My experience at Diamond

Fay T, a student at Didcot Girls' School, joined the Industrial Liaison team for a few days to learn more about our work at Diamond. Here is her experience...

"I decided to do my work experience at Diamond Light Source because I am interested in how science such as chemistry is used outside of a classroom and the potential careers that science can take you into.

I spent three days at Diamond and really enjoyed my time there and the knowledge I gained along the way. On my first day, I was shown how the synchrotron works and taken around the site, where I went into two different beamlines both in which I was explained how they look at the structure of proteins so that they can determine whether they will be useful for drug use. What I found fascinating about this was that by using a synchrotron many years can be taken off the process of making drugs that are safe and effective for the public to use.

On day two I spent the morning filming clips of Izzy Barker preparing samples in the lab and then the short distance it takes to go from the lab to the beamline when transporting samples. In the beamline, I filmed shots of the samples being transferred into the robot dewar to show how it works. Then back to the lab, I filmed Izzy opening the library of protein crystals, using the shifter, fishing for crystals, and tracking of samples using barcodes.

In the afternoon I helped transfer the clips from the camera to the computer where I also helped crop and edit the videos, which can now be released on social media.

During my time I also did many other things such as the following:

• Spoke to Anna Kroner a Senior Industrial Liaison Scientist about her career and job which was very helpful and informative.
• Was taught about marketing and jobs in marketing by Rachel Freeman.
• Was shown around the synchrotron by Rachel and Claire Pizzey

In summary, I really enjoyed my time at Diamond and would definitely say it was a useful experience which I have learned a lot from in the short time I have been here. I am very grateful for Rachel, Claire, Anna, and everyone else who looked after me during my work experience."