Get to know me

If you weren’t doing science, what would you be doing instead?

I’m very fascinated by animation movies and the techniques that are used in the field to obtain a certain result, besides liking to draw, paint and do artsy stuff in my free time. Thus, I think I will be an animator if I wasn’t doing science.

What completely absurd research project would you start immediately if money wasn’t an issue?

Tattoo ink that is visible only when induced (e.g., with a specific drug). It would be absurdly cool to have ink that contains a gene that enters your cells when skin is tattooed and expresses colored and fluorescent molecules on demand, so you can decide when you want to show a tattoo or not! It would be hard to have a consistent tattoo design in time due to cell renewal, but that’s one reason why money shouldn’t be an issue for this project.

What’s the most useless piece of knowledge you know but still want to share?

Male platypuses have an extra claw on their rear paws that can release venom, which they use to fight other animals and among each other when in competition! :D