There it was… I knew immediately that this was a path I wanted to take. Hello everyone! My name is Rowan and I am currently in the middle of my first year of the TRAM MB-PhD programme. I shudder slightly as I transition from saying start of my first year to middle of my first […]

Tammy Piper’s role as Tissue Bank Manager at the IGC came about both as a result of, and despite, her upbringing. The oldest of three children growing up in a dysfunctional family in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, as a teenager she took to running away as things reached a ‘cooker pressure’ situation at home, often staying […]

By Daniel Thédié My one-week visit to the Institute of Genetics and Cancer was a great week filled with new experiences and interesting discussions. I am a postdoc at the School of Biological Sciences, working on DNA repair and bacteria. I use a lot of microscopy and image analysis, and I have been wanting to […]

How can early career researchers, such as PhD students, integrate the expertise of several labs into their research? This post aims to introduce why we research rare diseases, particularly craniofacial disorders, and share the experiences of students working across labs with complementary expertise. Congenital malformations are conditions which emerge early in development. Researching the genetics […]

By Dr Robb Hollis Ovarian cancer ‘Ovarian cancer’ is really an umbrella term for a collection of different cancers that we detect at or around the ovary. While we used to think these all represented the same disease, we now know  that there are multiple different types of ovarian cancer that each display unique clinical […]

Rare diseases are defined by the European Union as a disease or condition that effects fewer than 1 in 2000 people within the general population. Despite their individual rarity the sheer number of rare diseases results in a much higher figure as 1 in 17 people in the UK will suffer from a rare disease […]

Above: Image by Chloe Brotherton, Pleasantine Mill’s lab   A rare disease is defined as a disease that affects less than 1 in 2,000 people in the general population, which is the equivalent of 4 million people worldwide 1. To this day, around 6,000 different rare diseases are known 1. Although a single rare disease […]

Above: Comfy sofas for scientific discussions   In September 2023, I began my 4-year MRC Human Genetics Unit (HGU) PhD journey at the Institute of Genetics and Cancer (IGC) in Edinburgh. Despite consistently nearly being blown away by the wind, I shall still head to the IGC for my experiments and PhD training. I am […]

Let’s get this out of the way early doors; I’m older than your average bear when compared to the rest of my cohort. Heck, I think I’m older than most of the postdocs and the occasional PI too! However, I honestly believe that the only person who has a problem with this is me; I […]