Welcome to “Stem cell beauty – a monthly blog by Christèle Gonneau”
Posted by Christele Gonneau, on 15 August 2013
How can a single fertilized egg become a full little human? It is because I wanted to answer that question that I became a scientist.
When I started my PhD studying the formation of blood stem cells during development,, I learnt how complex development was and how hard it was to address these questions. Though fun and rewarding, big challenges are also part of a scientist’s life. During the difficult times, there were two activities in particular that kept me motivated, confident and enthusiastic about science: 1) doing science outreach and 2) reading scientific publications to keep up to date with the field.
1) As for science outreach, I found it extremely rewarding and humbling to communicate science to non-scientists. It always made me feel proud to realize that I, as a scientist, play a very important role in society, especially given that I work in the controversial field of stem cells. Indeed, when I talk to non-scientists about stem cells, I feel that I contribute to their understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the field and that, in the long run, it will help end all the misconceptions out there that are detrimental for both science and society.
2) Reading publications. First because they made me feel like I was part of a big worldwide enterprise and also because some of them were… well, quite artistic and beautiful…and like a good piece of art, some of these figures, pictures and graphical displays, were fascinating.
So, this is why I am very excited about writing this monthly blog. Each month, I will share with you the beauty of stem cells by selecting and commenting on a cool stem cell image from a publication, following a similar format to Erin Campbell’s previous posts. This monthly blog is a collaborative project between the Node and EuroStemCell, and therefore my posts will also be available on the EuroStemCell website (http://www.eurostemcell.org/stem-cell-images).
I will be posting my first stem cell image soon…
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