Mijke Sweers: "The working environment at Nematology is very open, friendly and flexible"

My thesis was about the production of antifreeze glycoproteins in Nicotiana benthamiana. It turned out to be a lot more difficult than expected, and therefore the scope of my thesis also ended up being a bit different than expected. I look back at this as being a fun challenge to tackle, not at all stressful!

As I was recovering from a concussion during my thesis, my time planning had to be a lot different from a usual thesis. I could not work full days, and my workload capacity would differ from day to day. At first I thought that this would be a bit of a problem, but my supervisors Alex and Arjen were very supportive and open-minded. This gave me the space to recover, while still getting everything out of my thesis and learning loads of new things. Additionally, I have really appreciated the discussions about unexpected results within the LMA group and through that have learned a lot about doing research. I would definitely recommend doing your thesis at Nematology!