Question: What made you want to help find a cure for cancer?

Louisa Chard answered on 23 Jun 2010:

I started off working on viruses, looking at how they replicate in cells and how they infect cells. I enjoyed this a lot and did this for 6 years, but then I wanted to put this knowledge to a bit more use, which is why I wanted to work on a project that used viruses to good ends. This is a great job for me as I still get to play around with viruses, which I find fascinating, but get to put them to good use. I think most of us at some time have been very closely affected by cancer so I feel lucky to be working on something that could make a difference.