Question: is there a certain type o cancer which you are trying to create a cure for? Plus have you ever come close to creating a cure? And finally what made you want to help cure cancer? Sorry for so many Q's ;) x

Jessica Chu answered on 15 Jun 2011:

Hi Laura,

No worries- you are asking really good questions!! And I love talking about cancer so I am happy to answer all of them 🙂
1.
I am testing a panel of cancer epithelial cell lines. Epithelial cells are the ones that lines our organs.
I have chosen to look at this because there are good treatments for leukemias (blood cancers) but not so many treatments for solid cancers, which arise from epithelical cells. There are cells lining every organ so it is very important to have a good treatment for this!! But it is quite hard!!

2.
I am far from creating a cure but it is my main aim to find a treatment for certain types of cancers. On average, it will probably take about 15 years to do the research on finding a good anticancer compound and once someone or some drug company have found one – they will want to making lots of it to do further testing and if all the testing goes well and all the legal paperwork is done then it can be used in hospital to treat patients!

3.
I have had a few cancer lectures at uni and I just find how cancer cells work really fascinating! Also I have known people that have died from cancer and have seen the effects of horrible diseases like cancer can do 🙁
My mum also had a ‘cancer scare’ – thankfully it was only benign (non-harmful) forms of cell growth and it is stable after treatment.