Gemma Brett

SCIENTIFIC FUTURE: Gemma Brett is seeking a career in science.

Closer to her goalFriday, 30 January 2004

AFTER returning from the National Youth Science Forum held in Canberra during January local student Gemma Brett is more focused than ever. Gemma has her heart set on a career in science and her two weeks spent at the science forum made her goal even clearer. Gemma intends to study a Bachelor of Science in molecular biology and genetics and hopes to travel, working overseas."The good thing about science is that it happens everywhere and there are lots of opportunities to get involved in scientific research, especially overseas," she said. "No, I'm not interested in dissecting rats or anything, I'm mainly interested in the pharmaceutical side of things," she said. "We had to do a mock application for a job we saw advertised that we would like to do, so I applied to be a research scientist with Novartis in Boston," she said. It's a new field called pharmaco-genetics where genetic information is used to make personalised drugs to minimise side effects and stuff like that."Gemma said she found the forum really good because it helped her become clearer about her goals and the pathway."It also helped me get my head around Year 12 and how to attack it," she said."They said you should try to keep up your other interests and keep some balance in your life. "But the main thing that was great was meeting other people with the same interest as me," she said. "I now have friends all over Australia all in the field of science and I am sure our paths will cross again," she said.Chosen as one of the 282 top science students from last year's Year 11, Gemma was selected from nearly 2000 applicants across Australia.