Question: How did you become interested in virology?

Ian Hands-Portman answered on 10 Mar 2014:

That’s a long story so I hope you’re sitting comfortably! Biology’s always been one of my favorite subjects and I’ve enjoyed tales of the gross and gory since I was a kid so I was leaning in the diseases direction before I started university. A friend got HIV whilst I was doing my degree – this was back in the day when we didn’t have any drugs against the virus – and that gave me the kick to join a project to help design treatments against it as part of my final year.

Viruses are great things to study – they outnumber every living cell on the planet, they’re simple – in that they don’t have many genes so you can fool yourself into thinking you can understand them but once they get into a living thing and start reproducing you realise just how complicated half a dozen genes and a small ball of protein can be.

My friend did get treatment by the way – being young meant she had time on her side and the drug that I helped in a very small way to develop is used to reduce HIV transmission to unborn children from their mothers.