Meet Janelle Bryce: Using science to beat superbugs
Who are you?
Janelle Bryce – BioProcess and Research Product Leader, GE Life Sciences, Australia and New ZealandWhere are you?
Sydney, Australia.
What do you do?
I make sure researchers in biopharmaceutical laboratories get the equipment they need to create vaccines and treatments for diseases.
What’s the weirdest place science or engineering has taken you?
CSL’s influenza research and development facility where all the eggs come in. It is surreal to see 10-plus trolleys full of over 500 eggs each being pushed around the corridors so they can manufacture the flu vaccine – although the sight and smell does put you off eating eggs for a while.
What’s the most interesting thing about your job?
All the passionate scientists I meet who are working on cures for disease. No one customer is doing exactly the same research so I am always fascinated and learning something new.
What do your friends and family think you do?
My husband tells everyone who asks I “sell science stuff”. My family and friends do not really comprehend what I do besides selling to laboratories and biopharmaceutical companies.
If you could share a conversation with any scientist, alive or dead, who would it be and why?
Marie Skłodowska-Curie – I’d ask her if she realised that her work would be so critical that people would remember her name 80 years after her death. I’d also like to know if she knew at any point that her research was slowly killing her.
The other person I’d like to talk to would be Howard Florey. I’d ask him whether it ever occurred to him that the application of penicillin in medicine would come under threat due to superbug resistance. I’d also be fascinated to find out how he would go about researching the next penicillin-type drug to beat today’s superbugs.