First up, do you have a telescope?
I have a microscope instead. Rather than looking into the universe, I look into our organs and cells to understand how our bodies function and how diseases develop.
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As a child, what did you want to do when you grew up?
It changed all the time. I wanted to be a medical doctor after watching ER and then I wanted to be an FBI agent after watching The X-Files.
Explain what you do in one easy paragraph.
I try to understand how stem cells function and regenerate, and how cancers develop. More practically, my group finds an interesting biomedical question, sets out a hypothesis and then designs experiments to prove if the hypothesis is right or wrong.
What does a typical day involve?
As a leader of a research group, my typical day involves meetings with the members of my lab to discuss their projects and go through data. The rest of my time is mostly spent reading the latest research findings and writing up results.
What do you love most about what you do? And what鈥檚 the worst part?
The moment when you discover something new that could improve our understanding of human biology and cancer treatment. That is what I love most and what keeps me motivated. The worst part is when we find out negative results, which means either the experiment didn鈥檛 work or the hypothesis was wrong.
What鈥檚 the most exciting thing you鈥檙e working on right now?
We are trying to engineer and grow a piece of human intestine in a dish for transplantation. If this works, it will revolutionise regenerative medicine.
Were you good at science at school?
I was good at biology particularly. The subject of human biology and physiology was fascinating to me. I could spend hours talking to my mum about the gas exchange system and the digestive system of our bodies until she asked for a break.
If you could send a message back to yourself as a kid, what would you say?
Don鈥檛 care what other people say.
Wat鈥檚 the best piece of advice anyone ever gave you?
鈥淟uck is when preparation meets opportunity.鈥� It will only happen to people who did their preparation.
What鈥檚 the best thing you鈥檝e read or seen in the past 12 months?
AlphaZero [developed by AI company DeepMind] learning to play chess like a human.
If you could have a long conversation with any scientist, living or dead, who would it be?
I wish I could talk to Marie Curie and convince her to wear protective clothing to reduce her exposure to radiation.
鈥淚 wish I could talk to Marie Curie and convince her to wear protective clothing鈥�
How useful will your skills be after the apocalypse?
Presumably the apocalypse will cause lots of irreversible damage to our bodies. My biomedical research skills, particularly on the subject of tissue engineering, would help regenerate human bodies and populations.
OK, one last thing: tell us something that will blow our minds鈥�
I work on the bowel of our digestive system. If you were to open up and unfold your bowel, its surface area would be approximately the size of a tennis court. What鈥檚 more, all the cells covering the inner lining of your bowel are renewed completely every five to seven days by the resident stem cells, meaning that the bowel in your body today is different from the one you had a week ago!
Vivian Li is group leader at the Stem Cell and Cancer Biology Laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute in London. She will be speaking at 麻豆传媒 Live on 10 October about and investigating cancer
