As a part of the annual progress reviews as Queen's students, Éilis (ESR2) and Niamh (ESR4) were tasked with presenting their results to-date in front of their colleagues at the Centre for Cancer Research and Cell Biology. These were 10 minute presentations, followed by 5 minutes of questions from the panel and audience.

It was a great experience for both students, with focused questions geared at testing their project knowledge and providing them with advice for future work. There was great interest in the bioinformatics approaches governing both project hypotheses, as well as in the collaborative aspect to each of their projects which enabled the use of a variety of techniques from different centres. This was a great way to explain how these secondments tie together to answer the fundamental questions of resistance mechanisms and biomarker discovery in oesophageal adenocarcinoma.

The audience were suitably impressed with the work from both projects, awarding Niamh 1st place overall from this symposium. This was a great vote of confidence for ESR4, providing great motivation to continue working hard throughout Niamh's final year.