physics

Samra Turajlic

Samra Turajlic is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Samra Turajlic rather than just read about it. In short: Samra Turajlic is a medical oncologist and cancer researcher. She leads the cancer dynamics lab at the Francis Crick Institute in London, which focuses on understanding how cancers evolve, as well as working as an oncologist at the Royal Marsden.

Key takeaways

Samra Turajlic belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Samra Turajlic to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Samra Turajlic from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Samra Turajlic is a medical oncologist and cancer researcher. She leads the cancer dynamics lab at the Francis Crick Institute in London, which focuses on understanding how cancers evolve, as well as working as an oncologist at the Royal Marsden. Her work has revealed that kidney cancers follow a set number of evolutionary paths, each with its own set of genetic changes. This discovery could help to distinguish between aggressive cancers that require treatment and more benign tumours that can be monitored. She was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2026.

Education and early career Turajlic studied medicine at Oxford University, graduating in 1999 before continuing her medical training at UCL Medical School. She completed her PhD in Richard Marais' lab at the Institute of Cancer Research, where she worked on the first ever targeted treatment for melanoma skin cancer. She then joined Charles Swanton's team as a clinician scientist in 2014, funded by Cancer Research UK. Together, they developed the TRACERx Renal project, which studies how kidney cancer evolves over time. In 2015, she completed her training in medical oncology and became a consultant medical oncologist at the Royal Marsden, specialising in skin and urological cancers. She went on to form her own lab at the Francis Crick Institute, becoming a group leader in 2019. She divides her time between the clinic and her lab. She is a Trustee of the Kidney Cancer Support Network and Melanoma Focus, and a senior editor for Macmillan Cancer Support.

Research

Kidney cancer Turajlic is the Chief Clinical Investigator and Chief Scientific Investigator for the TRACERx Renal, which aims to map how kidney cancer evolves over time. By developing techniques to analyse a cancer's history, her work has revealed that kidney cancers follow a set number of evolutionary paths, each with its own distinct set of genetic changes. Publishing their work in Cell, the team found that kidney cancers could be classified into three broad categories based on changes in their DNA: very aggressive, benign and intermediate. She was awarded a Cancer Research UK Advanced Clinician Scientist Fellowship in February 2020 to continue work on kidney cancer evolution.

Melanoma In April 2020, Turajlic was awarded a grant from the Melanoma Research Alliance to study how melanoma spreads to other parts of the body by metastasis. Working with patients at the Royal Marsden and samples gathered through the Melanoma TRACERx and PEACE programmes, the team are aiming to investigate the timing and pattern of melanoma metastasis.

Von Hippel-Lindau disease In May 2020, her lab was awarded a grant from the National Institute of Health (NIH) to study Von Hippel-Lindau disease. They will be collaborating with the NIH's Marston Lineham to understand why tumours develop in some parts of the body but not others in people with Von-Hippel Lindau disease.

Representative sequencing In May 2020, she and others at the Francis Crick Institute reported a new way to analyse surgically removed tumours by representative sampling, which gives a more complete picture of the genetic changes within the tumour. Instead of analysing individual samples taken from the tumour, the new technique mixes cells from different areas of the tumour together. The technique, which could help identify changes that can be targeted by treatment, is now being tested at The Royal Marsden.

References

External links http://tracerx.co.uk/studies/melanoma/

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Samra Turajlic

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Samra Turajlic claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Samra Turajlic before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Samra Turajlic ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Samra Turajlic

In research: Samra Turajlic appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Samra Turajlic in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Samra Turajlic is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Academics of the Francis Crick Institute, Alumni of Pembroke College, Oxford, Alumni of the UCL Medical School, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Samra Turajlic outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Samra Turajlic in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Samra Turajlic means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Samra Turajlic out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Samra Turajlic in simple terms?

Why does Samra Turajlic matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Samra Turajlic?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Samra Turajlic.