Ho Yu is a student in Professor Mark Webber’s group studying communities of bacteria, known as biofilms and how antimicrobial resistance evolves in these communities.

She is a student on the Norwich Research Park Biosciences Doctoral Training Partnership (NRPDTP) funded by the UKRI Biotechnology and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. The PhD programme includes a three-month long work placement element offering students the experience of work in an area outside of their PhD project. This experience is called Professional Internships for PhD Students (PIPS). We spoke to Ho Yu to find out more about her PIPs placement.

“At first, I wasn’t sure whether to choose a placement in industry or in a communications role. At the Quadram Institute I have enjoyed getting experience of science communication through taking part in events such as Pint of Science and social media takeovers, alongside my PhD.

I decided a placement in industry would be the most beneficial to me, as I had no experience of in this area. I felt getting industry experience would give me a different perspective and it could be helpful to decide what to do next when I finish my PhD.

I chose to do my placement with the company Isomerase. They help companies to use microbes to make anything from therapeutics to enzymes, agricultural and consumer products.

The company has about 30 people and is based in Chesterford Research Park, and Solopark in south Cambridgeshire.

I worked on a project looking at extremophiles. Extremophiles are organisms that can live in extreme environments such as with radiation, salinity, extreme temperatures or pHs.

I found the first week or so of my placement the most challenging as everything was new, and as I was beginning a new internal company project, it was up to me to decide where, and how to start.

I was working mostly with two scientists Asia and Lina. As part of my placement, I worked on growing some of these extremophile microbes.

Figuring out the media, the temperature and conditions for the extremophiles was a challenge, as I typically work with microbes such as Salmonella and E. coli in my PhD, that are more commonly used in research and have less complicated growing conditions. It was satisfying when I figured out what media and conditions the extremophiles needed to grow.

After growing the extremophiles, we started DNA extractions. Normally, I use a kit to extract DNA which contains all the chemicals, components, and steps to extract the DNA, and you can’t see the DNA that you’re extracting. On my placement I used a different protocol where you get to see the DNA and spool it out, which was quite cool. I ended up having to optimise the protocol for the extremophiles and also increase the amount of bacterial culture used to get enough high molecular weight DNA to be able to sequence the DNA.

Along with learning new techniques and how to work with challenging bacteria, the placement was an experience that’s helped me build up resilience. Going forwards in my PhD when things go wrong (as they often do in science), I have more perspective after my placement.

Working in a company has helped give me a bigger picture of science too. It helps to know how some of the research I’m doing might relate to the real world.

I enjoyed getting to know how a company works, which is very different to academia.

For example, at the Quadram Institute, we have a common online lab book system for recording experiments, but people can record experiments in different ways. While I was on placement, there was a more standardised template for recording experiments.

Similarly, in terms of work culture, in academia I think there tends to be more flexibility in working schedules, for example different people leave work at different times. I found on my placement everyone often left work at the same time.

I learnt lots of soft skills on my placement and got the opportunity to network and meet lots of people. Along with working with Asia and Lina, I had weekly catchups with the Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) who is one of the founders of the company. It was interesting and insightful to have meetings at this senior level in the company.

Overall, I enjoyed my PIPS placement at Isomerase. I got valuable insight into different options of what you can do after a PhD. It was refreshing to go to a different place and have a break from my PhD research project.

Often you can think that there is just one career path of undergraduate to PhD to Postdoctoral Researcher to Group Leader but there’s a lot more career paths out there that you can do.

I’m still not sure what I want to do after my PhD, but the PIPs experience has been helpful for me to understand the choices available. I like that there is more freedom with your research in academia but there are aspects of working in industry that appeal to me too.

In my opinion, the PIPS placements are less about learning in terms of studying, but more about learning in terms of life.

My advice to PhD students choosing a PIPS placement is do something you want to do. Maybe think less about the physical skills you will gain and more about what the experience will bring to you and how it can help you develop more holistically in your career.”