John Silke is a Theme Leader at WEHI, and is particularly interested in how inflammation is linked to cancer and other diseases. He has been Relaying with Team WEHI since 2019, when he came to the arena straight off an international flight to do his walking shift at 1am!
David Huang is a laboratory head working in the Blood Cells and Blood Cancer Division at WEHI. He is studying the proteins that are important for regulating cell death, and worked on some of the first drugs that mimic these proteins in order to fight cancer. 2021 will be David’s first Cancer Council Relay.
Today’s interview is with Marie-Liesse, a Division Head at WEHI, and a keen runner who has been part of our Relay team since 2019. Marie-Liesse has worked on leukaemia and on breast cancer, and now works on lung cancer. Today, she talks about how her career evolved, and how she became interested in research.
For today’s profile, we interviewed Kate Sutherland, a Laboratory Head at WEHI who is working on lung cancer. Kate began relaying with Team WEHI in 2019, and fortunately her enthusiasm doesn’t melt in a shower, because she wound up relaying through a pretty big rain storm! Here, Kate talks about her passion for addressing discrimination and prejudice in health research, and about her excitement in discovering new things.
Today, we meet Hema Subas-Satish, a scientist who is at the very beginning of her career as a cancer researcher! Hema became an unofficial member of Team WEHI since 2018, when she joined us not to walk, but to demonstrate science experiments at our ‘Science Never Sleeps’ marquee. She had so much fun that she joined us as a full team member in 2019, and and in 2020, walked the word ‘Life’ across the Cartlon Gardens – twice, because one of the letters went wrong the first time. That’s dedication for you…!
For our very last Meet a Scientist feature of 2020, we are delighted to introduce you to Dr Michael Roy! Unlike the other scientists you’ve met so far, who have been biologists working on cells and cell death, Michael is a chemist and a structural biologist, who looks at the shapes of the proteins *inside* cells to try to figure out what they look like and how they interact with each other… like a really complicated jigsaw puzzle…
For our fifth ‘Meet a Scientist’ article, we interviewed Leonie Gibson, who is a Research Assistant and Lab Manager in one of the cancer labs at WEHI. Leonie has been part of our Team WEHI relay team from the start – from before the start, even, since she was part of the walking group that said, hey, let’s do this, when we first saw the Relay advertised in 2018.
Leonie talks about science, creativity, and the excitement of discovering something completely new!
Our fourth ‘Meet a Scientist’ article introduces Dr Lahiru Gangoda. Lahiru is a senior postdoc who has been relaying with Team WEHI since 2019. She is working mostly on skin cancer and her message to you is – “Wear your sunscreen!”.
Lahiru also has a passion for science communications, and is responsible for some of the fun experiments you have seen (and will see) on this blog. Here, she talks about what makes science exciting, and what made her decide to go into medical research in the first place.
Welcome to our third ‘Meet a Scientist’ article! For this article, we interviewed Dr Lorraine O’Reilly, who is a Senior Scientist at WEHI. She was also on the organising committee for last year’s Melbourne Relay, and if you were at the Relay last year and bought a toasted cheese sandwich at 2 in the morning, it was probably from her.
Here, she talks about her passion for cancer research, and why being a scientist is also like being a detective!
Welcome to our second ‘Meet a Scientist’ article! For this article, we interviewed Prof. Andreas Strasser, who is a Division Head at the WEHI. He talks about curiosity, the excitement of doing science, and mentoring the next generation of scientists.
Team WEHI Relay for Life 