Profile

I grew up in Dundee, went to both major universities in Dundee and also have only ever worked in Dundee. I absolutely love the city and the people. Its great to be proud of where you are from. Saying that though one of my favorite things to do in the world is travel to new places and meet the people that live there. So far I have visited Spain, Italy, England, Republic of Ireland, USA and Russia. In the future I hope to attend a football match in the Indian Region of Kerala and also do some solo travelling in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

My major hobies are football, combat sports and natural science. I have always had a passion for sports that were less refined in their friendliness lets say lol. I find the raw nature of professional boxing/MMA to be some of the most fascinating things that we can watch. I have been a big Conor McGregor fan for some time.

I love Glasgow Celtic Football Club and attend games at Celtic Park whenever I can. Although hilariously I once played football on the street with Alex Mcliesh and met some of the Rangers players outside a hotel in Dundee.

I have a real passion for the nature and conservation. Not so much on the environmental/climate side of things, but more on the conservation and rewilding side. Rewilding is the most interesting thing happening in nature at the moment. Anyone interested should find Forest Galante on Youtube or the Discovery Channel.

At Abbott Laboratories in Dundee we make a type of medical test called a Point of Care test. What this means is these are tests that are administered by medical professionals and not tests that are available to the public. These tests require large scale machines called immunoassay analysers. These machines take a sample of a persons body fluid (usually blood) and test the blood for the presence of material that will give the doctor information about a patients condition.

To do this the machines require many different kinds of chemical mixtures known as “reagents”. These reagents are specific for every condition we can help test for and they need to be perfect every time.

When we make a reagent we must test them against mock patient samples to prove that they work as intended. My role is to carry out this testing, report on the performance of the reagents and also to test the quality of the chemicals (raw materials) that go in to making the reagents.

I wake up and generally run for the bus. I have a nice walk down to Abbott which is situated near the waterfront. This is great because you can enjoy a nice view of the River Tay on the way in. Once in the lab I greet the QC team and check my emails.

Once that is all taken care of it is time to start testing. I focus primarily on Raw Material Testing, so that is any chemical or biological substance that we have bought to use in manufacturing or testing. Generally I will make a list for the week ahead and update it with anything new that is coming in.

Usually after some prep I will take my breakfast/lunch break depending on which shift I work and when I get back the real testing begins.

This may involve setting up the HPLC (High Pressure Liquid Chromatography) which is an instrument that can test biological substances for purity.

Once set up I may go and run an assay on one of our analysers. These are the type of large scale industrial instruments that you can find in most hospitals. Generally they test blood/plasma/serums for levels of a specific marker that will give doctors information about a patients health. My job is to ensure that the materials the doctor uses as a reference and the kits that make the instrument run are working as intended before they are shipped out.

Finally I will take my final break of the day before coming back to my desk and crunching the data/paperwork that has been generated from my testing.