What did you do before starting your DPhil?
I’m a Clinician and began the DPhil midway through my specialty training in Paediatric Haematology.
Why did you want to work in Cancer Research?
I’ve always been interested in ‘why’ questions behind disease. Cancer research for me was both a route to answering important questions, and a way to never be bored.
To pinpoint a moment, it was ten years ago, working on the Paediatric Cancer service, there was a girl having a third relapse of B-ALL, conventional therapy hadn’t worked for her, but a then new drug blinatumomab was tried on compassionate, ‘last chance’, basis and it worked. I knew I wanted to part of process that made change like that happen.
What attracted you to the DPhil in Cancer Science with Oxford Cancer?
It was the classic combination of the right time, right place and right person. Time was right for me, I had appreciation of area of unmet clinical need, and desire to understand and shape future therapies. Oxford Cancer was the right place; their infrastructure provided training and support to gain technical skills and soft skills to enable me to develop from science-interested clinician to a Clinician scientist. Finally, the right person for me was finding a Supervisor who inspired me, with her research questions, work ethic and commitment to mentorship.
I would highly recommend DPhil in Cancer Science to the science curious clinician. Oxford Cancer provided the right environment for me to transition from clinician to scientist. This included technical aspects such as training seminars, bio-informatics courses, practical exercises in communication for example with lay audiences and or practicing grant pitches. Additionally they fostered collaboration, specifically through making a community within the DPhil cohort placed in different research institutes and disciplines.
Tell us a little about the DPhil Project you worked on.
My project looked at how normal developmental programmes intersect with leukaemia producing genetic ‘hits’ leading to aggressive leukaemia in infants and young children.
Tell us a little about what you’ve worked on since graduating.
It’s been 18 months since I completed the DPhil in Cancer Science and I’ve been working clinically in Paediatric Haematology. I’ve secured a fellowship to continue research alongside my clinical training.
What are the potential implications of this work for patients?
I generated potential novel therapeutic targets; those where expression is limited to specific developmental timepoints could be particularly attractive as they should have limited off-target toxicity.
What do you think are the major obstacles for the cancer field to overcome in the next 10 years?
In Paediatric Haematology CAR-T has changed landscape of B-ALL treatment in the last 10 years. AML and T-ALL currently don’t have CAR-T therapy options. Finding and exploiting vulnerabilities in cancer biology for these patients is key.
Alongside this questions remain how novel therapies/immunotherapy can best be used alongside conventional chemotherapy to provide optimum balance of efficacy and toxicity.
Find out more about the DPhil in Cancer Science on our study pages.
