• Question: what cancer type would you prefer to studie

    Asked by cherry16 to Amar, Ana, Andrea, Leah, Matt on 7 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by cupcake94.
    • Photo: Anastasia Wass

      Anastasia Wass answered on 7 Mar 2014:

      Rather than studying a particular type of cancer I like studying the spread of cancers around the body.

      In alot of cases an actual tumour won’t kill you, It’s just a lump of cells.
      It’s when that spreads around the body and stops organs from working that cancer gets difficult to treat.
      I want to prevent the spread of cancer around the body so some of the more common cancers (breast and prostate) don’t kill as many people!

    • Photo: Andrea Hanvey

      Andrea Hanvey answered on 7 Mar 2014:

      I am not a research Scientist so im not studying cancer. Im a Scientist working in a hospital lab. I work along side doctors every day and diagnose cancer.

      The cancer i enjoy looking at most down the microscope is breast cancer. As biomedical scientists in our lab we can request extra tests on breast biopsies. The results of which directly affect the treatment a patient will receive.

    • Photo: Matthew Lam

      Matthew Lam answered on 10 Mar 2014:

      I studied breast cancer when I was in the lab doing research.

      It’s often found that discoveries made on one type of cancer can be useful for other types of cancer. For example, scientists that research the biology controlling one type of cancer, may find that their discoveries are true for other types of cancer. This is great because if it leads to a new cancer treatment, then that treatment could be useful for many types of cancer and help a lot more people.

    • Photo: Amar Joshi

      Amar Joshi answered on 10 Mar 2014:

      I would prefer to work on cancers where existing treatment is difficult. Either beacuse it is difficult to detect – colon cancer – or difficult to perform surgery – brain cancer.

      The cancer that I am working on a myeloma where there is currently no hope of doing surgery as there are many small tumors. This is why I fond my work so rewarding.

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