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Sam Keat
Name:
Sam Keat
Job title:
PhD Student
Place of work / study:
UK Dementia Research Institute, Cardiff University
Area of Research:
Alzheimer’s Disease
How is your work funded?
Alzheimer’s Society Heather Corrie PhD Studentship
Tell us a little about yourself:
I am a PhD student at the Dementia Research Institute at Cardiff University, investigating the role of genetic variants in complement genes in Alzheimer’s disease risk and pathology.
Tell us a fun fact about yourself:
I have a playlist on Spotify that has over 50,000 followers!
Why did you choose to work in dementia?
Dementia is an impossibly cruel disease and – as a bioinformatician and geneticist – I believe that modern bioinformatics approaches can help us to solve some of the biggest mysteries in dementia research and pave the way for future therapeutics.
What single piece of advice would you give to an early career researcher?
Being comfortable with what you don’t know is just as important as knowing things. As an early career researcher, you are surrounded by brilliant researchers who seem to know everything – but even they still get imposter syndrome. Comparing yourselves to others is never healthy in research, whereas being honest in saying that you don’t know everything is very healthy. You’re not expected to know everything; be happy with who you are as a researcher and be inspired to learn more when you don’t know something instead of being intimidated by it.
What book are you reading right now? Would you recommend it?
The Lord of the Rings – would definitely recommend either the book or the films!
