Wing-Chau Tung

Completion date: 2008

Division: Cancer Therapeutics

Wing-Chau is a great example of someone who got involved with all that there is to offer students at the ICR. She graduated with a PhD in Chemistry under Professor Caroline Springer, was an active member of the student committee, becoming Student President in 2006, and was involved in the squash committee too: “There was a great student community at the ICR. We were all postgraduate students and this helped us bond.”

Her PhD project looked at the design and synthesis of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) contrast agents, or ‘smart probes’ that would cause a detectable change in the MRI image when they came into contact with the foreign enzyme (a protein) expressed in tumour cells: “The aim was to develop a non-invasive technique to monitor therapy treatments in real-time”.

Wing-Chau currently works as a Project Manager at Imperial College London, where she co-ordinates scientific projects, managing everything from finances and human resources, to collaborations and tracking project milestones. Her scientific and research skills help her understand the projects that she manages and she strongly believes that the opportunities she had as a student at the ICR provided her with a set of transferable skills that have been invaluable to her career since leaving:

“My time as Student President developed my communication and organisational skills as well as giving me experience in organising student events. The ICR provided many opportunities to learn skills outside your own area of interest, with the online Perspectives in Oncology modules that provided all first year students with the same fundamental understanding of cancer science, and numerous training courses covering management, assertiveness and science communication, among others. I also had the opportunity to manage my own PhD project budget, which has definitely helped in my current role.”