Cristina Lo Celso is the first woman to receive the UK Academy of Medical Sciences Foulkes Foundation Medal since the award was launched in 2007.  While a postdoc at Harvard University Lo Celso developed microscopy techniques that allowed blood stem cells to be viewed inside their natural environment for the first time. She describes her career to date, how she chose science over medicine, and her mentors.

Why did you choose a career in academic research rather than medicine? 

I did consider medicine.  Antonio Lo Celso, my paternal grandfather, was a surgeon in Sicily before retiring to Turin, where I grew up. He got me interested in human health and how the body works. But when I was about 15 I read Dominique Lapierre’s 1991 book Beyond Love. It’s about clinicians and scientists and patients during the early stages of the HIV epidemic and it made me realise that research can make a massive difference. Continue reading →