Question: What is it like studying breast cancer?

Charlene Kay answered on 16 Nov 2022:

In one word – interesting! There are more than 50,000 new cases of breast cancer diagnosed in the UK every year so it is a cancer that affects many. Right now, I am working on trying to figure out why some patients start out responding to their treatment quite well but then eventually the cancer comes back, either in the breast or in lymph nodes under the armpits. If we can figure that out, we can treat these patients more aggressively and try to stop the cancer from ever coming back.

In my day to day lab work I get to extract DNA and RNA from breast tumours, which I find very interesting technically. I put my lab coat on, pick up my pipettes (small handheld tools to take up liquid) and work through the protocol, which takes about 6 hours.