Sabine Hentze (Germany)
| My name is Sabine and I work as a geneticist with a lab for routine chromosome analysis (cytogenetics) and molecular diagnostics for heritable diseases. |  |
As a kid I liked nature, animals and their behaviour, the big variety of plants. During the last year at school I got fascinated by genetics - how does a cell "know" what to do, how do cells know they belong to the liver, a muscle, the brain? At that time the hunt for genes and how they work just started and knowledge has increased rapidly since then.
I studied medicine as I wanted to learn more about heritable diseases caused by the change within a gene. I now work as a geneticist with a lab for routine chromosome analysis (cytogenetics) and molecular diagnostics for heritable diseases. A big part of my work, however, centres upon "Genetic counselling": I explain heritable diseases to patients, genetic test results - is there a "gene test" available for the particular disease in their family and what are the possible results? I also examine patients with malformations or children with developmental problems to find out about the possibly genetic reason.
To combine clinical findings, find the right diagnosis and confirm this with the right gene test, to explain this disease and the faulty gene to patients, to help them to deal with it - this is the best job I can imagine. However, I could not do my work without the hundreds of scientists tickling those secrets out of human cells or an animal model. Something new and exciting happens at incredible speed in this field, every day there is a little more knowledge about genes, cells, the body's work - and more and more we can transfer this into daily medical work.