Cambridge researchers create branching adventure book to help young people choose their science career

Someone at the Cambridge Independent has an entrepreneurial streak, considering the ending they reached!

"The book, released on Tuesday, explores the setbacks, breakthroughs, friendships, ethical dilemmas, lucky breaks and spectacular mistakes that can shape scientific lives and offers readers an incredible 277 different pathways.

Depending on their choices, they will arrive at one of 10 different endings, inspired by real careers in biomedical science today.

Under one scenario, a successful scientific career culminates in a £50million Series A fundraising - followed by a lucrative sale to a pharma company, achieved while developing a taste for “French cheeses and Californian wines” and a talent for fire-breathing…"

With any luck, this will be James Dooley with Aila Biotech! He already has the fire-breathing down!

The Path Not Taken

Ever wonder how your career (and life!) could have turned out differently if you had picked that PhD project in London instead, or gone into patient advocacy rather than a postdoc? What different lives could you have lived? With our new book "The Professor, the Pipette & the Path Not Taken", you can explore the alternative careers that may have opened up for you.

With more than 250 different pathways and 10 unique endings, this unique branching and converging storyline allows you to choose the pathway you take through science and life. With fantastical realism you can experience the impact your choices have. Does it actually change your life if your high school grades weren't so good? Do you fall behind by taking on a pharma job after your Masters rather than doing a PhD? How bad would it actually be to fudge the results a little for a paper? Would that Start-up idea have actually worked?

A dry comedy for established academics and a career guide for budding scientists, "The Path Not Taken" by Adrian Liston and James Dooley draws on lifetimes of experience for funny, honest, and surprisingly realistic look at what it really means to build a life in science. Out now!

Interactive book brings to life career pathways in science

A Fellow of St Catharine’s has co-authored a new interactive book that enables readers to trace the twists and turns of different career pathways in science. ‘The Professor, the Pipette & the Path Not Taken: Choose Your Science Career’  is a new spin on the branching narrative-style adventure genre written by Professor Adrian Liston (2023) and Professor James Dooley, with illustrations by Yulia Lapko. 

Intended for students at high schools or colleges making university choices and undergraduate science students starting on the path to a career in science, ‘The Professor, the Pipette & the Path Not Taken’ explores the setbacks, breakthroughs, friendships, ethical dilemmas, lucky breaks and spectacular mistakes that shape scientific lives. Readers can choose 277 different pathways through the book and arrive at one of ten different endings, all inspired by real careers in biomedical science today.

Professor Liston, who is Professor of Pathology at the University of Cambridge, explained:

“Science careers can lead to world-changing discoveries, but every scientist experiences bumps in the road before finding success. We want readers to experience the agency they have over their own lives, and by replaying their career multiple times learn that things don’t have to go perfectly from the start in order to have an impact in science. With each choice they make as they turn the pages, readers can discover the many different types of success that can emerge from starting a career in science, with dishonesty the only true barrier to progression.”

Professor Liston and Dr Dooley set up a research laboratory together in 2009. The Liston-Dooley lab is now based at Cambridge’s Department of Pathology and has grown to a team of 20 scientists. 

Professor Liston described the rationale behind the book, saying:

"Many students feel enormous pressure to get everything right from day one: the right exams, the right degree, the right internship, the perfect CV. But science does not really work like that. Careers are rarely linear and failure is not usually the end of the story. In our lab, we have trained more than 200 scientists, and we have seen people build brilliant careers through routes they never expected. We wanted this book to show students that there are many ways to build a life in science, and that the hard path can still lead somewhere meaningful. We thought a branching adventure book exploring these pathways would introduce young people to what it means to build a life in science." 

Professor Dooley added, “Those who know us well might spot the quirks of our own career choices among the scenarios that we’ve included. I was certainly one of those who took a more unconventional route into science, with career delays and detours that meant I had to take the hard path to success. We have also been inspired by some of the pathways taken by team members whom we’ve had the pleasure to teach, supervise or work with over the years. We hope the book is a fun way to show the next generation that science is not just about perfect choices, but about curiosity, resilience, and finding your own route forward.”

Beyond his research and teaching in Pathology at St Catharine’s, Professor Liston works extensively on communicating science to children, with the online game VirusFighter and the illustrated children’s books ‘All about Coronavirus’ (2020), ‘Battle Robots of the Blood’ (2020) and ‘Maya’s Marvellous Medicine’ (2021). He previously joined forces with Yulia Lapko on 'Becoming a Scientist: The Graphic Novel' (2024) which tells the story of the twelve scientists in his biomedical research laboratory to inspire readers between 12 and 18 years of age. Their latest collaboration is intended to be a companion project for the graphic novel. 

Yulia is Project & Communications Coordinator (Higher Education) for the Gatsby Plant Science Education Programme at the University of Cambridge’s Sainsbury Laboratory.

Read ‘The Professor, the Pipette & the Path Not Taken: Choose Your Science Career’. 

Out of Caution or Protest, Foreign Scholars Skip U.S. Conferences

As President Donald Trump deploys National Guard troops to American cities and ICE arrests pick up, some international scholars are opting out of U.S. travel

By Emma Whitford

...

Adrian Liston, a professor of pathology at the University of Cambridge, lived in Seattle while he completed his postdoc and has typically traveled to the U.S. for conferences two or three times a year. But now, he has opted out of all U.S. travel.

“That was a decision made after Trump won re-election. I had already been booked in on a couple of conferences, and the following week, I decided that I wasn’t going to be going to America under Trump,” Liston said. “So I canceled the conferences that I’d already been invited to and I’ve said no to any travel to America for professional or personal work since.”

He’s not concerned about his own safety in the States; like Murakami Wood, his boycott is a protest rooted in ethics.

“I don’t agree with the politicization of scientific funding, the destruction of data collection and openness, the violation of grant agreements, the dismantling of public health that’s been happening with Trump, and I feel like traveling to America at this point is a partial endorsement of what’s going on,” Liston said.

Read the full article at Inside Higher Ed

Burton's Best Buffer featured in the Cambridge Independent

Interview with iiSIAR podcast

ImmunoTea interview

I'm interviewed in the latest episode of ImmunoTea. Take a listen for all things Tregs and neuroimmunology!

Athenaeum Club

A short talk on diversity in the immune system that I gave at the Athenaeum Club. 

As was noted by the Club members, there is a striking parallel with the value of diversity in ideas: education and exposure to multiple different approaches to intellectualism inoculate us from destructive ideologies such as fascism. To what degree is this pure coincidence? Could it be because the same asymmetry that exists in evolutionary speeds between humans and pathogens is also found in the evolutionary speeds of humans and ideas? Could the protective effect of diversity in shielding against pathogens and ideology both be the mathematical consequences of the laws of evolution?

Interview on "Becoming a Scientist: The Graphic Novel"

I was recently interviewed by the Hindustan Times on our book, "Becoming a Scientist". Here is the transcript in full:

Tell us a bit about you and the Liston-Dooley Lab. Apart from researching how to keep the body’s immune response in check, you have also been working on improving equality of opportunity within science careers, communicating science to children through online games and books. What makes you want to update how scientific communication works today? Do you feel that there is much that people do not know about science as a field? 

Science is building knowledge faster than any person can learn, so there is always more science to communicate. This project, however, was really about filling that gap in understanding what a scientist is. The pop media tends to portray scientists as solo geniuses, capable of tinkering around and coming up with insights other people just don't have the innate ability for. That really isn't how science works - anyone could become a scientist. Science is really just about training up your curiosity, learning a few tools, being resilient to failure, and following the data over your pre-conceptions. That's it!

Tell us a bit about your own journey. You had never met a scientist and would probably have ended up as a truck driver too had you not been lucky enough to land a scholarship. Looking back, do you wish things were different for you? 

Everyone makes mistakes in their own journey, I'd rather just look at making a better path forward. I talk to a lot of early career scientists who worry about making a detour in their career through the "wrong" choice. Over and over, what I see is that it is the detours that give you a unique perspective, and in science the ability to look at an old question from a new angle is incredibly valuable. So I say be willing to take a risk and embrace the odd detour in your journey!

If making it to college was not enough, you have touched upon class snobbery and the feeling of alienation that not many people speak about. Tell us how challenging it is and how did you overcome these difficult moments? Is it something you have seen several other colleagues from not very affluent backgrounds also facing? 

I'm proud of being working class. For sure it led some people to dismiss me or look down on me, that is the point of class borders. But it is who I am, and I think it is actually a great preparation for being a scientist. Working at the very edge of human knowledge means floundering and flailing and believing the data when it tells you that you are wrong; over-confidence is the biggest risk in a scientist, while perseverance and humility are virtues. 

What are the biggest challenges that plague the scientific community today? Jargon, for instance, is one that you have avoided in your books. 

So many challenges! Funding is an obvious one. Investment in science generates more economic gains than the expenditure, but it takes time to reap the benefits. So even though it is a win-win situation, short-term pressures often stunt the growth of research budgets - you wouldn't believe the advances that are being held back just by a lack of investment. We have a potential treatment for traumatic brain injury that is waiting for funding to allow us to move to clinical trials - it can be very frustrating!

Perhaps contributing to this problem is the increase in deliberate misinformation. No one can have a solid understanding of the breadth of science, even active scientists, so I don't begrudge anyone having misconceptions or accidently passing them on. Unfortunately at the moment we have a serious problem of people deliberately spreading misinformation for political gain. Whether it is climate change, vaccination, stem cells, or any other topic, we are seeing a systematic effort to degrade the public's ability to determine fact from fiction. In a very real way, it undermines the foundations of our technology-driven civilisation. 

From children’s books to an online game and now a graphic novel, what do you keep in mind while evolving in terms of medium, language and message to reach out to a young audience. 

The only way you reach someone is to go out and meet them where they are. Anything else is just preaching to the choir or screaming into the void. If you want to connect to someone, learn their language and enter their place. 

Why did you decide to tell the stories of these 12 scientists? Was there a particular incident that triggered the thought? How do you think it can help more children consider science as a potential career, irrespective of where they are in life? 

These stories were not hunted down, they were the 12 lab members of my lab at the time I wrote the book. I genuinely believe everyone's story is interesting, so I try to learn about my team. My son is nearing the stage where he is thinking about careers, and of course he has a good idea of what a scientist looks like and how they think, but so many kids won't have that opportunity. So I thought I could write the stories of my team members and share it with other kids his age.

Once you had the concept in mind how long did it take to collate everyone’s stories, put it down in words and as illustrations and get the book ready? How did the other scientists respond to the idea of seeing their stories become an inspiration for others? Were any of them apprehensive or were they all excited to share their personal journeys? 

When writing about people you know well, it is probably faster to tell their story then it is to tell your own. Initially most of us were apprehensive - it is an insight into us as people, and normally we only write about our science. Putting a window into our hearts out for the whole world is daunting. However the feedback we have received has made everything worth it!

How has the feedback been for the novel? Any heartwarming responses from those who have read it? 

We've had lot of great feedback from scientists, but what means the most to me is hearing from people who resonated with a particular story. For example I've heard from people who came through the foster care system, some of the most disadvantages kids in society, who read James's story and felt uplifted by his success, and are now sharing it with the foster kids they mentor. Sometimes all it takes is one event during your childhood, just one time that you need the epiphany that people like you can succeed, to make a life take a different track.

Being a scientist

From an interview with Superbugs 

I didn’t really know what a scientist was growing up in Australia. My Dad was a truck driver, and everyone around me either drove trucks or worked in factories. If it wasn’t for watching nature documentaries on the TV, I probably would have dropped out of high school and become a truck driver too. Listening to David Attenborough explain how life was interconnected changed my pathway in life. I had a taste of wondering “why” and hearing it explained, and I wanted to know how the how world worked.

I got good grades in school and went to university. Although, to be honest, you didn’t need especially good grades to get into a science degree – it is rather inclusive entry, unlike medicine or engineering which are tougher to get into. I’m also not especially convinced that the grades you get during your degree in science reflect much about your capacity to be a scientist. The undergraduate degree has to give you the baseline of facts and tools, but once you graduate and become a scientist you are operating at the very boundary of human knowledge. It doesn’t matter if you are quick or slow, have a photographic memory or need to look up basic formulas each time. Science is different from any other walk in life. You can fail and fail and fail, but by succeeding just once you add something new to the sum total of humanity’s knowledge. When I think about what it takes to succeed as a scientist I think it really comes down to three things: creativity, resilience and integrity.

Why creativity, resilience and integrity? Creativity because we don’t know what the right experiments are. Once you are at the boundaries of knowledge, all you can do is take an educated guess, design the best experiment you can, and see if it sheds new light. Most of the time it doesn’t! So a creative scientist is someone who is good at coming up with multiple different ways to attack a problem. Of course, this means a lot of failure, which is where resilience comes in. Failing multiple times is a serious downer. Classical high achievers often struggle when they transition from acing every exam to failing in the lab. If you’ve got grit, if you know how to pick yourself up and try again, then you’ll eventually solve the problem. That is what science is, being wrong over and over again, until in the end you are right. Finally, integrity is key. You’ve just got to be honest in science. To make progress we need to build a tower out of data. People who are willing to fudge their results, fool themselves into thinking they are right when they are not, they start building their tower on poor foundations. The scientists who are willing to admit they are wrong, change their mind with new data, and take the slow route are the ones who end up building the highest.

I guess this doesn’t make science sound super attractive as a career! It is genuinely hard, and few people actually enjoy being wrong over and over again! But the thing is, when you are right, it is amazing. When we find something out it is actually something entire new that we have created – we have moved the sphere of human knowledge further out. There are also a lot of perks to a career in science – I get to travel a lot, don’t need to wear a suit, and the work is easier and for more money than driving a truck or working in a factory!

For myself, after a research career in Australia and America, I started to become more interested in creating a space for scientists to excel in, rather than doing science myself. I moved to Belgium and set up a lab in a hospital there. I tried to bring in a team of amazing people with different skills and backgrounds – biologists, mathematicians, clinicians, engineers, chemists and more, precisely because we never really know the best way to tackle the new problem. My job is to pick the questions we work on, and help the team to find ways to put together their skills to answer those questions. By having a team of diverse people who think in different ways we became much more successful at finding a winning formula. We have uncovered the causes of human diseases, solved riddles for why some patients are sick, started clinical trials that brought new treatments to neglected patients, even developed new drugs. Each success we have opens up a new and more interesting problem, and we are genuinely improving the world.

After a decade in Belgium I moved over my lab to Cambridge. We are still working on interesting problems in pathology, and I still have an amazing team of diverse scientists. Perhaps the best part, though, is that so many people have left my lab and have started up their own teams, in universities, hospitals and biotech companies, all across the world. That decision I made to go into science after high school has led to hundreds of scientists being trained, and humanity will build on the knowledge they create long after I am gone.