Congratulations to Carly Griffin: Carly defended her Ph.D. thesis successfully on Jan 6th 2011.
by Meghan Scanlan — The Lance (University of Windsor)
WINDSOR, Ont. (CUP) — After her father was diagnosed with colon cancer, Carly Griffin made it her life’s ambition to find a cure for cancer.
After the devastating loss of her father and several years of research, she may have reached her goal.
“Ultimately, that fuelled my decision to study biochemistry at the University of Windsor,” said Griffin.
In her third year at the University of Windsor, she actively pursued her goal of finding a cure by inquiring about a position in Siyaram Pandey’s research lab. It is in this lab that Griffin would work on the substance of her PhD, now proven to be a promising advance in cancer research.
The key to Griffin’s success is found in the rare Hawaiian spider lily plant. The plant and its cancer-killing compounds according to Griffin “have been studied by organic chemists for decades.”
Pandey became interested after attending a weekly seminar hosted by the chemistry department. Interested in testing the plant’s anti-cancer activity, Pandey handed the task off to two volunteer undergraduate students.
According to Griffin, two very exciting things happened for Pandey, his volunteers and for the world of cancer research.
The volunteer research students found that pancratistatin, a compound found in the Hawaiian spider lily plant, was very potent against cancer cells. They also found that there was currently no other research group actively studying pancratistatin.
In 2004, Griffin joined the research group and says she has “spent the last six years trying to figure out how pancratistatin works against cancer.”
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