Tell us about your background
I did my undergraduate degree in Cells & Systems Biology here at Oxford and then followed it up with a masters in Biomedical Sciences Research at King’s College London.
Why did you want to work in Cancer Research?
I have been very interested in molecular mechanisms of carcinogenesis ever since I first learnt about it in high school. I was fascinated with the process that turns our own cells against our body. Another important moment that made me sure that I want to pursue cancer research as a career was a mini-symposium organised for second year students by Prof. Chris Norbury where I got a chance to hear from both cancer scientists and cancer patients. I remember being incredibly motivated to one day contribute my small part to the fight against cancer.
Tell us about your DPhil Project.
For my project, I’m working on trying to understand how HPF1 modulates PARP1 activity. PARP1 is a protein that is involved in detecting DNA damage which in turn protects the cells from mutations. As a lot of cancers have defects in DNA damage repair pathways, PARP inhibitors can selectively kill cancers with these particular defects by increasing the DNA damage burden. However, the exact mechanism of action of PARP inhibitors is not fully understood as the details of the PARP1 signalling pathway are not known. I focus on HPF1 which is a key interactor of PARP1 that drastically alters its activity. While we have a good idea of the molecular mechanism of the interaction between HPF1 and PARP1, the exact effects on large scale signalling are still elusive but we are slowly untangling this web of signalling.
While my work is unlikely to directly improve patients’ lives by a discovery of novel treatment, we hope that better understanding of activity of a major target of cancer therapy might allow for improvement of existing drugs to prevent emergence of resistance and diminish negative side effects.
I am very fortunate to be based in Sir William Dunn School of Pathology which is a department that houses a lot of groups that are more focused on basic research and uncovering molecular mechanisms of disease. The work done in the department is not limited to cancer research, there’s quite a few groups studying infectious diseases, for example. The Dunn School has an amazing community that fosters communication and collaboration between the different research groups among the diverse topics. Everyone is very friendly and helpful and there’s a lot of interesting science happening here every day.
What do you think are the major obstacles for the cancer field to overcome in the next 10 years?
It’s very hard to predict where we are going to be in 10 years in a field that evolves so quickly. However, I think a big challenge is (and always will be) introducing scientific breakthroughs into clinical practice. While there is a lot of promise in the various cancer immunotherapies the majority of these treatments are too expensive to be routinely used in the clinic on a big scale. Similarly, while we learn more and more about the early events of carcinogenesis, our ability to diagnose early stages of cancer is lagging behind. Being able to reliably detect cancer before it becomes a debilitating disease is the best way to fight the disease but it requires not only scientific breakthroughs but also changes in public policy and education.
Find out more about the DPhil in Cancer Science on our study pages.
