A truck driver’s son, a hospital orderly: A graphic novel explores who can be a scientist

When the non-profit British Science Association (BSA) surveyed 14-18-year-olds across four years, they found answers that mirrored those in the popular imagination: A scientist looks geeky, awkward, bespectacled; has crazy hair, a high-pitched voice.

Their report published on their website in 2023, found that only 8% could conjure an image of a scientist they could identify with.

“Pop-culture and media tend to portray scientists as solo geniuses, capable of tinkering around and coming up with insights other people just don’t have the innate ability for. That really isn’t how science works. Anyone can become a scientist,” says Adrian Liston, professor of pathology who heads the Liston-Dooley lab at the University of Cambridge.

Liston’s new graphic novel, Becoming a Scientist (available free online) is aimed at readers aged 12-18. He wants to inspire the next generation of scientists with a more realistic view, he says.

The book grounds itself in reality, telling the colourful and unexpected paths that led 12 members of Liston’s own team to the field of biomedical research. Illustrated evocatively by Yulia Lapko, a business administrator at the department and a recent emigrant from Ukraine, the book’s 30 colourful pages offer a look at the personal struggles and personal doubt that many of these scientists faced.

“I never met a scientist. Actually, if I hadn’t been inspired by the weekly nature documentary on TV, I’d never have known being a scientist was possible,” writes Liston, who hails from a family of Australian truck drivers and factory workers.

Others on the team grew up in foster homes, or on remote farms; some were the first in their family to finish school. They fought language barriers, medical conditions, race and class biases.

Initially, the team wasn’t sure this was the right approach, Liston says.

“Normally, we only write about our science, not ourselves,” he adds. Plus, “opening our hearts for the whole world to see was daunting.” When Hayden, Liston’s 14-year-old son, started thinking of career options, they realised many other kids don’t have the same exposure and opportunities to connect with scientists and role models. Sharing their own stories could be a revelatory experience for young minds.

Liston, 44, wants his book to remind young people that the right path doesn’t always feel right.

With no role models to inspire him, he didn’t think of going to university till he gained a scholarship to Adelaide University. Once there, it took a long time for him to feel like he had earned it. In the lab, he suffered from crises of confidence.

“All of this taught me that working at the very edge of human knowledge means floundering and flailing… and believing the data when it tells you that you are wrong. Over-confidence is the biggest risk in a scientist, while perseverance and humility are virtues,” he says.

In their elements

Magda Ali, 27, a PhD student researching the body’s immune response, the daughter of Somalian civil war refugees, remembers being drawn to the sciences by her mid-teens, but “struggling to find inspiration”.

“Other than my science teachers I had no one else to look up to and no idea what my possible career options would be,” she says.

Finding the right role model was a hurdle for Alvaro Roberto Hernandez too. He grew up in Peru, the son of lawyers. He suffered his first academic setback at five, when he failed the entrance exam to the school of his parents’ choice. “I think my early teachers would be surprised to see me at Cambridge,” the 22-year-old says in the book. (He is now studying biochemistry at Imperial College London, and was a visiting team member at Cambridge when the book was written.)

If you love it, that means something, Liston says. Don’t be afraid if that feeling fades too; don’t be afraid to take a detour, and try something new within your chosen field.

Early career scientists often worry about making a detour, but it is the detours that give one a unique perspective, he adds. “And especially in science, the ability to look at an old question from a new angle is vital.”

An evocative example of the detour route, in the book, comes from James Dooley, 54.

In and out of foster homes in the US, as a child, he began his career as an orderly in the emergency room of the Northwest Hospital in Seattle. “When I worked in the ER, I learned that I thrived in chaos. When I worked in hospice, I found that I could connect deeply with people,” he says in the book.

After a decade of gathering such experience in healthcare, he signed up for community college and worked in biomedical research long enough that he was admitted to start his PhD without a Bachelor’s or a Master’s. His first university degree was, in fact, the PhD in Immunology, which he received in his 40s. He is now a principal research associate at Cambridge.

Incidentally, this is Liston’s fourth illustrated book for children. His others were All About Coronavirus (2020; an explainer), Battle Robots of the Blood (2020; the role of the immune system, explained through the story of an immunodeficient seven-year-old) and Maya’s Marvellous Medicine (2021; an introduction to vaccines).

He also worked on a videogame, VirusFighter, released during the pandemic to stimulate discussions among children on the science of virology.

“Science is building knowledge so fast that there is always new science to explore,” he says. “This project is really about filling that early gap in understanding what a scientist is.”