24 June 2011

Graduation celebration for couple

An Indian couple who fell in love and married while studying at the University of Dundee will graduate together today (Friday June 24th) at the afternoon ceremony in the Caird Hall.

Husband and wife Saurabh and Jasbani Dayal will both graduate with PhDs from the School of Medicine. The pair are both cancer researchers.

Although they met in India where they did their first degree together they only became friends after coming to Dundee and were married in 2008, a year after they started their PhDs in the School of Medicine.

'Our time in Dundee has been excellent,' said Saurabh. 'The University has supportive academic and research staff and is a good working environment to pursue a career in research, especially biomedical research.'

The couple are being joined to celebrate their graduations by Jasbani’s father and Saurabh’s parents, who have travelled from Delhi, as well as both Saurabh’s and Jasbani’s brothers who have taking time off especially to be at the couple’s graduation.

Both plan to continue their scientific careers and Saurabh said, 'We are both very passionate about science and, in particular, cancer research. The challenges in this field keep us motivated and we would like to be able to contribute towards the fight against cancer.'

Saurabh’s PhD project, which was based in Professor David Lane’s lab and was supervised by Dr Mark Saville, involved identifying novel molecular candidates for the treatment of breast cancer with the aim of finding alternative approaches to treating breast cancer. The project was funded by the Breast Cancer Campaign.

Jasbani, whose project was with Dr Norman Pratt and Professor Alastair Thomson, carried out a genetic analysis of primary breast cancer - to identify targets for diagnosing and treating breast cancer, by screening samples of tissue donated for research. Jasbani’s project was funded by a Research Council UK Dorothy Hodgkin postgraduate award.

For media enquiries contact:
Roddy Isles
Head, Press Office
University of Dundee
Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384910
E-MAIL: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk
MOBILE: 07800 581902