Who are you and where are you based?

Hello, I’m Yan, the Research Technician for Stroke-IMPaCT at the University of Manchester, and I mainly work at Salford Royal Hospital.

What is your role in the Stroke IMPaCT Network?

As a Research Technician my main role is to process the participant blood samples. I separate blood samples into  plasma, serum and PBMCs. I also help our post-doc Tom to analyse the samples using flow-cytometry.

Within my role I am responsible for handling the SMART tubes. SMART Tubes essentially allow us to create an ‘immune reaction in a dish’ that tell us how the immune system responds to common bacterial and viral proteins at a snapshot in time.

My other core role is to manage the bank of samples from the study. I ensure that we know where each sample is at any time.  I also make sure the labs are well stocked and we don’t run out of the resources we need.

What are you enjoying most about being part of this network?

I am really enjoy developing new skills in and out of the laboratory. I am currently learning venepuncture, under the supervision of the Stroke-IMPaCT research nurses. I have been able to take blood sample from participants. I’m really looking forward to meeting more of our participants when I am helping with taking blood in the future.  

What else do you enjoy doing/ anything else you’d like to share?

Outside of work I love doing digital art on my iPad and attending art classes.

Contacting Me

I can be reached at siewyan.wong@manchester.ac.uk

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