RNA Featured Researcher — Sarah Owen, Chemical Engineering
Sarah Owen
Ph.D. Candidate
Sunitha Nagrath’s lab
Department of Chemical Engineering
- Who/what brought you to science?I have always enjoyed biology and have been fascinated by its complexities. Everything is profoundly interconnected, from within a single cell to the tissue and organism level, and I wanted to understand how it all works.
- What are your research interests? I study circulating tumor cells (CTCs), which are cancer cells in the bloodstream en route to metastasis, the leading cause of cancer-related mortality. I am interested in trying to figure out what makes different CTC genotypes and phenotypes more likely to survive and cause metastatic disease.
- What do you hope is the outcome/impact of your research?I hope to contribute to our understanding of cancer progression, and identify novel predictive or prognostic biomarkers. I hope these biomarkers allow other scientists to design new therapies and allow physicians to better treat their patients.
- What advice would you give to students who’d like to get more involved in research? If you think you may be interested in research, try it out! There are so many opportunities available on campus. Explore different fields, see what interests you, and talk with those labs. Classes teach you what is already known in the discipline, but research lets you learn something that nobody knew before, which is really exciting!
- What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?I have always wanted to work in the medical field, ever since I was a little kid. If I wasn’t a research scientist, I think I would want to be a doctor or work on clinical trials.