Close to Home: Making a difference to patients, families, and the field of cancer research
Harding Distinguished Scholar Fadia Bou-Dagher’s interest in easing the experience of cancer goes far beyond the clinical. Here, the Harding Distinguished Scholar reveals why it means so much to her personally and why she takes a holistic view of cancer’s causes and effects.
Thanks to the Harding Scholarship, I’m able to spend three years studying for a PhD between my medical school years. It has been a game-changer.
Fadia Bou-Dagher
I went to medical school because I wanted to make a difference to a patient’s life. But I soon realised that, through research, you can make a difference to millions of lives.
I lost my father to cancer during my first year of undergraduate studies, an event that really changed my perspective. Cancer is a prevalent disease affecting so many people, and my personal experience fuels my passion in this area. Witnessing my father’s journey through the healthcare system, including his participation in a clinical trial, inspired me; seeing how nurses, surgeons and scientists communicated with him drives me to do the same for other patients.
Cancer affects not only the patient but also their entire family. My experience highlighted the need for improvements, not only in treatments and therapies but also in the overall healthcare system.
My work focuses on DNA damage in the context of cancer. DNA is the genetic material that makes up our bodies, and it can be damaged in different ways –by things like UV rays, chemotherapeutic drugs, or even naturally. It can also be repaired in different ways. In the Jackson Laboratory, we study the differences between how a normal cell repairs DNA versus how a cancer cell does.
By understanding these differences, we can develop new classes of therapeutic drugs that specifically target cancer cells.
Thanks to the Harding Scholarship, I’m able to spend three years studying for a PhD between my medical school years. It has been a game changer, covering research costs for essential equipment like the laptop I use for my analysis. It has also funded my attendance at international conferences, where I have been able to further my career by presenting work.
The Harding Scholarship’s interdisciplinary focus encourages us to connect with students and scholars from other research areas. We hold internal seminars twice a term, when we present our work in simple terms to historians, mathematicians, and physicists. The best part is the unexpected feedback: it’s eye-opening and rewarding when people from completely different fields ask insightful questions that make you see your work in new ways.
About the Harding Distinguished Scholars Programme
The launch of the Programme in 2019 was thanks to an exceptional gift from David and Claudia Harding. Scholarships are available to the most talented students — from any country and for research in any discipline — to augment the breadth and depth of knowledge and research, which is vital to our University and societies around the world.
Visit the Harding Distinguished Postgraduate Scholars Programme website.
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