• Question: Why do you want to find a cure for blood cancer?

    Asked by Esha to Sophie on 9 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Sophie Robinson

      Sophie Robinson answered on 9 Mar 2015:


      To find one ‘cure’ for blood cancer is very ambitious for one person! It has taken thousands of scientists many years to get to the point we are now and we still don’t have a cure as such. Blood cancer includes many different types, from cancers affecting the white blood cells that produce antibodies to cancer that affects the red blood cells that carry oxygen. Even in two individuals that have the same type of cancer, one treatment is unlikely to cure both of them as they will each have very different underlying genetics. Also, as cancer is a disease of our own body cells, it can always come back. Therefore the term ‘cure’ will probably never apply to cancer like it does to other diseases.

      However, cancer survival rates have increased 20% since 1991 due to better personalised therapies. The work that I do will only make a tiny contribution on its own but when combined with the work of all the other scientists, eventually we will help to enhance treatments which increase survival rates. The knowledge that I may be helping to enhance people’s lives, to whatever extent, is very rewarding.

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