Sarah Bohndiek

Intro

We’re joined today by Prof. Sarah Bohndiek, Professor of Biomedical Physics at the Cavendish Laboratory, Group Leader at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, and Fellow of Corpus Christi College. 

Born in Greenwich, Sarah found an early enthusiasm for science and went on to study Natural Sciences as an undergraduate student at Cambridge University.

Drawn to interdisciplinary research, she completed a PhD in Radiation Physics at UCL’s Department of Medical Physics, looking at x-ray imaging techniques for cancer detection and working alongside biologists and chemists.  Following this, Sarah moved towards optics, in order to become involved in clinical trials and took up postdoctoral positions in Cambridge and Stanford.

Currently, her research group, the Vision Lab, looks to understand tumours using new medical imaging techniques, and Sarah is also particularly interested in the incredibly important process of standardising complex methods and datasets between laboratories. Alongside her research, she has championed public engagement and interdisciplinary research training, and pushes for open access, practical solutions to serious medical issues.

 Stay with us… 

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[00:34] – Guest’s intro

[02:03] – Growing up in Greenwich, fascination with Astrophysics and interest in physics

[03:36] – Interest in using physics for medical application

[08:35] – X-ray tomography techniques and working as part of the UK-wide consortium during PhD

[12:05] – Inter-disciplinary aspect of work

[13:27] – Importance of Physics of medicine building and holistic medical research approach

[20:01] – In the news this month we talk about how reshaping RNA to an origami identifier opens new avenues for understanding and advancing disease diagnostics.

RNA or ribonucleic acid is one of the key biological molecules that bridges our genetic information (DNA) and molecular factories (proteins). RNA has a single strand in comparison to double-stranded DNA helix. Labour-intensive approach of RNA sequencing suffers enzyme biases that causes the loss of native RNA information including RNA identity and quantity. Up until now, we could not detect RNA ‘makeup’,  including its chemical modifications and overall shape. The mere order of bases in RNA could not tell us how that RNA looked. Researchers have recently developed a new method - Amplification-free RNA TargEt Multiplex Isoform Sensing (ARTEMIS) that has made possible the identification of multiple RNAs in parallel.

[25:15] – Shift from imaging to NMR

[29:16] – Current Research while leading the Vision Lab at the Cavendish

[31:00] – Making improvement in the existing medical technologies(devices)

[32:47] – Working with humongous datasets, open access and standardisation

[36:12] – Future exciting development in medical imaging

[38:59] – Outro

Useful links

• Know more about Physics of Medicine research here.
• Read the article on this month’s news - Reshaping RNA to an origami identifier opens new avenues for understanding and advancing disease diagnostics
• Link of the Research Paper for this month’s news release - Nanopore microscope identifies RNA isoforms with structural colours
• To learn more about the Cavendish Laboratory, or if you are interested in joining us or studying with us, go to www.phy.cam.ac.uk 

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Episode credits

• Hosts: Jacob Butler and Simone Eizagirre Barker
• News presenter: Paolo Molignini
• Producer: Chris Brock

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