Biologist goes from the lab to literature

Biologist Kristi Charish (PhD’ 11) is making strides as an urban fantasy author. Her first novel, Owl and the Japanese Circus, came out in 2015. The sequel, Owl and the City of Angels, is out now as an e-book. Another series of books, Kincaid Strange, was published in 2016 by Random House Canada. While Charish is a full-time writer, she occasionally pops back into research. Charish has volunteered at the lab of UBC biologist Vanessa Auld, studying a protein called Gliotactin, which is necessary for cell survival, cell division and maintenance of the blood-brain barrier.

"Basically the research involved a lot of fun genetics, cell biology, and copious amounts of fluorescent antibody labelling," she says.