photographist

“The HIV representation on TV as a ball with peaks all around really impressed me when I was a child. I wanted to nurse people but I was not attracted by long studies and I first envisioned to be a midwife. Our choices are somehow shaped by life events. Once the college finished, young adults need to test their capacities and preferences to decide their professional orientation. I have discovered organic chemistry at the University. I have recently been appointed to an Assistant Professor position in France: 50% time in higher education, 50% in research laboratory and many administrative tasks. Women are not replaced in teaching or research during the maternity leave and our teaching task is kindly done by our colleagues who are already overloaded with their own work. Research requires optimism, patience and perseverance. When it does not work for a long time, it is hard to overcome difficulties and to persist every day. But when it finally works, it is fantastic!

An analogue is a molecule very alike another, in which something has been changed in the structure. My PhD was dealing with the synthesis of analogues of naturally occurring compounds, that display activity against some viral diseases. In my lab, we specialise in of one reaction –cyclopropanation – that occurs by the mediation of a titanium derivative. We are working on the optimization of the reaction conditions. During the last few years, we synthesised a new molecule instead of the expected compound. We have found what it looks like, what is its structure and how it has been formed. That is one of the interesting points of this job: we have not succeeded in the way we wanted, however we have discovered something totally different and unexpected, and it has led us to think differently about the chemical mechanism of the reaction, how the electrons rearrange themselves, how it works in the flask.”

Morwenna Pearson-Long
Lecturer, researcher at University of Maine

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