Our goal is to produce scientific research of the highest quality so that we can share that with the world and hopefully help nudge our understanding along of how exercise and nutrition impacts the lives of people with cancer. Depending on how you join our lab, you may be contributing to ongoing studies, starting your own investigation, or both! Below are some things to think about as you are looking to design your research question.
This is a really hard part of science - figuring out a question that is both impactful in nature, but can be done in a manner that is feasible. So, your research question has to answer the following:
So imagine you come to me and say "Ciaran, I want to look at two different training programs to see if one is better than the other for people with cancer".
I will in turn say "Cool! This can be an exciting project, let me ask you a few questions first to make sure we're on the same page! We'll break these questions into 5 sections
"People with Cancer"
Believe it or not, this is actually an incredibly broad population. Think about these three different scenarios:
30 year old triathlete with early stage breast cancer who had minor surgery (and no other treatments) over two years ago
Business man in his 40's with stage II prostate cancer who is getting hormone therapy (that castrates him and brings about a bunch of nasty changes in his body composition and overall health)
87 year old woman with pancreatic cancer that has spread throughout her body, where she as extensive metastases of the bones.