Profile

I work at Barts Cancer Institute, part of the Queen Mary University of London.

We want to find out how normal cells are transformed into prostate cancer cells and what are the most important parts (molecules) of the cell for this to happen. This is molecular biology and it means looking at how the molecules such as genes and proteins are interacting inside the cell, this is often very different in a cancer cell compared to a normal healthy cell.

A large part of my day is spent in the lab physically experimenting with cancer cells. I treat cells in a number of different ways and then look the way they behave. This second part means lots of time collecting data (images and numbers) about the cells, such as how quickly they grow and how they move. My boss and I then chat about what this means about how the cells are wired up inside, we want to see which bits are the most important for cancerous cells to develop and grow! The more we know about this, the better we will be able to treat those with prostate cancer.

It isn’t just us working on prostate cancer! There are many, many others all over the world trying to get to the bottom of this aggressive disease. So I spend most of the time that I am not in the lab or looking at my data, reading about what other cancer researchers are up to. This helps researchers like myself to come up with new ideas about how to solve our own problems as well as help others with theirs.