Will Macken, Nicky Whiffin, Charlotte Durkin and Jamie Ellingford: Early Career Researchers navigating the field of genomics

Behind the Genes

This week on the G Word, our host Will Macken, is joined by a panel of Early Career Researcher (ECR) representatives to discuss how ECRs can navigate and position themselves within the ever-changing field of genomic research.

Will is a clinician and researcher at the University College London Queen Square Institute of Neurology and Great Ormond Street Hospital. Will is also an ECR representative on the Genomics England Clinical Interpretation Partnership board. In this week's episode he's joined by:

• Nicky Whiffin, Associate Professor and Sir Henry Dale Fellow at the University of Oxford, and Quantitative Genomics representative on the Genomics England Clinical Interpretation Partnership board
• Charlotte Durkin, Head of Programme at the Medical Research Council, and
• Jamie Ellingford, Lead Genome Data Scientist for Rare Disease at Genomics England.

"There can be people that just pick up basic skills to analyse the dataset that's in front of them that they've spent months in the wet lab trying to generate. Through to people who are proper software engineers and will be writing unit tests to test every single line of that code. I don't think it really matters where you sit on that continuum as long as it works for you, and it aligns with your future career progressions and what you want to be in the future, essentially."

You can read the transcript here: Early-Career-Researchers.docx

You can find the information on resources, events and support for ECRs mentioned on this podcast on our website.

We've got free-to-attend monthly research seminars, and Research environment training sessions for those who have joined the Genomics England research community - find out more and register for our next sessions here.

Email us if you have any questions: [e-mail].