Leo Garcia: PhD Student at the Institute of Cancer Research

This STEMNET video describes the work of Leo Garcia, a PhD student at the Institute of Cancer Research working in the field of ultrasound elastography. In particular he is researching the use of this method in brain surgery to help guide the surgeon to find tumours and diagnose cancer.

In the video, Leo describes how the ultrasound works and what the applications are in the real world of medicine. He takes the ultrasound to a school and uses it on the teacher to show his heart, liver, kidneys and bladder. In a lively manner, Leo engages with the students to bring biology and physics alive. He shows how applications in medicine, such as MRIs, often have a grounding in pure physics.

Leo also talks to students about what cancer is, how it grows and what metastasising is. He explains the principle behind elastography by measuring the stiffness of different balls and the fact that this works in exactly the same way in tumours.

"My main goal is get kids really interested and really excited about science; so if they go on to do science at A Level, degree level, maybe even to do a science PhD like I'm doing, then that would be absolutely brilliant".

"This lesson actually made me realise how fun physics can be and it motivated me more".

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• URL: http://stem.org.uk/rx3vq