About Me

I'm Varsha, a researcher and medical writer based in Helsinki, Finland. My interest in science has always circled back to a single question: how do changes in our DNA alter health, risk and treatment? That curiosity led me to a Master of Science in Medical Genetics and Genomics at the University of Glasgow (graduating with Merit in 2023) and, since then, to research roles spanning cancer biology, rare disease and genomic medicine.

My most recent work focused on cisplatin resistance in cervical cancer. I used cell line models to probe why some tumours stop responding to chemotherapy and to map the genes and pathways that may drive this resistance. Earlier in my journey, I conducted systematic reviews on the psychosocial dimensions of genomic medicine and led genotyping projects investigating genetic variation across diverse populations. Together, these experiences have shaped my broader interest in how genetic variation influences both disease susceptibility and how people experience testing and treatment.

I'm now pursuing an MRes in Translational Cancer Medicine at King's College London, where I'm investigating how germline genetic features — including polygenic risk scores and rare variants — relate to recurrence risk in ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), supervised by Dr. Elinor Sawyer at the Comprehensive Cancer Centre.

I'm particularly drawn to questions that connect molecular mechanisms with real-world impact—whether that's predicting who will benefit from a drug, or understanding how families navigate genomic information in clinical settings.

A lot of my time outside research still involves words: I write evidence-based articles about genetics and rare diseases and try to make complicated things feel a bit less intimidating. When I'm offline, I'm usually in a bookshop somewhere with my husband, at a yoga class, or sitting in a café with a coffee and a book for longer than I meant to.

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