Our new researcher tackles drug resistance in glioblastoma multiforme

Mumbai-born Farjana Rowther is the latest addition to our team of researchers at the Brain Tumour UK Neuro-Oncology Research Centre, at the University of Wolverhampton.

The 31-year-old Brain Tumour UK Post Doctoral Researcher in Neuro-Oncology started the three-year posting in May 2010 and is determined to make a difference to the lives of patients.

'As a scientist, I spend most of my working time in the laboratory and interact mainly with other scientists and clinicians' says Farjana. 'Brain Tumour UK has given me the opportunity to meet patients and discover what they really go through. At the end of the day, they are the ones I am working for – to make a difference to their lives.'

The focus of Farjana’s brain tumour research is to screen for genes responsible for the resistance to chemotherapy (drugs) in patients with glioblastoma brain tumours.

Her mission is to try to make brain tumours more susceptible to chemotherapy by knocking down or silencing the abnormal genes responsible for this resistance.

Farjana studied for her MSc in Mumbai. She moved to the UK in November 2005 to complete her PhD at the University of Keele in Stoke-on-Trent, where she worked with another Brain Tumour UK researcher, Professor Bill Farrell. You can read the results of their research into pituitary tumours here.

'It’s wonderful to be joining this expanded research team at such an exciting time for brain tumour research,' she says.