Dr Alan Parker moved to the Vale of Glamorgan in 2013, accompanied by his wife and two children. "South Wales is a welcoming and affordable place to live, with a fantastic quality of life and great schools," he says. "We have bustling towns such as Cowbridge and Penarth on our doorstep, as well as beautiful countryside.
"Me and my family enjoy walking along the beaches of the Glamorganshire Heritage Coast Path near where we live, as well as taking day trips and short breaks in Pembrokeshire, the Gower and Bannau Brycheioniog (Brecon Beacons) National Park. We're never short of places to explore; to this day, I'm still finding new footpaths and fields close to our house."
When he's not working from home, Dr Parker commutes to Cardiff University’s School of Medicine. There, he’s involved in world-leading research to fight cancer with genetically modified viruses. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr Parker and his team were able to use their skills and virology resources to help in the race to produce a COVID-19 vaccine.
"When everyone was told to stay home, we weren't able to go into the lab to do cancer research. Instead, we put our time to good use; the coronavirus pandemic halted certain cancer treatments and research developments, so we did what we could to help find a vaccine, which in turn meant that we could get back to doing our cancer research sooner.
"We have a bank of thousands of viruses that we use as part of our cancer research, so we looked into ways of changing which genes were expressed in order to turn them into COVID-19 vaccines. I feel proud of what we are able to do as a world-leading team that develops virotherapies for cancer treatment, and how we've worked together to put Wales on the map when it comes to vaccine development."
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