I have just completed my final year studying preclinical Medicine at St Andrews. For my dissertation I was fortunate enough to join the Neurogenetics group. Here I undertook a laboratory based project investigating the genetic aetiology of dyslexia and Specific Language Impairment (SLI). As recipient of the Wolfson Award, my work was sponsored by the Royal College of Physicians in partnership with the Wolfson Foundation. The project has given me my first taste of lab based research and provided a fantastic balance of practical laboratory methods and statistical analysis. I have been working on a project aimed at replicating novel candidate genes for SLI identified through genome-wide association studies. The experience has furthered my desire to undertake a mixture of clinical and academic work in the future. I look forward to taking the project further over Summer with a view to publication.
Emily Frinton