• Question: What made you want to study cancer? And have you discovered anything interesting? Have you saved anyones life with your work?

    Asked by emmax123 to Sarah, Alan, Murray on 11 Mar 2011 in Categories: . This question was also asked by agomez100.
    • Photo: Sarah Thomas

      Sarah Thomas answered on 11 Mar 2011:

      Hi Emma,

      I ended up studying cancer because I lost my Granny to cancer a few years ago. I was heartbroken watching her get weaker and weaker and more and more ill. After she died, I knew that I wanted to do cancer research but I didn’t ever really think I was clever enough. So I just worked hard at uni and I was SO surprised when I was offered the opportunity to do a PhD for Cancer Research UK!

      The most important thing I have done in my research wasn’t really a discovery, it was more of a realisation… A few years ago, scientists discovered some chemicals that are emitted by tumours. Tumours produce these chemicals so that they can grow and spread round the body.

      A few months ago I was working with carbohydrates. They were made of big long chains and I was using an enzyme to chop them into smaller pieces. On my way home that night, a huge brain wave hit me! I realised that the carbohydrates I was working with could bind to those cancer chemicals. I went into the lab the next day and found that I was right, they could bind together and that’s when I had the idea to turn it into a blood test to help detect cancer early.

      I’m still working on the blood test but I really hope that this will help save people’s lives. If you catch cancer early, it is so much easier to treat it. But if it is allowed to grow and spread, it can be so so dangerous.

      I hope I answered your questions Em, please message me if you have more.

      From Sarah 🙂

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