Emily Turner

Emily Turner, 2017 intake Crick-CRUK doctoral clinical fellow, Karen Vousden's lab.

I started my fellowship at the Crick in September 2017, and registered as a PhD student at Barts Cancer Institute/Queen Mary University of London.

I was drawn to the basic science nature of the projects on offer, yet strong clinical applicability and translational focus. An advantage for me was that the Crick encouraged application from clinicians at all stages of their career.

I obtained my medical degree at the University of Edinburgh, during which I gained my first experience of conducting research during my intercalated degree and through a lab-based research elective. After completing foundation training and gaining further clinical experience in the hospital and GP setting, I was motivated to pursue opportunities for undertaking research at an early stage of my career.

I came across the CRUK-Crick fellowships, and was drawn to the basic science nature of the projects on offer, yet strong clinical applicability and translational focus. An advantage for me was that the Crick encouraged application from clinicians at all stages of career.

I am working in Karen Vousden's lab on amino acid metabolism in cancer research, focusing predominantly on arginine metabolism and how changes in metabolism can be potentially therapeutically exploited.

Although a transition from the clinical setting, I quickly settled into life in the lab and thoroughly enjoy working in this friendly and well supported environment. My day-to-day activities largely consist of carrying out experiments and analysing results, in addition to staying up to date with relevant literature. I am able to fit my work around the interesting range of seminars on offer and vast array of training opportunities at the Crick.

I feel very lucky to be here for my PhD and am excited to see where the next three years takes me. I hope that this fellowship will help to develop myself as a scientist and open up many opportunities in the future to pursue an interesting and varied career as a clinician scientist.