Cancer Experiment Secures Research Award for AAU Medical Students · 7. October 2011
Lab experiments with stem cells that inhibit the growth of cancer cells have secured five medical students from Aalborg University a prestigious talent award at a conference in Berlin. The group’s promising findings surprised even them and now they will be involved in more in-depth studies.
The five students from the Medicine with Industrial Specialization program have worked with the effect of stems cells from fat on a particular type of cancer, in conjunction with their supervisor, Meg Duroux, Associate Professor at the Laboratory for Stem Cell Research. The experiments showed that fat stem cells inhibited the growth of cancer cells.
We started with the opposite hypothesis. We thought that stem cells from fat would promote cancer cell growth, and for a moment we were taken by surprise that our hypothesis was wrong. But then we realized that the results were of course much more interesting, says 23-year-old Heidi Guldborg Møller.
According to the students, the concrete results from the experiment was the main explanation for their winning the ESC Research Award for best presentation at the international conference, the European Students' Conference in Berlin, where they were otherwise up against more experienced talent from all over the world.
- Some of the others had spent several years on their projects and research, and we won with a finding that resulted from a shorter period of concentrated work. But our success is due both to the result and that it was easy to explain our work to the jury, who commended us for a very pedagogical presentation, says 25-year-old Andreas Pagh Rasmussen.
New experiments await
Despite the award and praise from jury members and supervisors, the five medical students are humble about the possible significance of their finding.
- The results come from a very limited dataset, and this of course means something for how much weight you can give it. But the award is still a seal of approval that we can use, says 22-year-old Hjalte Holm Andersen.
The results underpin research into the relationship between cancer and stem cells that Meg Duroux, Associate Professor, is already focused on. Therefore, she will also seek funding to follow up this success with new experiments, and she hopes for continued assistance from her award-winning students:
- I am delighted to see that encouragement and financial support for a project in an early semester can result in such a high impact at an international level. The award is a major step forward for this group of young scientists. Now, I hope that they will continue their investigations and work further with a focus on cancer in the coming semester, she says.
The students themselves give a lot of credit to their supervisor because she believed in them and gave them the freedom to experiment.
- We've been enormously fortunate in that we’ve been allowed to do the things we’ve done. Although we had little experience, we have had a very free environment in which to develop ourselves in the lab, so our supervisor showed great confidence in us, says 22-year-old Kasper Bendix Johnsen.
The five classmates also found out that they work well as a group. Even in the face of adversity:
- When some of our experiments failed in the beginning, the mood was not very high. But we’re good at jamming and ping-ponging with each other, so we can move forward. We play a lot of foosball, but we can also work very hard together when we have to, explains 23-year-old Anders Christian Kaa.
Further information:
- The European Students' Conference (ESC) in Berlin, held this year for the 22nd time, was originally established to build bridges between East and West Germany. It has since evolved to be the largest biomedical conference in Europe organized by students. It attracts several hundred participants from all over the world, and the theme this year was "Perspectives and Challenges in Regenerative Medicine."
- The Aalborg group was both Winner of the Day and overall winner of the ESC Research Award for best poster presentation.
- Stem cells from fat for research use come from plastic surgery clinics.
- Group members: Heidi Guldborg Møller, 23 (mobile +45 2897 1211); Hjalte Holm Andersen, 22 (mobile +45 2446 4515); Anders Christian Kaa, 23 (mobile +45 2442 1526), Andreas Pagh Rasmussen, 25 (mobile +45 5151 2088), Kasper Bendix Johnsen, 22 (mobile +45 2162 3676).
- Meg Duroux, Associate Professor, Department of Health Science and Technology, mobile +45 6126 9973
- Carsten Nielsen, Science Journalist, Aalborg University, mobile +45 2340 6554
