My life in 5 paragraphs

I was born in a city in Northeastern Romania, called Iasi. This is also where I spent the first 18 years of my life. I always liked learning about literally anything, but did not like school in particular. Going to Science Olympiads (Physics and then Chemistry), which are very popular in Romania, allowed me to skip a lot of regular classes and focus on what interested me. I used to regularly be among top 10 students nationally. I also represented Romania in the International Junior Science Olympiad 2012 (Silver Medal) and the European Union Science Olympiad (Silver Medal). I was the Chemist of my team in the latter. I used the time when I was not preparing for competitions to read literature and try to find the meaning of life through it. I did not succeed in the latter, but I cherish those days. My favourite authors from that period are: F.M. Dostoyevsky, Emile Zola, Virginia Woolf, Thomas Mann & George Eliot.

After finishing high-school and doing a year of Medicine in Romania I made the hardest and most consequential decision of my life: that of leaving Romania for the UK. Although I cannot write that in my CV, this is one of the things I am most proud of, as it was really hard for me to adapt to this new life. I studied for a 4-year Masters of Biochemistry (MBiochem) at the University of Oxford. I spent my summer holidays doing research in various labs, working on a wide range of topics. I also learned a lot of techniques, ranging from computational cancer genomics to working with worms (C. Elegans). In my Master’s research project, I worked on the interplay between DNA replication and deposition of histone modifications in Red Blood Cell Differentiation. My supervisor was Dr Robert Beagrie, a great scientist and mentor, who was a postdoc in the Higgs lab at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford. I wrote my final year dissertation on Liquid-Liquid Phase Separation.

I moved to the Sanger Institute in Cambridge (also in the UK) for my PhD. I am doing my PhD in the labs of Inigo Martincorena and Peter Campbell and working on 2 different projects:

1) Lineage tracing of tumour-infiltrating T cells using somatic mutations

2) Somatic evolution in ageing

On the first topic, I am directly supervised by Dr. Heather Machado (check out her latest work!!!)

Although they are quite different, a common theme is that I use somatic mutations to build phylogenies of cell populations. I hope to write more about these topics in my blog. Outside of my PhD, I enjoy reading about biotech. I am really excited to live in an age when so many technologies are converging to produce what I think will be a biotech revolution. I consult part-time for CivilisationVC, a San-Francisco based biotech VC. Overall, I feel deeply grateful to have been born in an age where I can use my natural interests and talents and work with so many smart and driven people on problems that I find important! I know a lot of factors out of my control contributed to me being where I am now, and I feel I have a duty to make the most of it.

Although Biology occupies most of my time now, I sometimes do manage to engage in my other interests. I like board games (my favourite is Terraforming Mars). I am also keen about Visual Art: some of my favourite painters include: Van Gogh, El Greco, Goya, Egon Schiele & Gustav Klimt. You can sometimes find me putting this interest to practical purposes: I like repurposing old furniture by painting it (see blastocyst table below). I am also a make-up geek, and I take inspiration and follow make-up artists and businesswomen like Charlotte Tilbury, Anastasia Soare, Pat McGrath & Natasha Denona. I generally like talking about anything, ranging from history to current events, and I sometimes even tweet about it.

My life philosophy is simple: hard work in the service of something greater than myself is what makes me happy. I am deeply grateful for all the amazing mentors that I have had throughout my life and I am keen to help others reach their potential. Do not hesitate to contact me if you are an enthusiastic undergraduate/PhD student and feel like you would benefit from some advice! I was lost for a long time: not knowing what to study, what research topics to choose, what is the meaning of all of this and at each step having people that guided me proved to be essential, so I am happy to return the favour.