Being a scientist

From an interview with Superbugs 

I didn’t really know what a scientist was growing up in Australia. My Dad was a truck driver, and everyone around me either drove trucks or worked in factories. If it wasn’t for watching nature documentaries on the TV, I probably would have dropped out of high school and become a truck driver too. Listening to David Attenborough explain how life was interconnected changed my pathway in life. I had a taste of wondering “why” and hearing it explained, and I wanted to know how the how world worked.

I got good grades in school and went to university. Although, to be honest, you didn’t need especially good grades to get into a science degree – it is rather inclusive entry, unlike medicine or engineering which are tougher to get into. I’m also not especially convinced that the grades you get during your degree in science reflect much about your capacity to be a scientist. The undergraduate degree has to give you the baseline of facts and tools, but once you graduate and become a scientist you are operating at the very boundary of human knowledge. It doesn’t matter if you are quick or slow, have a photographic memory or need to look up basic formulas each time. Science is different from any other walk in life. You can fail and fail and fail, but by succeeding just once you add something new to the sum total of humanity’s knowledge. When I think about what it takes to succeed as a scientist I think it really comes down to three things: creativity, resilience and integrity.

Why creativity, resilience and integrity? Creativity because we don’t know what the right experiments are. Once you are at the boundaries of knowledge, all you can do is take an educated guess, design the best experiment you can, and see if it sheds new light. Most of the time it doesn’t! So a creative scientist is someone who is good at coming up with multiple different ways to attack a problem. Of course, this means a lot of failure, which is where resilience comes in. Failing multiple times is a serious downer. Classical high achievers often struggle when they transition from acing every exam to failing in the lab. If you’ve got grit, if you know how to pick yourself up and try again, then you’ll eventually solve the problem. That is what science is, being wrong over and over again, until in the end you are right. Finally, integrity is key. You’ve just got to be honest in science. To make progress we need to build a tower out of data. People who are willing to fudge their results, fool themselves into thinking they are right when they are not, they start building their tower on poor foundations. The scientists who are willing to admit they are wrong, change their mind with new data, and take the slow route are the ones who end up building the highest.

I guess this doesn’t make science sound super attractive as a career! It is genuinely hard, and few people actually enjoy being wrong over and over again! But the thing is, when you are right, it is amazing. When we find something out it is actually something entire new that we have created – we have moved the sphere of human knowledge further out. There are also a lot of perks to a career in science – I get to travel a lot, don’t need to wear a suit, and the work is easier and for more money than driving a truck or working in a factory!

For myself, after a research career in Australia and America, I started to become more interested in creating a space for scientists to excel in, rather than doing science myself. I moved to Belgium and set up a lab in a hospital there. I tried to bring in a team of amazing people with different skills and backgrounds – biologists, mathematicians, clinicians, engineers, chemists and more, precisely because we never really know the best way to tackle the new problem. My job is to pick the questions we work on, and help the team to find ways to put together their skills to answer those questions. By having a team of diverse people who think in different ways we became much more successful at finding a winning formula. We have uncovered the causes of human diseases, solved riddles for why some patients are sick, started clinical trials that brought new treatments to neglected patients, even developed new drugs. Each success we have opens up a new and more interesting problem, and we are genuinely improving the world.

After a decade in Belgium I moved over my lab to Cambridge. We are still working on interesting problems in pathology, and I still have an amazing team of diverse scientists. Perhaps the best part, though, is that so many people have left my lab and have started up their own teams, in universities, hospitals and biotech companies, all across the world. That decision I made to go into science after high school has led to hundreds of scientists being trained, and humanity will build on the knowledge they create long after I am gone.

That's TV Cambridge interview

Graphic novel shows unconventional routes into science

Helen Burchell

BBC News

Stories of people's unconventional routes to becoming scientists are told in a new graphic novel intended to encourage others into the field.

The book - Becoming a Scientist - is aimed at young adult readers and was written by the University of Cambridge's Prof Adrian Liston, and illustrated by Yulia Lapko - a business administrator for the pathology department.

Both their routes could be deemed unconventional as Prof Liston was expected to join his truck-driving family's business in Australia, while Ms Lapko fled her native Ukraine in 2022 following invasion.

Prof Liston said as a youngster he did not even know what a scientist was, and hoped the stories showed the "many different pathways".

The novel told the stories of 12 members of the Liston-Dooley lab, who researched the immune system and tissues during pathology.

This was not Prof Liston's first book and he has written books for young children including All about Coronavirus, Battle Robots of the Blood and Maya’s Marvellous Medicine.

His graphic novel, however, was aimed at older readers between 12 and 18 years of age.

Stories about how the team members came to work in science are told in the graphic novel

"It was really luck more than anything else that allowed me to fall into the career I have today," Prof Liston said.

"When I looked around the amazing people in my lab, I realised that everyone had a story about overcoming barriers to enter science."

Magda Ali, Ntombizodwa Makuyana and Amy Dashwood became models for the cover of the book

Prof Liston freely admits he was not brought up to be a scientist.

In the book, he said: "I grew up in a truck-driving family in Australia.

"My parents didn't get the chance to finish high school and the only jobs I heard about were driving trucks or working the factory line building cars."

He added: "I never met a scientist. Actually, if I hadn't been inspired by the weekly nature documentary on TV I'd never have known being a scientist was possible."

Adrian Liston was inspired to follow a scientific education after watching nature programmes on television

Studying at university was "an epiphany for me", the professor said.

"Sure, there was class snobbery, but I was also able to find my group who were weird like me."

He told the BBC: "I want to see more kids with grit and creativity really look seriously at science as a potential career, and I realised that my team here at Cambridge really demonstrated just how diverse scientists are in practice.

"Every one had their own story of adversity conquered, their own role-models and their own motivations, so I thought we could simply tell their stories.

"While each one is unique, together they do show that science can be for anybody, and science becomes richer for having a diversity of talents."

Magda Ali pursued her education because she dreamt of becoming a scientist

Other stories included those of Magda Ali, who is completing her PhD at Cambridge University. Her parents came to the UK as refugees from Somalia and although she attended a school where few students even took A-levels, she continued her studies and her dream of becoming a scientist.

Visiting student researcher Alvaro Hernandez said he failed his school entrance tests in Peru at the age of five and almost did not get an education at all, having been preoccupied instead with football.

"I think my early teachers would be surprised to see me in Cambridge," he said in the book.

Their diverse stories have been illustrated by Yulia Lapko, who came to the UK under the Homes for Ukraine scheme.

Yulia Lapko came to the UK after her native Ukraine was invaded by Russia

She had been working as an artist before the war, but on arriving in Cambridge, and added: "I took a break from that because, settling in the new country, it made sense to get a full-time job for a sense of security and stability. Now that I feel settled enough I can expand the possibilities of what I can do with my skills.

"I really enjoy being here, I love the department and its people.

"Drawing people is my main speciality in art, and all the people featured in the book I actually see every day, which made it easier to capture them in a way that feels alive and effortless.

"But it’s one thing to see what people look like and the other is to really see them, to know the story behind each individual, so having all of them share their backgrounds, hopes and wishes really helped to get the whole picture of each character."

Prof Liston added: "It is guts and heart rather than brains that lead to scientific breakthroughs, and every discovery worth making happens from a team."

Read the book for free online or order a print copy.

Crafting Science Stories for Young Audiences

Finding a narrative that resonates with the audience and serving it in their preferred format helps make science engaging, relatable, and fun.

Article by Danielle Gerhard in The Scientist

In his laboratory at the University of Cambridge, immunologist Adrian Liston studies the complex inner workings of the immune system with a focus on regulatory T cells that help keep the body’s immune response in check. But beyond the bench, he whittles down the jargon-filled, methodical, and nuanced research and transforms it into digestible nuggets of scientific communication for young audiences. 

“Kids are naturally curious about how the world works,” said Liston. “They will quite happily learn about how anything works so I don't think there are topics that are out of bounds in terms of science.” 

Liston’s own journey into science communication for children and teenagers is inspired and influenced by his personal experience. “As [my son] has developed, I've developed as a father, and I've used what I've learned as a dad to keep pace in my public communication efforts,” said Liston. From children’s books to a computer game to a graphic novel, Liston has altered the medium, language, and message to evolve with the next generation’s shifting interests. 

Drop the Jargon, Focus on the Message

As a young child, when Liston’s son asked him about his work, Liston, “learned to talk in his language.” Scientists spend decades learning a precise language, chock full of scientific terminology and tongue-twisting acronyms, that allows them to succinctly and accurately communicate their findings to peers. But when it comes to communicating research to nonspecialists, regardless of age, Liston finds it important to keep it high level. 

“Sometimes people get so hooked on trying to communicate the details that the concept doesn't come across.” Liston cuts out the jargon to spin a narrative that is accessible and resonates with the intended audience.

In Liston’s children’s book Maya’s Marvellous Medicine, the title-character learns about how vaccines help prepare the cells in the immune system for battle. 

For instance, he used this technique in his children’s book Maya’s Marvellous Medicine, which follows the young title character as she learns about vaccines and how they boost the immune system. Instead of going into the specifics of vaccines, Liston focuses on a simple concept that is accessible to young children: practice makes perfect. Maya’s father uses a relatable anecdote from Maya's life—when she won a running race after lots of practice—to lay the foundations upon which her doctor explains how the immune cells in our body learn to recognize the microbes that cause diseases. 

When writing books for young children, Liston targets two diverse audience categories. “The ideal situation of a kid's book is when you're hitting the kids at one level, and the parents at another level.” 

That’s why in his book Battle Robots of the Blood, he narrated the story from the perspective of Tim, a seven-year-old boy who has a primary immunodeficiency that renders him incapable of receiving life-saving vaccines.² Frequent trips to the hospital are a part of his life, but wrapped up in the innocence of youth, Tim is preoccupied with spending time with his friends. However, this activity carries considerable risk for him, especially when his friends are unvaccinated.

The message to children is simple and clear: not everyone has a functioning immune system, so others need to get the vaccines that help to train the cool battle robots in the blood that fight against dangerous viruses. The message to the individual reading the book—often a parent or guardian—is also straightforward: getting their child vaccinated not only protects them, but it contributes to a herd immunity that helps save the lives of children who are unable to receive this marvelous medicine.

In Battle Robots of the Blood, Liston explores the life of Tim, a seven-year-old boy with an immune deficiency that leaves him vulnerable to a breakdown in herd immunity. “The idea is to try to create that empathy of the parents with the idea of a child being so sick that they could almost die, because someone else refused to vaccinate [their child],” said Liston. “If the person reading the book suddenly realizes for the first time that they have the ability to save other children's lives just by vaccinating their own child, then that's the epiphany we want them to have.”

Evolving the Medium to Match and Expand the Audience

As his son grew up, Liston saw an opportunity to learn about communicating with a new audience: teenagers. “I saw how engaged and focused he could be on computer games,” said Liston. “He could absorb information so well through that medium.” This inspired Liston to attempt science communication using video games. He teamed up with computer programmers to create Virus Fighter, a game that teaches people about the science of virology and the impact of vaccinations.

Players can choose to infect a population with one of four viruses—coronavirus, influenza, measles, or Ebola—and adjust settings that affect the virus's lethality, virulence, and incubation time to see how these properties influence viral spread. By introducing countermeasures, such as vaccinations, quarantines, and social distancing, the player can track how tweaks to these responses impact outbreaks, the health system, and the economy. Depending on the selected mode and settings, the game reveals different lessons. For example, Liston noted, “It's not just about how lethal a virus is, it's about how fast it spreads.” 

In the computer game Virus Fighter, users play the role of Prime Minister of the UK as they make decisions to control the spread of a virus. The goal of the educational tool is to teach players about viruses, immunity, and vaccinations. 

An added benefit of an online educational tool like Virus Fighter is that it expands the reach of science communication initiatives. Liston said that most science outreach initiatives are proximity-based; children living closer to a university are saturated with engagement opportunities, while children living further away, in what he refers to as ‘outreach deserts,’ are on the outskirts of the sci-comm ecosystem. “We need to make more content that can be decentralized,” said Liston. “The pandemic and the lockdown did demonstrate that we can do this, we can have innovative outreach mechanisms that are not grounded in geography.”

Science is Open to All

Throughout his career, Liston has been motivated by the inequities that exist in science and its communication. Growing up in a working-class neighborhood in Australia, Liston never had an opportunity to meet a scientist. “Science was something that was occasionally on the TV, but it wasn't something that I was ever able to encounter,” said Liston. 

As his son entered high school, Liston embarked on a new project targeted at teenagers. Using comic art as his medium, Liston imparted a message that is near and dear to him: science is for everyone. “This project is not really about science, it's about being a scientist,” said Liston. His latest book, Becoming a Scientist: The Graphic Novel, includes 12 vignettes that highlight the varied backgrounds, role models, and motivations of scientists in his research team. Although everyone has a different story, they share a resilience, determination, and a sense of wonder that fuels their journey through science.

Liston hopes that his latest project, Becoming a Scientist: The Graphic Novel, inspires younger generations to pursue a career in science. “The idea was to just create a comic book where kids are going to flick through and see themselves in one person,” said Liston. “As soon as you see yourself in one person who is a successful scientist in Cambridge, you realize that this could be you as well.”

An abiding philosophy that shapes Liston’s day to day is that science is for everyone. “If science is for everyone, then science communication has to be for everyone,” said Liston. The more stories that get told, the broader the population that gets served. “No matter how good someone is at science communication, they can't do it for everyone, because different segments of the population are going to resonate with different messages and with different messengers,” said Liston. 

To bring these important scientific messages and ideas to life, Liston collaborated with the artists Sonia Agüera-González and Yulia Lapko, software developers, and members of his research team—a reminder that good communication, like successful science, often results from the coming together of people with diverse backgrounds, skills, and views.

Becoming a scientist

A write up by St Catz College

A Fellow of St Catharine’s has produced a new graphic novel to encourage high school students from all backgrounds to pursue STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). Professor Adrian Liston (2023) has joined forces with illustrator Yulia Lapko on Becoming a Scientist: The Graphic Novel to tell the story of the twelve scientists in his biomedical research laboratory at the University of Cambridge.

Professor Liston explained, “Growing up, I didn't know what a career in science was. It was really luck more than anything else that allowed me to fall into the career I have today. When I looked around the amazing people in my lab, I realised that everyone had a story about overcoming barriers to enter science. While everyone's story is unique, what they have in common is inspiring – there are so many different pathways to success in science. I wrote this book to share these outstanding role-models with high school students, so they can find a story that resonates with them, and use that inspiration to go into STEM subjects.”

Cover of the Becoming a Scientist graphic novel by Prof. Adrian Liston with illustrator Yulia Lapko

Originally from Australia, Professor Liston is now Professor of Pathology at the University of Cambridge, a where he leads a team of researchers looking at the pathologies of the immune system. The idea for a graphic novel came about after Professor Liston’s group spent time at St Catharine’s for a team-building session, which invited each scientist to speak about their backgrounds, role models and motivations. With the group’s support, the new graphic novel devotes a section to each team-member’s story, with eye-catching illustrations provided by Yulia. Read the graphic novel online. 

Detail about Prof. Liston's story from the Becoming a Scientist graphic novel

Yulia is an artist from Kyiv, Ukraine. She balances her art career with her day job as Business Administrator for Cambridge’s Department of Pathology.

She said, “I might not be a scientist, but I can relate to the idea that everyone has the potential to become anyone they want to be. Our paths might be very different, and some of them are longer and tougher than others, but the key thing is motivation. Relatable role models help nurture our potential, and I am excited that our book offers twelve role models to inspire young people.”

Becoming a Scientist is Professor Liston’s first publication for a young adult audience (readers between 12 and 18 years of age). He has previously written All about Coronavirus, Battle Robots of the Blood and Maya’s Marvellous Medicine for children between 3 and 8 years old, all illustrated by Dr Sonia Agüera González (also known as Tenmei).

Professor Liston added, “Some readers might associate graphic novels with fiction like Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman or Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s collaboration on V for Vendetta, but there is a rich tradition of creative biographical works such as Marjane Satrapi’s memoir, Perspolis, or Art Spiegelman’s interviews with his father in Maus.

“I am privileged to go to work every day with such a talented group of people and it has been an honour to tell the different stories that brought us all together in Cambridge. I hope these diverse experiences connect with and inspire the next generation of scientists.”

Some of the scientists featured in the graphic novel with Prof Liston (centre top row) in their lab (credit: Natalie Sloan-Glasberg)

The graphic novel is also available in print from https://www.thegreatbritishbookshop.co.uk/products/becoming-a-scientist

Becoming a Scientist - out now!

Becoming a Scientist: The Graphic Novel is now available in print edition!

Becoming a Scientist: The Graphic Novel

Our latest project has just been released: Becoming a Scientist: The Graphic Novel!

The novel follows the stories of the amazing team members in the lab (or, at least, those team members who have been around since last October when we started this project!). We follow their story in becoming a scientist: the barriers they had to overcome, the role-models who helped them on the way, and the motivation that drove them to enter STEM.

This is a unique project for us, because it isn't about our science. It is about us as scientists. Where we came from, and how we got here. None of us were destined for science, yet somehow here we are, working together to better the world...

Our amazing illustrator, Yulia Lapko, brings to life each person's story. We have Magda, daughter of Somali refugees, drawing strength from her mother's sacrifice and equally determined to help others in turn. We have Alvaro, who barely managed to get into school growing up in Peru, and has now made it to Cambridge with a ripper of an under-graduate project. James, who took a long and winding route, overcoming every disadvantage life gives a foster kid, and yet somehow beating the odds and now helping others succeed. Stevi made the transition from patient to researcher, and Tombi brings her mission from Zimbabwe to help the global ubuntu. I realised, looking around the lab, that I could talk about how inspiring I find literally every person - so I put them all into a book!

I draw inspiration from these amazing team members. I could have written this story at any point over the past fifteen years - we have nearly 200 amazing alumni, each with their own unique story. I wrote these stories to provide role-models to anyone thinking about starting a career in science. Science is not for the privileged few. Science is for anyone who has ever asked "why?", and anyone who is too stubborn to know when to stop asking! Take a look into these stories - if we can succeed in science, you can too!

The book is live now to read at Issuu, and will be released soon in print. If you want to support more innovative projects in broadening participation from our lab, drop us a donation!

Breaking down barriers with ‘Sensory Science’

Breaking down barriers with ‘Sensory Science’

Stavroula Piliou, PhD student at the University of Cambridge 

18 Jun 24

Through our BSI Communication and Engagement Grant scheme, we recently supported a collaborative art project to make science more accessible to people who are blind or have low vision. Here, Stavroula Piliou, a PhD student involved in the project, explains how the resulting exhibit brought the complexities of the immune system to life in a range of tactile art pieces. 

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In a society increasingly shaped by scientific progress, it is crucial that everyone – regardless of their background or ability – can take part in discussions about scientific inquiry. But science communication is so often limited to the written word and visual diagrams, in articles which can often be dense and inaccessible to a broad public audience. With our Sensory Science initiative, we aimed to break down some of these barriers.  

Under the leadership of Dr Erica Tandori, an artist with low vision from Monash University in Australia, and Professor Adrian Liston from the University of Cambridge, our team of PhD students collaborated with artists from Anglia Ruskin University to produce a suite of models designed to communicate the intricate and varied role of our immune system. We especially wanted to engage people who are blind or have low vision.

Collaboration enhances creativity 

By translating these complex scientific concepts into tactile multisensory art, we were able to bring to life the role of our immune system in four primary areas: neuroscience, autoimmunity, infection and cancer. The models, which appeal to a range of sensory experiences including touch, smell and hearing, were exhibited in March as part of the Cambridge Festival.

Resin brains crafted using cake moulds were used to illustrate the differences between a healthy brain, one affected by traumatic brain injury, and one impacted by multiple sclerosis, with the latter using a pet warming blanket to demonstrate inflammation in the central nervous system. 

Another model detailed the progression of cervical cancer and its metastasis, by depicting bacterial invasion into cells using sponges of different sizes, shapes and textures. Elsewhere, tactile posters explained the biology behind coeliac disease, and visitors to the exhibit even had the opportunity to hear their own brain activity, as Dr Stuart Favilla mapped brain waves into sound using innovative audio techniques.

A transformative experience 

The impact of the project on the immunologists involved was profound. The collaboration not only allowed us to articulate our research through multiple senses but also encouraged us to think creatively and outside the box. The experience sparked a deeper appreciation for inclusivity and community involvement in science, and demonstrated the importance of diverse perspectives that can enrich our understanding. 

The exhibit was very popular and gained significant public attention, including from BBC Look East, who reported on the initiative for their news programme. Most importantly, the general public gained a deeper understanding of the complexities of the immune system, and of its role in health and disease. 

What next for Sensory Science?

Following the success of the exhibit, we have received numerous requests to present our work at more science communication events, and some of the artworks have been incorporated into the medical student laboratories at the University of Cambridge. We are now planning to extend the impact of the exhibit by documenting and sharing our experiences in one or more scientific journals. The Sensory Science event was truly a reminder that the most effective innovation comes from the collective efforts of a diverse and inclusive community. 

Stavroula Piliou, PhD student at the University of Cambridge 

With thanks to Professor Adrian Liston, Dr Erica Tandori, Dr Stuart Favilla, Dr Julia Johnson, PhD students from the University of Cambridge, artists from Anglia Ruskin University and everyone else involved. 

Harnessing our lived experience for science communication

Thanks to Nature Reviews Immunology for the chance to write about incorporating our lived experiences into effective science communication! A few tips on making your science communication effective and accessible to everyone:

First, find your passion! Reach out to the communities that you have connections to, and use a medium that you enjoy. You don't need to be an extravert to do public engagement! If you prefer to interact online, do so - there are audiences that want it. Content creation without any face-to-face interaction such as VirusFighter sci-comms too!

Second, harness your lived experience! Being slotted into a generic event that doesn't resonate with your life is a major turn-off. Using your identity in your comms builds the authenticity that audiences respond to, e.g. my efforts writing kids books, like Maya's Marvellous Medicine, are rooted in my life experience as a daddy.

Third, find collaborators with complementary skills. If you have a vision for an innovative outreach project, the talent is around you to make it happen! Those kids books needed artistic talent, via Sonia Agüera Gonzalez, our computer game needed coding expertise, via Simon Andrews, and our next project started after a chat in the pub revealed the talents of Yulia Lapko!

Finally, look to extend your reach! Taking a pro-active approach to inclusivity dramatically extends your impact. Look to reach the communities that are usually overlooked, such as Erica Tandori and her drive to make sciart accessible to the blind and low vision community through Sensory Science!

That's TV Cambridge interview

My interview on Sensory Science for That's TV Cambridge.

Key point: Science is for everyone, the benefits of science are for everyone, so science communication needs to be for everyone.