Research Journey
.png){kind=logo}
First steps...
In the science world, expectations usually clash with reality, especially in your early steps as a researcher.
​
During my undergraduate studies, I got my first experience in a laboratory. First in 2013 at the UAB in the group of Prof. Susana Campoy. Shortly after, during my ERASMUS in the UoD, in the lab of Prof. Sarah Coulthurst.
​
I quickly learned that being good in the classroom was not enough, that experiments often fail, and that theory needs to meet practice if you want to be a researcher in the fullest sense of the word.
Becoming a researcher
And then comes the PhD. A whole new world. The true rite of initiation into research. I had the pleasure of doing mine in the University of Nottingham, under the supervision of Prof. Paul Williams.
As happens with most, my PhD was difficult and frustrating. I picked a troublesome bacteria: Acinetobacter baumannii. I picked a troublesome strain: AB5075. And I picked a troublesome focus: abaM, a gene of unknown function that did very weird things.
But I was also lucky: I had an excellent supervisor, nice colleagues, and a lot of motivation. So, I managed to do everything: setting up and optimizing experiments, developing genetic tools, reading bibliography, interpreting results... all ending up in a very rewarding thesis and scientific article.
Country roads, take me home...
In 2020, almost 7 years after I set foot in the UK for the first time, I returned to Spain. It was a tumultuous moment for most of us. For me, with Covid hitting hard and my uncertainties about my future, I decided to make a little turn in my career: I did a Master's in Bioinformatics, specializing in protein structure and function.
​
This opened up a whole new world to me: I met Prof. Alex Peralvarez-Marin and I obtained a Margarita Salas 2-year postdoctoral contract to work in his lab. We did tons of interesting research, I went to my first transatlantic congress in Philadelphia, I taught at the university for the first time, I supervised students...
​
They were two very intense and rewarding (and exhausting!) years. And everything I learned and experienced made me feel like a true, independent researcher, ready for the next step...
