Question: What made you do Biochemistry as your first degree?

Lesley Pearson answered on 17 Jun 2015:

Initially it was honestly because I liked the sound of the word. It sounded dead brainy!

Then, once I got a taster of it doing my Human Biology Higher course in school (which had a Biochemistry module) it was because it all just made such perfect sense. There was nothing in there that I struggled to understand (even if my recall wasn’t always perfect!) And so many parts of it seemed elegant and beautiful. Enzyme kinetics, for example, that marrying of maths and biology to understand things that go on in our cells every second of day, is just fantastic! And some of the techniques are just so awesome! PCR, for instance, the polymerase chain reaction, takes advantage of the fact that free nucleotides form base pairs with an exposed DNA chain, and the fact that the DNA double helix separates in response to heat to allow us to amplify a tiny amount of DNA, and even to put in tiny mutations of our own to test.

I could go on! Essentially, I took Biochemistry because of a genuine love for the subject. I hope you find a subject that you love as much!