Featured Project: Cancer? Yeast has the answers

Featured Project: Cancer? Yeast has the answers

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/31216190 w=400&h=300]

Today’s featured post is our first #SciFund project that hits on biomedicine – Cancer? Yeast has the answers by Marisa Alonso-Núñez. Edit: It’s actually total coincidence that Marisa has a post from earlier today – I wrote this post at the beginning of the week and queued it up for today!

Marisa is seeking funds to purchase antibodies for her work on potentially important cancer-promoting proteins found in yeast.

I’ll admit, I have very little background in biomedicine or cancer research. I often wonder, why study yeast for this sort of stuff? Why not work with cancer cells directly, or an organism, or something?

This is where Marisa’s proposal is brilliant. In her video, she takes us through why the study of yeast is critically important for cancer research with a deft comparison between the bewildering complexity of Manchester, the city where she works, and her simpler though quite similar home village. It humanizes the use of model organisms in a way I haven’t seen before.

She then shows us simply how the chain of research works – going from yeast all the way to human trials. This whole explanation, underscored by some great guitar music and her fantastic accent kinda settles you in, making you comfortable with her work, and curious to hear more.

The project itself is great. Again, nice, simple, smooth. It has a straightforward goal – funds to purchase antibodies crucial to her work. It’s not something huge and flashy, but rather one scientist with a research need that *YOU* can help fulfill.

So, how about it? Will you help supply the antibodies for Marisa’s cancer research?

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