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When women have diabetes in pregnancy, they are much more likely to have big babies, which can be a big problem when giving birth. Not only is birth much more difficult, but these babies are much more likely to have problems during pregnancy.

We now know that bigger babies are much more likely to become obese or get diabetes themselves later in life. This means that something must be happening to their DNA and the way that it is packaged while they are growing in the womb. Genes in DNA can be turned ‘on’ or ‘off’ by being packaged in a certain way.

I’m looking at how the problems with blood sugar in the mother can change the way that the placenta and the baby develops. This is due to the placenta allowing certain nutrients to pass straight from mother to baby without stopping. These tend to be sugars and fats. These can then induce cells to start producing different substances or grow in different ways.

I tend to come into the lab and head straight to do any experiments that I’m going to do that day as they can be up and running while I do other things, like analyse my results and plan where I’m going to go next.

Often in the morning I will have a meeting with other people in the lab. Some days people in the lab will give a talk about what they are doing, and at other times, we will meet in smaller groups of scientists and talk about any problems that we are having to see if anyone can come up with any better ideas!

My day can often get messed up as I work with placenta and will often be waiting around for people to give birth so I can go and collect it – this can sometimes make me stay a little late or come in at the weekend.

I tend to do most of my writing later in the day as the write-up area tends to be quieter, as I get easily distracted by noise, movement and cake (these tend to disappear by the end of the day).