Meet the Staff: Steph Canning

1. What is your role here at the Prion Unit? 
   Senior research technician in the human immunotherapy group, where I do a bit of everything.
2. How long have you worked here?
   Five years from 2010 to 2014, then I left and came back in 2019 for a second five years until now.
3. Did you study at university?
   Yes a BA in Biology at the University of Bath. The city was very pretty but a perhaps a little bit boring as a student, I have visited it more recently and certainly appreciate the history and architecture a lot more now.
4. What was your previous job before this and how did you get to be here?
   I worked in medical records at a hospital before moving to London for my first stint as a technician in the unit. I initially left to take on a position at the Institute of Child Health in the flow cytometry core facility and then came back in my current role.
5. So what does a typical week look like for you?
   Currently I am working on lots of SOPs and risk assessments! PhD students have been starting flow cytometry based work so I am helping out training them too. Coming up I have mouse embryo stem cells to culture, growing organoids and running ELISAs and MSD assays for detecting cytokines.
6. What is your favourite thing about working at the Prion Unit? 
   The people here are so nice and always so helpful to each other. There is a degree of freedom within the role to be able to organise what tasks I want to do throughout each week for a bit of variety in my workload, whether that be running assays daily or dedicating a few days to analyse data and catch up on admin.
7. When was the first time you learnt what a prion was?  
   At university. There was a module on infectious diseases and we had guest lectures come from Porton Down. Each talk covered a different disease and that’s where I came across them and it really piqued my interest. The other infectious disease that interested me was tuberculosis.
8. Why did you choose to work with prions?  
   I was with a temp agency and was placed at the Prion Unit. I was already interested in prions so probably that is probably why I was placed here. It was chance but very good chance!
9. What would you say are the best and worst parts of your role? 
   After coming back it is great to see the progress made from when I was here before. Particularly the development of the anti-PrP antibody into PRN100 which was offered as treatment to a small group of patients a few years ago.
   There’s not a worst really, probably very long experiment days with really early starts and very limited breaks, but those are few and far between
10. What are your favourite memories of specific days working here?
    Outside of work it is all the wellbeing events that I help organise. The welcome back drinks post COVID especially. It was great all being back together and seeing everyone for cocktails!
11. What is something that surprised you about working here?
    The longevity of people working here. Leaving and coming back makes you really appreciate that aspect here. It’s a nice place to work with great research of course, but people don’t always stay in roles as long as they do here.
12. When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up? And how close is your current role?
    When I was very little it was TV chef as I loved Ready Steady Cook! Then once I was at school something in science, either biology or physics. Some of my friend’s parents worked at CERN so that’s where the interest in physics came from.
13. Wow! How come their parents worked at CERN?
    I went to an international school in Geneva for high school from age 13-18 years old. Most of my friends’ parents worked for either the UN, WHO, CERN. We all had a weekend trip to see one of the Large Hadron Collider detectors being built in a massive hangar before it was moved underground.
14. Do you have a favourite science fact? 
    Coral is actually a colony of individual animal cells that perform different functions such as digestion to symbiotically keep the coral alive. If you were to break the coral up into single cells it will eventually reform.
15. If you weren't doing this job, money no object, what would you be doing instead? 
    Probably open a little craft shop. I enjoy painting, sewing and baking. It is what I do anyway when I have the time and money, I’m not sure how I’d make a business of it though. I’ve made a queen sized quilt which took over six months and still isn’t completely finished.
16. What are some of your interests or hobbies outside of science?
    I love snowboarding and used to ski competitively for school but took up snowboarding when I was 18 and I found it much more fun. I just had a week break snowboarding in Tignes and Val d'Isère which was great.
17. What is your favourite place to travel to?
    I really love visiting South Africa, my partner is from there and we have been several times. The quality of the food is amazing, as are the people, hospitality and scenery. The weather is pretty good most of the time too! The first time I visited we flew to Cape Town then drove the Garden Route up to Port Elizabeth.
18. Do you have any pets?  
    Yes! One black cat named Buttons. She is eight years old and a rescue from Battersea. She is very affectionate and loved when we had to work from home during covid because she could sit on our laps all day.
19. Is there any particular media you’re into at the moment you would like to share?
    Embarrassingly it’s Married at First Sight Australia. I am also enjoying Masterchef and Interior Design Masters on BBC.
20. Is there anything you want to tell us?  
    Get involved with your wellbeing! Everyone should be aware of and taking care of their wellbeing. For everyone at the unit – come to our weekly coffee mornings and wellbeing walks at lunchtime.

Thank you to Steph for taking the time to share so much about herself and her role here at the MRC Prion Unit at UCL. We look forward to bringing you more insight into the great work we do here and the brilliant people behind it all.