Researchers at the University of Sheffield are currently testing new combinations of drugs to treat breast cancer that has spread to the bone.
Diane Lefley, a first-year PhD student, is part of the team involved in deciding whether radium-223 – a drug typically used for prostate cancer – can target the disease.
“You do it in the hope you’ll change something somewhere”
Lefley, 43, initially attended the University of Sheffield to study an undergraduate degree in Medical Materials Science and Engineering and then worked as a research technician in the university’s medical school for 20 years, a job she admits she stumbled upon:
“In my final year you had to do a lab-based project. They said you’re really good at hands-on lab work, why don’t you apply for the technician job? Then I’ve just moved from research contact to research contract since.”
While working on her current project, her typical day is “very varied. There will be some days where I’m in the lab all day and some when I’m just analysing, writing or planning all day. Very rarely a mixture.”
It sounds hectic; “it ebbs and flows” she says. However, once the drug needed for the project, radium-223, arrives for testing it’s all action: “It starts degrading straight away, so I have 2 to 3 weeks to do all my experiments. It’s a bunch of experiments that I do all at once, then spend a long time analysing the results.”
Lefley has made sure this research hasn’t affected her work-life balance too heavily, juggling crucial lab work with being a mother of two.
She continues, “I manage to balance it quite well. When it’s busy I get help with childcare, and you have to appreciate the slower times because otherwise you just burn yourself out.”
On what drives her to continue research, she admits that “what you want ultimately, in the end, is that this research goes into clinics and benefits people.”
She notes, “it’s always the hope isn’t it? That you’ve done something that could impact someone’s life.”
“You do something in the hope you’re going to change something somewhere.”
Image credits: Good Housekeeping