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One Day of the Life as a Researcher: PhD student

Our team is expanding – we are welcome our new PhD student Ellen King! Her project will add another dimension to neuroblastoma research. She will look into potential targets on the surface of neuroblastoma cells resistant to therapy and investigate how we can strengthen the patient immune system response.

Like everyone, my current workspace looks very different from what it normally looks like. I have just joined the Cancer Bioengineering Group as a PhD student in the midst of the pandemic. Certain moments like induction day or meeting my new lab mates, will all be done virtually due to the pandemic. Luckily, I have spent the last year working as a research assistant at RCSI and this has taken away all the stresses of finding my way around a new campus and indeed making friends. Without a doubt, the transition is and will be a strange one but the excitement and enthusiasm haven’t gone anywhere!

Recently, my days as a researcher have been spent at my lovely, newly-built (with the help of IKEA instructions) home desk. And as the picture I have standing proudly beside my laptop says, there really is no place like home. I feel very lucky to be able to safely work from home and continue my research while so many people are now without jobs or are risking their lives to keep people safe during the pandemic.

“**NÍL AON TINTEÁN MAR DO THINTEÁN FÉIN” – THERE IS NO FIRESIDE LIKE YOUR OWN**

Most days I wake up early and go for a run along the lovely canal beside my house. This is a great way to wake up my brain and is also great preparation for our virtual VHI mini-marathon on the 7th of October 2020 in honour of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. I start work at around 9am, which at the moment is mostly research, reading papers and writing a literature review in preparation for my return to the lab soon. I miss the experimental side of my research and am really excited to start this new exciting project.

Ellen King, PhD student

One Day of the Life as a Researcher: undergraduate student

This summer, I had an amazing opportunity to work under the supervision of Dr. Olga Piskareva. I scheduled to join the lab for the second time, however, this plan was unfortunately cancelled to the COVID19. I was still hopeful and later I got the opportunity to work on a remote research project. My goal was to write a comprehensive review of existing and prospective antigens for antibody specific immunotherapy for neuroblastoma.

This was my first literature review and I was excited about it. I had previously worked on a lab neuroblastoma project that’s why I was familiar with the topic. However, this was a completely new and different undertaking for me. Before starting the project I had to understand about literature reviews are and how are they written. My project involved looking at a lots of clinical trials and PubMed articles. I had to learn about how clinical trials work and had to develop a search strategy for the project. I understood that literature reviews are a very important part of lab research and forms its backbone.

Sanat’s review focussed on antibody-based immunotherapy in neuroblastoma, which aims to induce ‘antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity’ to kill cancer cells. Luckily, Sanat had wet lab research experience in 2019 pre-COVID where he got to present a research project at the Matrix Biology Ireland meeting.

I started writing the project and ended up writing 40 pages! I developed awesome illustrations to support my review using the software. This was one of the most enjoyable parts of the remote research! As I was writing the project I understood that ‘Neuroblastoma is a devasting disease for children and the tremendous amount of effort and knowledge is being built upon to find a better and enhanced treatment to reduce the disease burden.’

I learnt and gained many critical skills during this review. My review on the existing and prospective knowledge about immunotherapies will enable researchers to get a summary of knowledge that will aid in giving them direction to eventually, create effective immunotherapy to defeat neuroblastoma.

Sanat Rashinkar, 3^rd Year RCSI Undergraduate Medicine Student

10 Laps 10K for Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

This year our research team will be taking part in the virtual VHI mini-marathon on the 7th of October 2020 in honour of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. For every one euro donated to research only 1 cent of this goes to ALL childhood health conditions including cancer. Therefore, the donations we receive will be split equally among some wonderful children’s charities. These charities include: The Conor Foley Neuroblastoma Research Foundation (CFNRF), Neuroblastoma UK (NBUK), Children’s Research & Medical Foundation (CRMF) CrumlinIf you would like to get involved in this amazing virtual event and help us raise vital funds for childhood cancers, attached is a link where you can register to the event: https://www.vhiwomensminimarathon.ie/power-of-10.

Our team is very appreciative of the support we get from these charities. We would be very grateful if you could help support our virtual marathon challenge by making a donation to these wonderful charities in light of childhood cancer awareness month.

Last year we managed to raise an amazing 1750 euro taking part in the 8km Hell and Back challenge. We are eager to surpass that target this year. All donations no matter how small are appreciated: https://www.gofundme.com/f/c7dkeu-childhood-cancer-awarness-month

One Day of the Life as a Researcher: PhD student

You may wonder whether I re-submit the same. the third time? Actually, our team has 3 ongoing PhD students and one starting from October. So, here we are. Three identical titles so far but different journeys. Today, it is Tom’s turn to tell his story.

Three years I ago I decided to try my hand at some cancer research and quit my job as a medical scientist in a diagnostic lab. I am now in my third year of a PhD and I am certain I made the right choice. It was a challenging transition from working in an environment with a lot of automation and standard operating procedures to one where you have to figure out everything for yourself! However, I think that that learning experience has allowed me to adjust quite well to all of the COVID-19 related upheaval.

Pre-pandemic you could saunter between your office and the lab as often as you pleased, you had a choice of at least four different places to go for coffee on campus and you could squeeze into a packed lift to avoid the stairs to the lab. Now a day in the lab is quite different. We have to book lab space online, social distance from our colleagues, frequent hand washing and wear a mask at all times.

These days I plan all my lab work and book lab bench space the week before. On a typical day I split my time between the lab and working from home. I am quite fortunate that my commute is only a 6 minute walk through Stephens Green, which is only 5 minutes longer than the walk from the lab to my old office.

Working through a pandemic is certainly challenging however I do appreciate my time in the lab much more now and I feel like I am much more productive when access to the lab is limited.

Thomas Frawley, the IRC-NCRC funded PhD student.

One Day of the Life as a Researcher: PhD student

A lot has changed for me since I began my research journey in RCSI, as I transitioned from being an undergraduate placement student to a PhD candidate, however the biggest change has been adjusting to doing a lab-based PhD during a pandemic!

We wear red coats when looking after our rather large family of neuroblastoma cells, which happily grow inside the 37°C incubator. White coats are for most other lab work, such as analysing proteins by gel electrophoresis and Western blotting. And of course, the newest lab accessory – the facemask.

These days my work hours are shared between the labs in RCSI and my family home. While my bench space and office space used to be separated by just a few steps, there is now a 30+ minute bus journey between them. It has certainly put my planning skills to the test as now when I walk into the lab I need to be sure of what I am planning to do, and that I can complete the task in my pre-booked lab time slot.

I appreciate my time in the labs much more now that I spend so much time at home. Whether I am culturing neuroblastoma cells, analyzing proteins or genes by Western blots or PCRs, I enjoy immersing myself in the work knowing that my time on the bench is limited.

The main perk is that now when I am doing computer work – analyzing results, writing reviews, preparing presentations, using online software – I can do it from the comfort of my box-room-office, often very cosy in a blanket as I do it. While my work-from-home desk space is slightly more spacious than my desk in the now-closed “Write-up Room 2”, I do miss the chats and laughs that come with working in a shared office.

My WFH set-up. My new office buddies don’t quite understand the need for personal space.

One thing’s for sure though, my two dogs very much enjoy the days that I work from home!

Catherine Murphy, Neuroblastoma UK funded PhD student

One Day of the Life as a Researcher: summer undergraduate student

This summer I worked under Dr Piskareva supervision in the remote research program. My original plans for a lab experience were put down by COVID. My ultimate goal was to write the review article on the potential uses of retinoic acid in neuroblastoma research.

Before starting the project, I didn’t have any specific expectations. While I always had fun picking the primary articles apart and summarising the gathered data during my undergrad and med school, I didn’t believe that this experience would be the special one. And I kept thinking so as I was collecting the information from the numerous data on cell cultures. And as I was looking at the mice models studies. And clinical trials.

Then I started to write my introduction, and so researched the information on the neuroblastoma prognosis, contemporary treatment protocol and outcomes. And suddenly I saw my project in the new light. I was used to regarding the clinical trials outcomes as simple statistics, but this time no desensitization could shield me. Yes, 60% of the patients in the high-risk group die in 5 years after diagnosis, and yes, 90% of those patients are children less than 5 years old. And there is nothing that we could currently do to save those children.

On the other hand, this realisation brought meaning to my work. This time, I was not doing a PubMed search to get a good mark or CV reference. Instead, I was looking for the possible treatment of the disease. My review on the current knowledge about retinoic acid will let the other primary researchers target the most promising drug for future experiments and, eventually, create a novel and effective therapy to help those children.

And isn’t it what we are all striving for in medical research?

One Day of the Life as a Researcher: PhD student

If I was to write this 6 months ago, my life as a researcher would be very different.

Here is a little snippet of my ‘new normal’ day getting back into the lab as a 2^nd year PhD student in the Cancer Bio-Engineering group post-lockdown.

Although, in general the day-to-day life as a scientist can vary massively. So I would like to say I already had a flexible schedule pre-pandemic. This made adapting to the world of our ‘new normal’ a little easier.

I commute to RCSI by Luas. I spend the morning carrying out my essential lab work in our new environment of 2-metre social distancing and face masks. Lunch is a little lonely these days with single tables in the previous busy 1784 restaurant. Although, RCSI’s campus is in the heart of Stephens green making it a fantastic location to stroll to the park for a coffee in between experimental incubation times. Great for catching the last of the summer sunshine! When all lab work is finished I come home to my new makeshift WFH office where I have a new furry work colleague to help me get through the evening data analysis and reading.

The research consists of days of highs and lows. Behind all the failures come successes making the hard work all worthwhile!

Ciara Gallagher, the IRC funded PhD student

One Day of the Life as a Researcher: Team Lead

During September Cancer BioEngineering group will share our experience of being researchers individually and as a group. We are a relatively young research group – our birthday is September 1st 2019. We are 1 year old! As a team lead I will start this challenge.

Our first-year journey was fascinating. We did research, scientific meetings, fundraising, trained undergraduate students, celebrated birthdays and success, received rejections of grants and papers, graduated an MSc by Research (RCSI) and BSc (TUD), said ‘Goodbye’ to team members and will welcome new in October.

Home office: my day starts here at 9 am and ends when job is done.

A typical day of my life as a researcher has changed since the COVID started to shape our lives. All activities are done remotely: team supervision, project management, troubleshooting, lab meetings and so on. Indeed, grant and paper writing has always been run remotely. No change here.

I configured our box room into a home office, upgraded the lights to brighten the north-facing room, surrounded myself with pics of loved ones, started to use active time planning via Teams, a proper headset for all my remote meetings and glasses for reading and typing, split the PC screen in two with a hope to double my effectiveness at least. 🙂

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

Today marks the start of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

I like this photo of a lovely fountain capturing 3 girls under umbrellas (Drei-Mädchen-Brunnen) in Ballplatz Mainz. It is about a happy childhood; every child deserves a happy childhood. So, I select it again to support #ChildhoodCancerAwarnessMonth.

Childhood cancer is an umbrella term for many other types of this disease. This month is a big channel to support and learn more about kids with cancer, their loving families, the doctors and caregivers who looking after them and treating them, the young survivors of cancer and those kids and teens who lost their battle, and the scientists who working hard to find a way to stop childhood cancer.

When it comes to a disease, we have to acknowledge that children are not little adults. They are constantly developing. So their diseases have a different way to progress and respond to treatment. This is very true for childhood cancers. For example, children diagnosed with neuroblastoma before a 1.5 years old mark will do better than older children.

Every 100th cancer patient is a child. Cancer is the 2nd most common cause of death among children after accidents. The most common types of childhood cancer are:

Leukaemia and lymphoma (blood cancers)
Brain and other central nervous system tumours
Muscle cancer (rhabdomyosarcoma)
Kidney cancer (Wilms tumour)
Neuroblastoma (tumour of the non-central nervous system)
Bone cancer (osteosarcoma)
Testicular and ovarian tumours (gonadal germ cell tumours)

The Race That Nearly Wasn’t – 20K

On April, 30^th 2020, the 20K virtual race organized by Breakthrough Cancer Research came to an end. 1247 people participated and 496 completed this challenge. Together, we raised online over €50,000 to support their life-saving cancer research programmes.

As a scientist myself, I know that behind many current default living settings is intensive research in the past. IT would have never advanced if at some stage no discoveries in physics, chemistry have happened. We would have never been able to fight bacteria infection of no antibiotic was discovered. What about discovering of insulin? This list can go on and on… Just imagine if no research happens now. How we could cope with the current coronavirus pandemic? How we could help many people with cancer to have a healthier and longer life?

Breakthrough Cancer Research united many sports professionals and enthusiasts to build up a spirited community to support vital cancer research during the COVID-19 restrictions. I heard about this race by chance – my PhD student signed up to do it. When I read it, I thought it sounds achievable to complete 20K within a month. One small step at a time. It was a slow process. But it has transformed me.

At the finish line, I became addicted to my steady jogging within the allowed 2K distance every day. I have to confess that it is incredibly challenging for me to wake up, tie my sport shoelaces and go for a jog. My body wants a smooth transition from sleep to the active state, particularly when you are at home every day! This was normality in the past.

What did I discover going through this transformation? My body knows better its needs. Every morning I start it slowly with just an intensive walk. In 2-3 minutes, my body requests more fresh air in my lungs and higher endorphin levels in my blood. I can’t resist and start jogging. 🙂

Why mornings one may ask? I have tried different times during the day. My body has decided on morning hours even it is challenging… No option to negotiate.

Break Through Cancer Research are launching 40K and 60K May race. Could it be your chance for a transformation? Sign up today at: https://yourvirtualrace.com/theracethatnearlywasnt/