• Question: what do you study?

    Asked by applebottomjeans to Paul, Tom, Natasha, Ildiko, Ester, Eoin on 2 Nov 2017. This question was also asked by izzy.
    • Photo: Paul McKeegan

      Paul McKeegan answered on 2 Nov 2017:

      I am a biochemist, or someone who is interested in how chemical reactions make biological systems work. I mostly study the use of nutrients to power development of egg cells and embryos of mammals like cows, sheep and mice. These are all ‘model’ organisms, as we use knowledge gained from these animals to understand human cells better.

      Eggs and embryos are very tricky cells to work with and very precious. I can grow them for about a week in little petri dishes, at which point the embryos are still little balls of cells, up to about 100 cells and about 1/100th of a centimetre. My current project aims to improve embryo development in mice, so scientists can collect the same amount of data from fewer lab animals. My previous projects have involved looking at how eggs and embryos respire (using oxygen to release energy from food, rather than breathing!) as well as the effect of fat on embryo development and finding out how egg cells use nutrients as they grow in the ovary.

    • Photo: Ildiko Somorjai

      Ildiko Somorjai answered on 10 Nov 2017:

      I am an evolutionary developmental biologist-the “developmental” part means I try to understand what affects an embryo as it develops to become an adult (which is why I am interested in cells and how they “decide” to become brain or leg muscle). The “evolution” part is because I want to understand how changes in these developmental programmes created the different species we see today and their different body plans. I am also interested in why some animals can regenerate really well and others (like us) really are not good at growing back body parts.

Comments

  • Photo: Eoin

    Eoin commented on :

    I study immune diseases – either caused by the immune system failing to do things its should do, or doing things it shouldn’t. This includes diseases like diabetes and mutliple sclerosis but also infections like tuberculosis. An increasing number of diseases have important ‘immune’ components including cancer, so I’m interested in a huge range of problems.
    I use new technologies (like ‘sequencing’ of DNA or the message it produces called RNA) to generated a large amount of information quite quickly. A sequencer machine ‘reads’ strings of DNA or RNA and these reads are like short strings of a code. I spend quite a lot of time trying to work out what the differences are between people with and without immune disease. After that I also grow (or “culture”) immune cells in a dish in the lab while making changes to individual genes or using new treatments to change which genes are switched on or off.
    The goal is to better understand immune diseases by finding new patterns in their genetic code – either their DNA or RNA – and to use that information to develop new tests and treatments for patients.