• Question: What degrees do u need to be a cancer scientist

    Asked by coupy123 to Amar, Ana, Andrea, Leah, Matt on 11 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Anastasia Wass

      Anastasia Wass answered on 11 Mar 2014:

      You don’t necessarily need a degree to study cancer. You can train as a scientist by working your way through companies such as the NHS. If you did want to do a degree then a Biology degree is good, or you can specialise a little more and do a Biochemistry or Biomedical Sciences Degree. Acccredited degrees are good as this shows they’re very practical and it can help you when trying to get a job in research!

    • Photo: Andrea Hanvey

      Andrea Hanvey answered on 11 Mar 2014:

      If you want to be a biomedical scientist in the NHS you have to have a degree accredited by the Institute of Biomedical Science. You can work in an NHS (the National Health Service – not a company but a public service) lab as a laboratory assistant without a degree, but all the scientists have to be state registered and have a BSc , senior scientists have to have a masters degree – MSc.

      Biomedical science is the degree I completed at BSc and MSc , it was applied biomedical science because I did a year in a specialist cancer hospital. When i graduated my degree I was a fully qualified biomedical scientist. I could have got a job in research but it did not appeal to me because I want to make a difference to peoples lives on a daily basis. However some of my friends on the same degree course are now very successful scientists in various research fields.

    • Photo: Amar Joshi

      Amar Joshi answered on 11 Mar 2014:

      It really depends on what you want to do. If you want to lead research into discovering how cancer works you can go through the degree-PhD-Professor pathway. But if you want to help in hospitals you don;t necessesarily have to go to university, just getting A levels can enough. If you want to work in a drug compant I think you can go in after A levels or after getting a degree from university.

    • Photo: Leah Fitzsimmons

      Leah Fitzsimmons answered on 11 Mar 2014:

      The other guys are right – there are different routes you can take to get into cancer science depending on what you want to do and not all of them require a degree.
      There are also lots of different degrees that you can do to give you skills for different areas in cancer research. Most cancer scientists study biological or medical degrees however; chemistry can help us understand how drugs work, maths can help us make sense of complicated data, sociology and psychology can help us understand how to support cancer patients emotionally, and even collaborations between cancer science and music, drama and literature can help us to find out more about how best to support and treat people with cancer.

    • Photo: Matthew Lam

      Matthew Lam answered on 12 Mar 2014:

      There are many different ways you can become a scientist and study cancer.

      I didn’t do too well at A-Levels but went to work in a lab as an assistant for a year afterwards, which enabled me to get a place at University studying Human Biology. Having a degree definitely helps but its not required to become a scientist.

      If you want to lead your own research then in most cases you will need a degree so you can go on to do a PhD, which gives you all the training you need to conduct your won research.

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