Meet the researcher: Brigid Lynch

When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I was torn between wanting to be a large-animal veterinarian or a classical ballet dancer.  It turns out I didn’t have the stomach for the first or the talent for the second.

Did you ever set fire to anything in science lessons at school?

No, I was generally very well-behaved at school except for talking too much!

Do you wear a lab coat?

No, I haven’t worn a lab coat since I was an undergraduate studying science at the University of Queensland.

How did you get into cancer research?

After graduating from my undergraduate degree, I started doing volunteer work at a cancer not-for-profit agency in Queensland. This organisation had just initiated a pilot randomised controlled trial of community-based melanoma screening, and I was recruited to work as a research assistant on that trial.  That’s when I knew that epidemiology [the science of determining the causes of health and disease in populations] was the career I wanted to pursue.

Why are you interested in breast cancer research?

I doubt anyone hasn’t been affected by this disease in some way. My maternal grandmother was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer in 2006, but thanks to medical science she got another 5 good years before the cancer returned and she died in 2012.