Submitted by Livia Harriman on Thu, 15/08/2024 - 10:23
A new graphic novel shines a spotlight on the rich tapestry of backgrounds and career paths taken by immunology researchers at the Department of Pathology at the University of Cambridge. This diversity is a key strength of our scientific community.
Written by Professor Adrian Liston and illustrated by Yulia Lapko, Becoming a Scientist: A Graphic Novel chronicles the backgrounds and career paths taken by members of the Liston-Dooley Lab.
Adrian created the book to inspire those from all backgrounds—but especially those without role models—to pursue a career in science. The stories shared by Liston's team members are deeply personal, depicting childhoods where pursuing a career in science seemed impossible.
The stories tell of the different challenges that individuals had to overcome, and they share an overriding theme, as Adrian says. These are not just stories of success, but also of personal struggle and resilience:
"The one thing that united us, though, is that none of us were destined to be a scientist."
From Adrian's own story growing up in a truckdriving family in Australia, to growing up in foster care and completing a PhD later in life, to surviving war torn countries and overcoming illness—these moving stories have been beautifully illustrated to inspire the next generation of scientists.
Becoming a Scientist: The Graphic Novel is out now!
About the Author
Professor Liston is Professor of Pathology at the University of Cambridge's Department of Pathology. He trained at Adelaide University before a PhD at the Australian National University, and a post-doc at the University of Washington, with additional degrees in Higher Education and Public Health. He started his career as an independent researcher at the VIB and University of Leuven in Belgium, where he ran a lab with Dr James Dooley for 10 years (2009–18) before moving the lab to the Babraham Institute in 2019. Between 2019 and 2023, the Liston-Dooley lab worked on biotechnology developments in neuroinflammation, developing new therapeutic approaches and setting up a spin-off company Aila Biotech Ltd. In 2023, the Liston-Dooley laboratory relocated to the Department of Pathology, where he took up the position of Professor of Pathology.
Beyond his research interests, Professor Liston works on improving equality of opportunity within the scientific career structure. He writes extensively about science careers: how early career scientists can navigate the academic career pathway and succeed in starting their own lab, and what should be done to make scientific careers more equitable. He openly discusses his experiences as a scientist-parent, and works extensively on communicating science to children, with the online game VirusFighter and the illustrated children’s books “All about Coronavirus”, “Battle Robots of the Blood” and “Maya’s Marvellous Medicine”.
About the Illustrator
Yulia Lapko is an artist from Kyiv, Ukraine, who is currently living in Cambridge with her well travelled companion, cat Penny. Yulia balances her day job at the Department of Pathology, her art career and the rest of her life, introducing random hobbies along the way to keep it fun. One of her recent hobbies is learning Welsh, and hopefully she will be fluent by the time you read this.