• Question: Have you guys ever tried to help find a cure for cancer?

    Asked by to Clare, Divya, Ian, Jess, Lewis on 17 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Jess Smith

      Jess Smith answered on 17 Mar 2014:

      Hey! I have only been a scientist for a few years, and I have spent that working on tissue expander implants. I would love to work in cancer in the future, but it would depend on the group and the skills that they needed in that group. (I’m more of an engineer than a biologist, so I’m not sure that I would be very helpful in a lot of the cancer research groups).

    • Photo: Lewis Dean

      Lewis Dean answered on 17 Mar 2014:

      No, this isn’t really my field. I am trying to find out about other things, like how humans have evolved and how monkeys and apes behave. Scientists all tend to specialise quite a lot, so if you put me in a lab with lots of test-tubes and told me to work on a cure for cancer, I would have no idea know where to start!

      The scientists who work on finding a cure cancer are doing an amazing job and they have huge respect from me. It is a really difficult problem.

    • Photo: Ian Hands-Portman

      Ian Hands-Portman answered on 17 Mar 2014:

      Yes, it’s probably the third most common project I get asked to help out on. My role is to take cancer cells and healthy cells that have been treated with a potential drug and look how much damage the drug as done to the cancer cells compared to the healthy cells.

      If you ever hear the claim in a newspaper or dubious advert “it kills cancer cells in the test tube” then just remember – so does petrol. They key thing is to find something that kills cancer cells but doesn’t kill healthy cells – (or more just kills them a bit more slowly.)

    • Photo: Clare Nevin

      Clare Nevin answered on 17 Mar 2014:

      No I’m not involved in cancer research, but I would love to work in that field.

    • Photo: Divya Venkatesh

      Divya Venkatesh answered on 18 Mar 2014:

      No I haven’t worked on cancer yet. It’s a fascinating area of research with a lot of potential — there are so many creative ways scientists are using to understand and treat cancer – it would be great to be part of that effort. But we pick our battles, as Lewis said – doing actual research can be quite a specific thing that requires specialist training.

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