How Cancer Evolves Over Time | William Cross | TEDxGoodenoughCollege

As conventional cancer therapies can promote resistance and lead to relapse, can we increase cancer survival by understanding how it evolves? William Cross suggests that while cancer evolution will always be difficult to control when targeting the cells alone, we may have a better chance at controlling cancer by controlling its environmental conditions. William Cross is currently a PhD student at Barts Cancer Institute working with Dr. Trevor Graham and Prof. Sir Nick Wright in the Evolution in Cancer Laboratory. William is interested in how cancers genetically change over time and how this is related to therapeutic resistance and poor patient outcomes. William’s background is centred on cancer genetics and in recent years, has worked as a Bioinformatician, walking the line between computational analysis and the laboratory, which is essential to understanding the huge datasets that can be produced from modern experiments. After gaining his degree in 2005 from Cardiff University in Genetics, William worked as a Research Technician with Prof Huw Morris and as an NHS Healthcare Scientist with Dr Jerry Hancock at Bristol Genetics Laboratory. While working as a Healthcare Scientist, he helped determine the prognosis of children with Leukaemia and in the diagnosis of inherited cancers. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx