I have been to London recently: a long weekend catching up with friends, strolling around familiar places, and discovering new ones. Once again, it has struck me how London makes me feel at home, even if it is a metropolis and I lived there only for a little more than two years. Two years likeContinue reading “London and me – Memories of a pandemic”
Category Archives: A scientist’s life
How we work with viruses in the lab
“If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles”, said the Chinese warrior Sun Tzu. As our enemies in a battle, viruses can differ a lot, each of them with their own weapons to cause diseases, and strategies to spread in the population. Knowing the characteristicsContinue reading “How we work with viruses in the lab”
Summary of my 2022 and happy 2023!
You may have noticed that my activity on this blog has been reduced compared to 2020 and 2021. But this doesn’t mean that I’ve been unproductive! On the contrary, I have participated in other projects and I have reaped the fruits of my first year with the new research group! Last February I contribuited toContinue reading “Summary of my 2022 and happy 2023!”
Why don’t we all produce the same amount of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2?
What we already knew about the antibodies against SARS-COV-2 In our first study on patients who had recovered from COVID-19, we saw that some patients had more antibodies in their blood, and that in others the level of antibodies declined very quickly. Moreover, looking at different groups of patients all over the world (including ours),Continue reading “Why don’t we all produce the same amount of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2?”
Immunology is cool!
Last week I attended the British Society for Immunology Congress in lovely Edinburgh. At last a “real” in-person congress (the online option was also available) with real interactions with other scientists from all over the United Kingdom and some international guests. When I take part in big congresses like this, with parallel sessions on differentContinue reading “Immunology is cool!”
How long do anti- SARS-CoV-2 antibodies last?
How long do anti- SARS-CoV-2 antibodies last? Do we all produce the same amount of antibodies after the infection? If not, why? To answer these questions, we analysed 2001 healthcare workers from three hospitals in London, between the first and the second waves of the pandemic in the United Kingdom. These hospitals are in East London,Continue reading “How long do anti- SARS-CoV-2 antibodies last?”
One year of online congresses: pros and cons
One of the positive aspects of working in academic research is (or at least was) participating in congresses, not only to present one’s own work and meet other scientists, but also for the travelling experience. For one year now, scientific congresses and conferences have been either canceled or hold as online events, something to whichContinue reading “One year of online congresses: pros and cons”
One year of scicomm (and what a year!)
One year ago I decided to start a science communication blog to share with you my job, to make science more accessible, and to fight fake news and false believes that spread on the internet. I chose to write about viruses because is what I have worked on in the lab for more than sixContinue reading “One year of scicomm (and what a year!)”
Per aspera ad astra: failure and success in (and beyond) science
As scientists, we are familiar with the concept of failure. The experiments that do not work are more than those that actually do, the papers that need revisions and corrections exceed those published without any correction, the number of rejected grant applications is greatly larger than the number of applications that are accepted. The effortContinue reading “Per aspera ad astra: failure and success in (and beyond) science”
From the experiments to the publication: story of a manuscript
In one of my previous posts, I wrote about what being a scientist looks like, and I said that the final product of a researcher work is the publication of a paper. But how long is the path to publication? We said that a new hypothesis based on the current knowledge on a topic isContinue reading “From the experiments to the publication: story of a manuscript”
Virus&Co. 