I’d like to share with you my non-traditional scientific career. I hope to encourage and inspire students like me to build on their curiosities that started in Chemistry class.

Before choosing the specific science subjects for A-levels, I would annoy other students with a question: “So, which subject are you choosing for your A-levels and which out of Chemistry and Physics do you think is more important?” I now know there was no real truth to this question, nor was there a correct answer. Nevertheless, for me, I was certain through my bones that Chemistry was more important to our world than Physics was.

Biology was a given for me, but it hurt my little science soul knowing that there existed students in the other room who were prioritizing Physics over Chemistry! There was always this comical competitive tension between the sciences. Biology was neutral grounds but when the physics students walked through our Chemistry class, there was tension. I felt proud of the chemical bonds and chemical structures that Mrs. Sutcliffe had displayed all over the board. This is so cool, I thought. I was also the only girl in the class and I made it my top priority to understand everything. For every time I asked “Why?”, I Mrs. Sutcliffe dragged me into an even smaller chemical dimension than last. When we had our first class on Organic Chemistry, that’s when it hit me. Those idiots on the other side of that wall made a huge mistake. This organic world is where it’s all at. It has the potential to explain everything inside of us!

Chemistry seems complicated but it’s just like learning a new language. There are new concepts and you have to memorize all these chemical laws which are really just names of scientists who discovered things. I was young, and my mind was too occupied with other things that grasping chemical ideas only became useful to me 10 years later. It was only until after all that time that I was able to see how important those classes were to my studies today. Your brain absorbs more than you think when your’e younger.

I chose Biomedicine as my undergraduate degree. It was difficult. At times I had no idea what I was studying but I was involve with everything I was learning. We delved into the following subjects: Cell Regulation and Cancer, Clinical Biochemistry, Genetics and Genomics, Haematology and Anatomy, Structural Basis of Biological Function, Medical Microbiology, Virology, Molecular Biology, Metabolism and Pharmacology, Human Physiology and Human Disease. I mean what a fabulous mouth full!!

I learnt a lot about my Type 1 Diabetes during these three years. Especially in Metabolism and Pharmacology for the chemistry of my insulin and why it works. During metabolism I raised my hand and asked the professor, “why do my sugar levels drop when I meditate?”. Everyone looked at me strange and I felt embarrassed. I felt like I was asking questions that no one waned to listen to. I felt like I didn’t belong, that I wasn’t smart enough.

My thesis was on Exercise and Type 1 diabetes and I remember my tutor hated what I was doing. But there was very little scientific evidence on how exercise affects Type 1 Diabetes. Articles were mainly focused on Type 2 Diabetes and it frustrated me. I saw things in my day to day that needed research! I halved my insulin by running everywhere. I ran to class which was 3 miles away. I ran to the grocery store, I ran to the library. I left all my books in one place and extra changing clothes in another. And whilst I was running, I was listening to audio books like the ‘Omnivorous Dilema’, ‘Building Biotechnology’, ‘The end of illness’ and ‘The unbearable lightness of being’. My cells had an alternative mechanism for absorbing sugar and I wanted to know why. Unfortunately, I took it a little to seriously and ended up loosing a lot of weight because I was running so much. Halfway through my las year, I was on the edge of anorexia.

During the last 6 months of my undergraduate degree, I realized I wasn’t too happy. I was living alone in Brighton and the grim, gloomy days of the weather made everything worse.

I felt foreign to UK culture and never really made strong connections with anyone. Biomedicine and trips back to London to see my sister was all I really had.

Three months before my most important exams, I decided to learn the Saxophone. I needed some sort of creative release. I went downtown to a music shop and found a Sax rental for 10 pounds a month. I decided to play a minimum of 2-3 hours a day. I didn’t really have many friends during that time, so I was able to keep this obsessively strict schedule. Run, Study, Sax: on repeat. You should have heard me in the beginning-I was awful! Learning ‘Happy Birthday’ from youtube videos was the first song I learnt. I had no training but I managed to learn a lot with online material and video tutorials. You may not believe me, but the chemical changes that happened in my brain helped me to study. In other words, the chemistry between me and the Alto Saxophone was pure bliss and I encourage everyone to learn an instrument!

When I graduated, my parents gifted me an Alto Saxophone and this was when my path changed suddenly. But I want to let whoever is reading this know that it is okay if your life suddenly takes a different toll. I wanted to continue my scientific career but I wasn’t ready just yet and I didn’t know where. During High School, I was dancing four hours a day and I was competing nationally, internationally and winning awards in the UK, Prague and Spain. I had an artistic soul that needed to be heard. During that summer I applied to one of the best acting school in New York. The next day the accepted me, and the next thing you know I embarked on an Off -Broadway Acting for the next six years. I trained with incredible directors, filmed all sorts of projects, performed on all sorts of theaters and even got invited to perform at the Platanov Festival in Russia. That was crazy. I then produced and released a Music Album and continued playing the saxophone to this day.

I was extremely creative and happy during these years. I met incredible people, saw all sorts of strange personalities and built all sorts of projects with other New Yorkers. After the 4th year I felt like a real New Yorker. I worked in 5 star restaurants, over the counter falafel shops and sold apartments to clients like Starbucks and United Nations. Medtronic even gave me a free insulin pump! I grew a lot in NYC but there was a continuous longing for something more. Being an ‘Artist’ is a magical idea but an extremely difficult struggle. You always have to prove yourself, sell yourself and compete with others. It got old. You get 40 ‘no’s’ before you get ‘1 yes’. All I wanted to do was perform but it wasn’t that easy.

Then the pandemic came. My whole world crashed. No job, no vision for the future, no theaters, no nada. And out of the dark came a beautiful light! I fell madly involve with a Mexican man and moved to Mexico City in the middle of this unknown COVID 19 disaster.

And in the middle of it all, I remember sitting in the living room, listening to the street sellers screaming “ SWEET POTATO: in Spanish from the road. I sat and started thinking - I miss science.  I miss learning about new advances in Medicine. I miss chemical bonds and biological structures. I started thinking about all those laboratory experiments I had with Mrs. Sutcliffe in High School - we made alcohol and got to drink it. I started remembering all those colorful experiments we had with Fluorometry and the DNA separation we did with Gel electrophoresis at university. I laughed about how my lab partner and I pronounced the metric ‘ug’…we called them (You-la Goo-la’s). We would say things like, “Alright put 10 You-la Goo-la’s of this with 20 You-la Goola’s of bicinchoninic acid, and that should do it”

It was time to head back to Science.

I suddenly realized how it could be possible for me. I can’t be stuck to books 24 hours a day but I also can’t be out chasing performances. Learning should be enjoyable and imaginative. I needed to fuse my creative impulses with my love for science. I should be able to combine all of my nature into learning and that was exactly what I wanted to do.

So today, I am proud to say that I will be finishing a master’s degree in Advanced Nutrition at the University of Valencia, Spain. An award winning online masters degree program that focuses in Immunonutrition, Nutrigenetics and Nutrogenomics. The latter two being incredibly new fields in Personalized medicine! The chemistry of nutrition on your genome! Personal Genomic companies continue to boom and I want to be part of this future. Genetics and Genomics is an extremely creative field backed up by meticulous scientific labor. Personalized genomic profiles and DNA tests are the future of any effective medical practice. It will soon be integrated into all cultures, languages and all types of people. I want to be part of the medium that fuses the science and storytelling of where we were and where we are going with personalized genomics.

I hope my story encourages young students to know that Science offers a whole plethora of options and fields to specialize in and you don’t have to know exactly where you’re going from the start. Sometimes the journey brings you where you need to go! Just remember to listen to those chemical bonds and chemical reactions in class. Because even though it might be a while until you know what you need it for, but when the day comes, I assure you- it will be a very exciting, fulfilling and purposeful day.