends may only have a vague idea about what your actual research project is. And they may hardly be able to understand what keeps your fire burning. But you do go on, because you love your science.  

Using the hashtag #WhyMyScience, researchers of every grade and discipline have tweeted what motivates them, how they set off and what keeps them going in the science arena. It is all about passion, curiosity, love of nature and motivation by peers. We have collected below some of the most interesting tweets by Molecular Life Scientists, all gleaming with love for science. If tight word limits are not your thing, do use the FEBS Network platform to share your story on how you came to choose a career as a Molecular Life Scientist.  

Brianna Bibel‏ @biochem_bri: ‘In a world tainted by chaos and ugliness, I like to uncover the ordered beauty hiding within all living things’  

battlecast penguin‏ @energeticheart: ‘I had a bunch of dogs and was curious about how diverse they were in colors and shapes, and why their puppies were similar to their parents. Then I discovered biology and DNA, and now I study molecular evolution and how to take advantage of species-specific sequences’  

Libby Parker @Attackycardic: ‘Neuroscience professor at the end of my first semester pulled me aside and said "I hope you keep doing science, I think you'd be good at it." Fell in love with the brain and then the body’.

Martijn Peters @MartijnPeters: 'Was fascinated by nature during countless forest walks with my grandfather. Later got into life sciences as I was stunned by the subtilities that are involved in how our body works. Now designing nanotechnology to study brain diseases’.

Elly Morrien‏ @MorrienElly: ‘If we are better able to understand the soil life under our feet, a whole new world of (restoration) opportunities will reveal. It all starts will soil biota

Vincent J Lynch‏ @VinJLynch: ‘Because look around, how did all those animals get their different shapes and sizes and ways of living?!?’  

Alecia Biel‏ @science_status: ‘The pursuit of truth above all else. Society is bombarded with conflicting information. Instead of believing what I was told, my curiosity always drove me to think more critically and investigate further. In spite of controversy, I seek the truth’.  

Tanya Dubich @Iya_Hakky : 'I chose #virology for its elegance. #Virus fits to its host like a key to a lock. Understanding of a mechanism behind it will help us to cure infectious diseases and, in case of KSHV, even cancer’ 

Franjo Ivanković 🔬‏ @FranjoIvankovic: ‘I'm in the field of RNA biology and microsatellite expansion disorders, so I study things like myotonic dystrophy, ALS, and Huntington's. Studying RNA processing is one of the most basic biological questions and studying disease mechanisms can inform their treatment’.  

Jamie L. Wood‏ @JamieLynnWood1: ‘Knew after 10th grade bio I would do something on genetics. Was a lab tech after my MS for a while, but always wanted to teach college. Went back for PhD in 2011, now doing postdoc in MedEd learning how to teach med & postbacc students’.

Clara🎄@clarashen_ : ‘being independent, choose/shape/form my own projects, make decisions, travel and meet people, and make cool, new, fluorescent molecules’.

 

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