About the Project
The beginning
It feels like you spend your whole first and second year at university building up to the infamous dissertation project. Every year third year gives general student advice like "start early" and "pick a topic you enjoy". Having seen first hand both the joy and utter hysteria this project can induce it's no wonder I wanted to get it right!
My work placement at Plusvital was an amazing opportunity to work Professor with Emmeline Hill and her team. In 2010 Prof Hill launched a company called Equinome after her discovery of the 'Speed Gene' which can be used to determine the optimum racing distance of thoroughbred race horses with over 90% accuracy.
I was absolutely over the moon to be working with Plusvital over the summer and full of hope that I would find a suitable dissertation project I'd enjoy.
From tiny e-mails great opportunities will grow
So as you've probably guessed Plusvital said that they would be happy to collaborate with me on a project. The team had been approached by a fellow researcher asking if Plusvital would be interested in looking into whether there is a relationship between the Speed Gene and racing success in Mongolian racing ponies. As they explained this story to me my grin was getting bigger and bigger! I was asked if this would interest me as a potential project. At this point I couldn't believe it and said YES!!
Only what I didn't realise was that it was about to get even better........
A Skype call with all the race horse owner, researchers led to an invite out to Mongolia to collect the samples and the racing records we would require to complete the research. I swear I didn't sleep for a week I was BUZZING with excitement.
“If the challenge we face doesn't scare us, then it's probably not that important ”
Simon Sinek
The trip of a lifetime
So I am about to embark on the trip of a lifetime. I would like to say a MASSIVE thank you to the Royal Agricultural University for their never ending help and support; from quelling first year jitters to placement planning and finally dissertation guidance!
Touch down and beyond
Although the research trip is unbelievably exciting I also can't wait to get stuck in to the lab and analysis afterwards. I'm sure this will require a great deal of blood sweat and tears. Hopefully our trip will result in some published research so you will just have to keep following to find out.....