Abbie's Athletic Assault on Cancer

In memory of

Christina Mitchell

My Story

Biology is a fascinating thing, and how it can be studied even more so. What always intrigued me was how signalling pathways, developed and fine-tuned over billions of years of evolution to keep us alive, can also be the source of diseases such as cancer when they stop working, start working overtime, or decide to do another job entirely. This interest has led me to where I am today, working towards a PhD studying one signalling pathway in one type of blood cancer. A word thrown around a lot in cancer research is 'heterogeneity', which describes how one form of cancer can have several sub-types depending on different methods of classification (e.g. location, cell type & morphology, genetic mutations, protein expression). Understanding these many layers of heterogeneity is the key to personalised medicine, as the more specific we can be about the molecular characteristics of a patient's cancer, the more specific, and therefore effective, the treatment that can be provided (if it exists yet). While many strides have been made in researching and developing these highly targeted treatments, there remains the insurmountable challenge of developing them for every type of cancer and the subtypes upon subtypes present within them. Very often, patients receive one-size-fits-all therapies that target the overarching cancer type, curing some, but very rarely all. This problem has motivated me to take strides (now quite literally) both in an academic assault on cancer and now in an athletic one. I am also undertaking this endeavour in memory of my Nan, Christina Mitchell, who passed away from oesophageal cancer nearly 3 years ago. Unfortunately, due to her age, she wasn’t fit for standard chemotherapy, limiting her treatment options. Targeted treatments could also help patients like her, due to their potential to cause less severe side effects. This makes them more appropriate for older patients, who if not for their cancer, could have several more years left to spend with their family and friends. So why is fundraising for cancer research so important? It is the role of scientific researchers to answer lots of questions, and for researchers looking into very heterogeneous problems like cancers, results can often produce more questions than distinct answers. Answering all these questions demands a lot of reagents (to make reactions happen), a lot of fancy equipment (to perform reactions with), and a lot of fancy machines (to detect the results of reactions), all of which cost a lot of money. Beyond that, once researchers have found something potentially interesting, there are the costs of drug development and clinical trials to contend with! The money academic researchers need to answer all their questions comes from funding that comes from government institutions or charities like Cancer Research UK. Accessing this funding is a competitive business, purely because there isn't enough money to provide every research project with the funding it needs for success. The funding from this, my first marathon, will not go towards my research, but I am optimistic it will go to a great scientific cause in the field of cancer. So, now I hope I've convinced you of the dire need of this field for money (frankly, all the fields need it, but well... I'm clearly biased), I'd appreciate any-sized donation towards what may be the most insane thing I have ever done for science. Thank you if you read this far, and an even bigger thank you if you decide to donate! Abigail Edwards