Tannia Gracia

“I wanted to be like my aunt Elina, she was a microbiologist working on HIV. I’m originally from Colombia and my aunt was working with the red cross as the head of a regional blood bank. I would spend the weekends with her in the lab. I didn’t know that I wanted to do science, I just wanted to spend time with her but she was working. I couldn’t be in her lab doing nothing, so when I was 16 she actually let me work with her, processing blood samples. I loved the fact that I was wearing the lab coat and I was doing something important.

“Funnily enough I’m working with a virus now. The question we are asking is: Can we use Zika virus to treat glioblastomas? If so, which glioblastomas will respond to the Zika virus treatment?”. We take cells from brain tumours from patients and we put it in a brain organoid, recreating the tumour of the patient in these ‘mini-brains’ and treat it with the virus so we can tell if that particular tumour will be destroyed with the viral treatment.

“I would never find the resources in my country to do the type of research I do here. Every time I visit I meet with students and professors from my alma mater to discuss science; that’s one of the few things I can do to give back. They are like magicians there because they do so much with very few resources.”

Sigourney Bell

“My biology teacher at school was absolutely amazing, she had always encouraged me, and even up to this point I’m still in touch with her. I’m going back to my school next week to speak to the students there to encourage them, and to let them know that there are other ways to help people and be interested in science other than being a medic.

“In my year group, I’m probably the only one who went on to do science. We had a really fantastic science department but I think that people didn’t realise the opportunities in science, how interesting it can be and what they could do moving forward.

“What I really enjoy about my PhD is my group. We’re probably the only group in the building looking at paediatric brain tumours. Knowing that something you do could help to cure children with brain cancer is actually amazing. The people in the team are so incredibly intelligent, it’s really nice to learn from them, to see different ways of working and learn new ideas. I’ve only been here four months now but I’ve really enjoyed it – the group, my project and the lab dynamic.”

Matilde Duarte

“When I was 9 years old my grandmother passed away from lung cancer. I already knew at the time that I wanted to become a doctor, but it was in that particular moment that I thought to myself – I want to do cancer research. I didn’t want anyone else to suffer the same way my grandmother did. And I didn’t want anyone else to feel the pain and helplessness that I felt when my grandmother passed away. So that’s when I knew I wanted to become a cancer researcher, which was also the same time where I knew I wanted to come and study in the UK.

“It was very early, I was 9 or 10, and I started saving to come here. I asked my parents if I could open a savings bank account and the money I got from selling jewellery or doing some jobs I would put in it so that I could come here. My grandmother studied here in the UK in the 1950s, which for a woman, and also right after world war two to come here to study is very rare. She always inspired me from a young age.“

Angela An

“Medicine is all about people. During my medical degree, I came to realise how important it is to combine academic training with travelling. I journeyed to Toronto, London, Hong Kong, Boston, Philadelphia and Zurich and was rewarded with the opportunity to not only help treat patients from various backgrounds but to also meet great mentors at different stages of their career and life. Their willingness to share their knowledge and experience made me feel much more prepared for what the future might have up its sleeves. I think I made a great decision to challenge my younger self back then. After all, life starts where your comfort zone ends.

“I grew up in the alpine city Innsbruck, where its name-giving river Inn runs through and is framed by lovely pebble shores. When I was a child, I loved spending hours and hours close to the river, collecting different pebbles to study their unique patterns and how water changes their forms. I love nature, especially hiking in the mountains, because it really clears your mind and reduces stress. You get the indescribable sense of feeling simultaneously big, as you are one with nature, and tiny, because you appear to be just so insignificant compared to everything surrounding you.”

Paul Sweeney

“I did my undergraduate degree and realised the juicy content was only just kicking in, so I decided to do a masters. But I had a constant feeling of not being done, which led me to do a PhD, just by chance in cancer.

“I find that even though I’m 100% a mathematician at heart, I’m not willing to sit in a dark room and just derive models all day long. It’s all about applying them and actually trying to produce insight that no one else can produce. The fact that I can combine imaging with these and all sorts of other technologies is really cool.

“The Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition was a massive task but it was really fun. Talking to tonnes of school kids and for them to see a stand called ‘The Mathematics of Cancer’, people think these two don’t do together, so it incites discussion. It’s about getting people to realise that you don’t have to be a medic to go into medicine. Physics, engineering or maths often don’t get associated with medicine in general, but they are a massive part of it.”

Oliver Cast

“My dad was always curious – whenever we would come home from school, he would want to know what we had been doing and why we were doing it. I think I’ve inherited that in some way. My mother is a physiotherapist who works with patients a lot. I think that also had an effect. Dad is asking the really in-depth questions about what is going on and why it’s happening and mum is asking how is this going to help people. Both bring different perspectives and have nurtured my research interests.

“After University I went to work at Thermo Fisher for 2 years. I knew I eventually wanted to do a PhD but I hadn’t quite found the right area. If you are doing a PhD you need to be really passionate about it, you need to be in it for the long haul because it’s three years. I knew I wanted to do immunology, so I went to work with the view of trying to find the right field to apply this knowledge. While I was there, I came across the idea of oncogenic viruses and found them fascinating. The more I looked into it the more I became interested in the cancer biology field, and it sparked my enthusiasm again.”

Vincenzo Graziano

“I’m a clinician and I started to get involved with research when I was in my second year of medicine. It’s like when you fall in love with something, it’s the seeds of curiosity and you just try to follow that curiosity. It’s been 14 years now, I went through my clinical training, finishing my degree and training in medical oncology but I always believed my role was between patients and the lab.

“I think research definitely helps you to think differently in the clinic. Research teaches you the way you need to think or ask questions, even at the bedside. I think being part of basic research is one of the best things for a clinician.”

George Lines

“Whenever I came home from school as a kid, my Grandad would also be there. He would have the discovery channel on and I would sit down for hours watching shows whilst we discussed all things science. Without a doubt that had an impact on me having an affinity towards science. For my birthdays I would always ask for those science kits, the ones which you could use to run ‘experiments’ in the kitchen or garden. Unlike my younger brother who would go into a class and everything would make sense to him, I had to work hard at school to understand my subjects. Science was one of those things that I worked hard at and things naturally fell into place, a lot more so than my other subjects.

“When I got to university the biggest impact on my career was Dr Mark Williams. I had my first seminar in my first year with him, talking about intestinal stem cells and the idea that eventually you could use them for personalised medicine to help people with cancer. I don’t know what it was but something just clicked inside of me and I thought this is what I want to do. I kept in contact with him, doing my 3rd-year project in his lab. From there he invited me to do a masters with him, after which he put me in contact with Doug Winton here.”

Claire King

“I think I’ve always been interested in science. Initially, when I was at the A levels stage, I wanted to do medicine, but I had a real interest in forensic pathology, looking at how diseases affected the body. It was through reading books about that subject that I got interested, then went onto do my degree and it followed on from there.

“I have always wanted what I did to matter. One of the aspects of the work I’ve been doing here is to try and figure out what one of the genes involved in rare type of paediatric brain cancer does because it’s an uncharacterised gene. In order to do that I have made a mouse model which has that gene deleted, I took some brain sections and found that they develop these spontaneous cysts. That was really exciting actually because there’s a human condition, called craniopharyngioma, that does the same thing. The are completely symptomless in both the mouse and in humans, begin during embryonic development and are usually only identified after the patient has died.“

Isabel Esain-Garcia

“I have always been extremely curious. Understanding the laws shaping the world has always inspired me, and I enjoy facing questions and working hard to find the answers. I had amazing science teachers who supported me to follow my passion and encouraged me to travel down the scientific path.

“Technology is moving really fast, and it is fundamental to adapt our research to these changes. I believe that being malleable is one of the most important qualities that a scientist should have and considering new technologies in well established fields is a major challenge. Science turns ‘I don’t know’ into ‘I don’t know yet’ and when you are constantly questioning, you are constantly learning, and this is what I like the most about being a scientist: It is a profession where you grow daily, and with the potential to have a positive impact in society and make the world a better place.”

Monika Golinska

“I think I was always a scientist. I always enjoyed looking more at the topics in school, I always asked lots of silly questions and I actually enjoy the silly questions. I guess maybe sometimes I was annoying people when I was a student, so I started to stop myself as I grew up.

“Because of my children, I had a break from research. And this was very good, in the sense that I realised I absolutely need research. I’m just a person who likes to ask questions and answer them.

“I was in the US doing my masters and they offered me a PhD and I thought ‘great, my career’s going nicely’, but then I thought I really want to be in Europe, so the UK was my best option. I definitely didn’t come here for good, I thought I would go back to Poland. But it turns out Cambridge is too good.”