On the 5th August the Otago Daily Times ran a profile of Otago Biochemistry alumna Dr Bryony Telford.
It begins:
"At the microscopic scale of the human cell, Bryony Telford is searching for a cancer treatment, writes Kim Dungey.
Scientist Bryony Telford's cancer research is driven by an inquiring mind.
"I am endlessly curious and love trying to piece together all the little pieces of evidence I have generated with what other people in my lab do and other people in other parts of the world have done," she says.
Given an Otago Daily Times Class Act award while at South Otago High School, Telford now works for a small biotechnology company in The Netherlands characterising miRNA — small RNA (ribonucleic acid) molecules — that are promising candidates for treating cancer.
Although the first miRNA was identified more than 10 years ago, it is only recently that scientists have begun to understand the scope and diversity of the molecules that naturally occur in the genomes of plants and animals. Growing evidence shows they have a range of regulatory functions related to cell growth, development and differentiation."