I'm a Scientist

I’m a Scientist is like school science lessons meet the X Factor! School students choose which scientist gets a prize of £500 to communicate their work.

Scientists and students talk on this website. They both break down barriers, have fun and learn. But only the students get to vote.

This is the Cancer Zone. It has a range of scientists studying all different topics. Who gets the prize? YOU decide!

Around the world scientists are conducting research on cancer, trying to find out what causes this disease and how we might be able to prevent, treat and cure it.

Lung cancer cell dividing | Image: US National Institute of Health

Cancer occurs when there is a mutation of certain genes in a cell. This can happen randomly, or be caused when radiation, viruses or chemicals damage the DNA. Usually mutations in your DNA don’t have much effect, but some changes make the cell that’s been mutated start to divide and reproduce. The single cell might turn into a clump of cells which keep growing, refuse to die and start damaging the surrounding bits of your body.

There are a number of different treatments that aim to get rid of tumours or prevent them spreading. The simplest thing to do is try to cut the tumour out and hope that no mutated cells are left to keep reproducing. Other treatments include chemotherapy (which uses chemicals to kill the cancer cells) and radiotherapy (which uses radiation to further damage the DNA of the mutated cells and stop them dividing).

The scientists in this zone are looking at different aspects of cancer research, from how viruses could increase chances of getting cancer to using x-rays to look at cancer treating drugs. There’s a scientist racing cancer cells against each other, one cutting up body parts to search for diseases, and one looking at many different areas of breast cancer research.