In a packed lecture theatre at the Institute of Cancer Research, Professor Helen McNair is celebrating an achievement years in the making. After decades in radiography and research, Helen has finally become a professor, an achievement marked by a strenuous process of rigorous evaluation – not to mention the mountain of papers that needed publishing.

Delivering a talk to a room wall-to-wall with Helen’s colleagues, professional peers and her family and friends, Helen took attendees on a journey from her beginnings in Northern Ireland to her current position as an internationally recognised researcher at the Institute of Cancer Research.

Many hurdles 

“Do the things you enjoy in your work and, if you stop enjoying it, try and change what you’re doing,” she tells Synergy. “I loved the clinical job for a long time, and then I was just finding it quite frustrating and overwhelming. I switched to the research job and got a new lease of life.

“Follow your gut feeling, and talk to people. If you’re not sure what you’re going to do, talk to people. It’s quite easy to look at somebody like me and think: ‘I could never do that’ – there’s been so many hurdles to overcome. But if you want to do something different, and you’re among the first to do it, it’s going to be like that. Don’t give up. Just keep going.”