Profile
Leonardo Mancini
My CV
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Education:
2015-2019 University of Edinburgh. 2014-2015 University of Cambridge. 2011-2014 University of Perugia (Italy). 2006-2011 Science High School (Italy).
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Qualifications:
Italian Matura paper, BSc, MPhil, PhD
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Work History:
Postdoc researcher!
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Current Job:
Postdoc researcher!
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About Me:
Scientist in-between disciplines, team sports enthusiast, pasta lover
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I grew up in a small Italian town where I played way too much basketball , with frequent and necessary football sessions on the side. I read a lot of novels, particularly old adventure ones. One shelf of my kitchen is dedicated to pasta. Professionally, I started off from biology, slowly making my way towards the physics department.
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Earth has living beings of every size and shape. Some of them are so tiny that they are impossible to see without the help of many magnifying glasses. Among the tiny ones, bacteria are almost the tiniest.
Even if often we don’t notice them, bacteria are almost anywhere (even inside our belly!) and they can help us in many ways: they help us digest foods, they make vitamins and they can even help us feed the plants that end up inside our soup.
While most bacteria are good, sometimes we can meet some that make us sick. When this happens, we can take a medicine that gets rid of them. But bacteria learn quickly and some of them can invent the antidote and keep making us sick. How do they do that? I try to answer this question.
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My Typical Day:
I wake up and ride to work, where I grow bacteria and place them in tiny chambers, which I observe with a microscope. When I’m done I rush off to play basketball.
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I wake up and ride to the lab, where I put on gloves and labcoat and defrost the bacteria of the day.
While they thaw, I check results from the experiment of the day before and decide what to do next. Sometimes the measurements made by the instruments are hard to interpret and I have to write some computer code that makes them more understandable.
Once I’ve decided what to do, I feed the now thawed bacteria with appropriate food and let them grow for a bit. Because they double in number every 30 minutes, this does not take too long!
While I wait, I build some tiny chambers that will host bacteria while I observe them.
When bacteria are ready, I put them inside the chambers together with some medicines called antibiotics. I do this because I am curious to see if they survive and if they do, how they do it. When chambers and bacteria are ready, I put them in the focus of a microscope. Thanks to some computer code, the microscope knows already what to do. It will take pictures of the cells using light of different colors for many hours. At this point, the core of my work for the day is done and I can go play with my basketball team!
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What I'd do with the prize money:
The ultimate goal is to setup a microbiology lab where, with appropriate supervision, anybody (citizen scientists) can go and perform microbiology experiments.
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My Interview
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How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
Perseverant
What did you want to be after you left school?
A scientist!
Were you ever in trouble at school?
...No
Who is your favourite singer or band?
If bassists count, then Flea from RHCP. If not, I'll go with Eddie Vedder..
What's your favourite food?
A long list of pasta recipes that is hard to choose from!
Tell us a joke.
What does the cheese say when it looks in the mirror? Halloumi!
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