• Question: Who inspires you every day?

    Asked by anon-212962 to Robert, Imad, Hannah, Fern, carolwallace on 12 Jun 2019.
    • Photo: Carol Wallace

      Carol Wallace answered on 12 Jun 2019:

      Lots of people – I don’t know if I can choose one.
      Steven Hawking for achieving so much with a crushing disability – when you think of what he did – awesome.

    • Photo: Fern Johnson

      Fern Johnson answered on 13 Jun 2019:

      The people I work with inspire me professionally to learn and improve. Mostly it is the patients – even if I don’t get to meet them very often. Imagine there is a lady who has had breast cancer, and been through a terrible time of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. If she has a certain gene mutation, there is a drug she can get so help stop her cancer coming back. Another scenario might be a man whose brother died of cystic fibrosis, he’s worried about having children in case him and his partner both have a copy of the faulty gene and their child has cystic fibrosis. We can test him and his partner for the faulty gene. If neither of them have it, their child will be healthy. If only one of his has it, their child will be a carrier (you need two copies of the faulty gene to get cystic fibrosis) but he will know about it long before he has children. Genetic testing really does change lives.

    • Photo: Robert Ives

      Robert Ives answered on 13 Jun 2019:

      Lots of people and things. The Sun in the morning is always a great start. My wife and kids manically rushing around getting ready for school – they are my reason for everything. Then when I get to work, there are some really motivated scientists with whom I can chat, and come up with new (sometimes quite wacky) ideas. Then, there is always the patient – I am very lucky in my work that I am involved in developing medicines from quite early on (before they even go into animals) to late in development, when they are being tested in volunteers and patients so I can see how an ‘idea’ becomes a real medicine – a very long process (10 years plus), but an inspiring one.

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