Noémie de Crozé (France)
| Hello, my name is Noémie and I am a 28-year-old PhD student at Institut Curie in Paris.
I have a degree in developmental biology from Paris VI University. After I graduated I chose to work three years in a research lab to become a researcher myself. |
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When I was younger, I was torn between quite a lot of exciting jobs such as psychologist, flight attendant, fight pilot and many others. In the end I chose biology because I have always been fascinated by nature, but even more because I have always wanted to know how things work. So isn't science about understanding the world and finding ways to make it better?
Now I study frog embryology. It means that I am studying how a single spherical cell will give rise to a tadpole and then a frog. I am especially interested in a cell population forming at one place of the embryo that will then migrate and become part of the face bones, part of the nervous system and the cells giving color to the skin. When migrating those cells look very similar to cancerous cells when they leave a tumor to form another one somewhere else in the body. I want to know how the normal cells are migrating to have a better understanding of what is wrong with the cancerous ones. This will allow us to find better diagnostic tests for cancer and to elaborate new strategies to cure it.
What I really like about my job is that it's not repetitive at all. I can read or write scientific papers and do experiments in the same day. Sometimes I participate in international meetings to talk about my work. I also had the occasion to do a five months' training in Denmark. To me my job is really a great opportunity because I love travelling and meeting people from different cultural backgrounds. On my floor at the Institut Curie there are two young American and one Polish researcher and a Spanish student.
But it is not all about work. I practice capoeira every week. It's a Brazilian sport mixing martial arts, dance and music. I like dancing a lot, especially flamenco, and doing horseback riding. I also try to go to the movies as often as possible, but above all I like to go out and party with my friends. As a conclusion, I am quite busy but enjoying it!