Cancer Research Centre News

Led by Professor Alfonso Jaramillo in the School of Life Sciences, new research has discovered that a common molecule - ribonucleic acid (RNA), which is produced abundantly by humans, plants and animals - can be genetically engineered to allow scientists to program the actions of a cell.

Maria Maccallum, from IT Services at the University of Warwick, will be competing as a 'sidekick' in August's Superhero Triathlon, raising funds for cancer research at the same time. This triathlon is a world first: she will be powering her superhero son around the entire course - towing him in a kayak in the water, pulling him in the bike event and pushing him for the run section. What a hero! Please support Maria's fundraising www.justgiving.com/fundraising/maria-maccallum1 and like/retweet tweets about the event @WarwickCRC

“Fifteen years ago I had a number of back to back experiences with cancer in my extended family and this was a major trigger for me to want to work in the field of cancer research. My work prior to my personal experiences had nothing to do with cancer, but when we went through these experiences, I knew there were aspects to my work which could be useful and I wanted to try and use my skills in image processing to probe questions in medical and life sciences. I had no track record and it was difficult to get people interested at first. So I used the persistent pursuit tactic – I kept knocking on doors.”

Professor Rajpoot began work involving cancer image analysis and set a couple of PhD students in his lab onto projects within the field. The work snowballed and he founded and is now head of the Tissue Analytics Lab (TIA) within the Computer Sciences department at Warwick.