Johanna Scheuermann (Germany)
| Hello, my name is Johanna! I'm doing my PhD at EMBL. |
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It was during my early childhood that I became interested in biology in the broadest sense. In my family we value nature - animals, plants, the environment - highly, and so my attention was automatically drawn to the many little "miracles" that one encounters in living beings; be it just while playing outside, be it by - not absolutely intentionally - breeding little parrots in our living room, or by examining paramecia and all sorts of algae that I had caught in our rain barrel under my parents' old microscope.
Although I had many other interests, I always kept my enthusiasm for natural sciences. So I decided to do some - very simple - biological science as my obligatory research study during our last year at school. I worked in a laboratory interested in osteoporosis and learned to characterise bone and tissue cells under the microscope. With this work I took part in the science competition "Jugend forscht" and very unexpectedly won two prizes. Although this was far from being highly sophisticated research, I had for the first time in my life seen how biology roughly works in the laboratory, I had seen the beauty and complexity of human cells - and I had caught fire!
However, it was tough for me deciding on what to study. I knew I wanted to do biomedical research, but I was also keen on working with actual humans, ideally even helping them. So I decided on medicine, hoping that this would enable me to combine both interests. I did my preclinical training at the Technical University in Munich, where I mainly studied physiology, biochemistry, and anatomy. I was enthusiastic about everything I learned during that time, especially the molecular and cellular mechanisms of life I found absolutely fascinating. I continued my clinical studies at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich. In parallel to the usual curriculum I joined a Graduate Programme in Molecular Medicine in order to gain some experience in biomedical sciences. There I did the research for my medical dissertation, examining the molecular mechanisms underlying Alzheimer's Disease. The time in the lab again opened a whole new world for me, showing me what questions exist in certain fields of molecular medicine, and also which approaches exist to elucidate certain questions.
Although my sympathy for basic science became increasingly stronger, my interest in clinical work persisted. I did my practical clinical training in Munich, in Paris at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie, and in Boston at the Harvard Medical School - and I very much enjoyed the experiences I made working with real patients and actually practicing medicine.
However, I had to accept that it would not be easy to be a clinical physician and a researcher in basic biomedicine simultaneously since both are extremely time-consuming and challenging. So after my final exam at medical school I decided not to go to a hospital but to deepen my experiences in basic science. I joined the EMBL (European Molecular Biology Laboratory) to start my PhD thesis. EMBL is a place where scientists from all nations work, with a very open, collaborative, dynamic and friendly atmosphere. Apart from working in the lab I also have the opportunity to gain complementary skills; for example together with other PhD students I am currently organising a scientific conference and a science writing prize, and I coordinate the music club at EMBL in the scope of which we regularly play together and give concerts.
I like my work a lot, because it is very free, self-responsible and intellectually challenging. It is also very rewarding to meet all different kinds of people in science, who have variable backgrounds in many regards but share the same passion and curiosity amongst each other. As a scientist, your project somehow becomes part of yourself - which of course can be tough sometimes, but also extremely fulfilling.
School:
Gymnasium Tutzing