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An A-Level student from Caerphilly will be heading to Liverpool University this September to study medicine – after being inspired by her own genetics.
Celyn Rose, who achieved two A grades and one B in maths, chemistry and biology, carries the cystic fibrosis gene.
While she does not suffer from the condition herself, the gene does mean that if she ever had children, they could be at risk of developing it.
What is cystic fibrosis?
Cystic fibrosis is an inherited condition that causes sticky mucus to build up in the lungs and digestive system. This causes lung infections and problems with digesting food.
Symptoms usually start in early childhood and vary from child to child, but the condition gets slowly worse over time, with the lungs and digestive system becoming increasingly damaged.
Treatments are available to help reduce the problems caused by the condition and make it easier to live with, but sadly life expectancy is shortened.
The build-up of sticky mucus in the lungs can cause breathing problems and increases the risk of lung infections. Over time, the lungs may stop working properly.
Mucus also clogs the pancreas (the organ that helps with digestion), which stops enzymes reaching food in the gut and helping with digestion.
This means most people with cystic fibrosis don’t absorb nutrients from food properly and need to eat more calories to avoid malbutrition.
Source: NHS
The Coleg y Cymoedd student has long been interested in medicine due to her condition and is now a step closer to achieving her dream.
Celyn said: “Although being a carrier of cystic fibrosis doesn’t mean I have the condition, it does mean that if I ever had a partner who had the same gene, our child could suffer from it. This sparked an interest for me regarding how genetics and the human body work and inspired me to base my Welsh Baccalaureate on the condition.
“The medical field is constantly evolving; there are always new discoveries to be made and there’s still so much we don’t know about the human body, which really excites me”.
Celyn’s chosen university course will give her the opportunity to study abroad across Europe, Canada and the United States.
She continued: “The course structure at Liverpool is very case-based, which means I will get to work with others on mock medical cases and figure out the causes and treatments, which is very suited to my learning style.
“I definitely want to study abroad. I’ve worked so hard to get to where I am and have overcome so many obstacles, I’m going to make the most of it now.”
Despite narrowly missing out on a place at university last year, Celyn came back more determined to succeed.
“My confidence was knocked when I didn’t get into university last year and I found it hard to watch my friends head off to study their courses while I had to resit my A-Levels,” she said.
“Choosing to stay at college was a difficult decision but I was adamant I wanted to study medicine, so it was the right choice for me. I couldn’t have got through it without the help of my tutors at Coleg y Cymoedd.”
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