Question: Hi sarah, would you say that your work is challeging and that you feel inspired to go to do research in the morning?

Sarah Thomas answered on 10 Jun 2011:

Yes work is really challenging! Cancer is one of those things, sometimes I wonder if there will ever be a real cure. But it feels good to be helping in some small way. Sometimes I find it hard because it is such a big challenge and there isn’t a lot of people that do research like mine so there isn’t really anybody you can turn to for help. And also it feels like a big responsibility, like there is a lot of people counting on me, so I put a lot of pressure on myself and I can get stressed out sometimes. Coming up with the ideas and the science isn’t the tricky bit, I think the hard bit is just keeping yourself going.

I feel really inspired to go and do research every day. It’s funny, but I don’t ever feel like slacking off. When I’m getting ready for work in the morning, sometimes my mind drifts to the experiments that I need to do and I get a little rush of adrenaline, like I’m running out of time, it’s weird.

The really inspiring thing is that all my research is paid for by the charity Cancer Research UK. So all my chemicals and equipments gets paid for by the money that people fundraise by doing things like the Race For Life or donating things to the charity shops. And I think that is really amazing because I bet a lot of people doing realise that they are funding research like mine. I’m doing the Race For Life on the 19th of June and I can’t wait to meet the other runners and say thank you….