The Wellcome-Wolfson Institute for Experimental Medicine hosted two events as part of the NI Science Festival on Saturday 18th February 2023. The main event, ‘Biomedical research in action’, saw over 260 members of the public engaging with scientists about their work in bioinformatics, microbiology and immunology, with a special focus on diseases affecting blood vessels, eyes and lungs. The hands-on stands including the Gory corner promoted interaction with the researchers, which was much appreciated in the very positive feedback from the public. The ‘So you want to be a biomedical scientist’ event gave two groups of 25 potential scientists an insight into what this career involves and how to get started. A PhD student, postdoctoral researcher and principal investigator shared their work experiences. Hopefully this convinced the attendees of the merits of a career in biomedical science. They were then provided with information about the Biomedical Science degree available at QUB (link: https://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/mdbs/Study/BiomedicalSciences/). There was also a chance to see around the Institute and the Advanced Imaging Core Technology Unit (link: https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/core-technology-units/AdvancedImaging/). We would like to thank the Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences for their support and all the fantastic volunteers whose hard work made this event such a success.