My name is Nicolas Cifuentes. I’m working here in the Dutch lab and I’m doing post-doctorial
research. I grew up in Chile. I did my undergraduate and graduate studies from there, and then
I came here to the U.S. to do my postdoc here at the University of Kentucky. Basically,
I just found this job when I went into the Dutch lab and I had experience in biology.
So this work really fit very well with my CV and I applied and Becky liked my CV and
I ended up in here. So I’m very happy actually being here in this lab. There are no scientists
in my family, but I was kind of pushed to do science. I was really curious about things.
So I always enjoyed science, especially chemistry and math and later biology. Then in college,
I became very interested in biochemistry. So that’s what I studied finally. I think
that, as most of scientists, what drives you is curiosity to know things and to understand
things. So I will say that that’s basically why you pursue science. Curiosity is natural
for biology, for chemistry, for what is happening, for things that happen that you cannot see
in a microscopic world. We have to be writing, reading about the literature, which every
day is being updated. So we need to be updated on what we know, what is new in science. And
then, we work half of the time on the bench doing the experiments, but we spend a lot
of time planning the experiments and thinking about what is the next step. So it’s not
all the time doing experimental jobs. It’s half and half mostly. I’m working on two
different projects. So the lab in general works with two different viruses. One of them
is Hendra virus and the other one is human metapneumovirus. Both of them can affect humans
and I am working in these two different projects. Basically, we’re trying to understand how
these viruses assemble inside the cell and build a new viral particle that is going to
be spread to other humans – I mean from one person to the other. It’s very important
for us to understand how the viruses assemble because that way we can identify new targets
that could potentially be therapeutic targets. So we are trying to identify new ways in which
these viruses are being assembled in the cell. And it’s interesting that even when these
viruses have been discovered from a long time ago, there’s really not much that we know
about them, so that’s quite interesting. So we are going to identify new therapeutic
targets. I think that’s the most interesting part. Even when we are doing basic science,
doing basic science you usually find very interesting things. It’s very exciting when
you find something that you didn’t know and you were not expecting. Because sometimes
you wait for a result – you think that something is going to happen – and then you find that
it’s all the opposite of what you were thinking. So that is exciting because it opens new research
line. The experiments are not going to work at the first or the second or maybe the third
time, but you just have to be persistent. It’s mostly about being persistent in the
experiments and the job. I’m very happy to come to Lexington. It’s a wonderful city.
First of all, I have a family. So for a family, it’s a very good place to grow and to see
your children grow, and it’s a very nice lab environment. We work together as a team.
You don’t always find that in labs or in jobs in general, but I’m pretty happy that
we here have formed a team. And Becky especially, she’s a very good team leader. She’s a
very well connected person. She’s very smart and she teaches you a lot about, not only
about science, but also about how to be involved with other scientists. And we’re doing great
science, which is the most important part. We are doing great science, we’re publishing
on the best journals, so it’s a great place to be.