-
Asked by pkchristian to Emma, James, Jayne, Kara, Sharon on 15 Mar 2011 in Categories: Your Research.
-
Sharon Sneddon answered on 11 Mar 2011:
I think the work I do is very important as I feel that even in a very small way, the work I do might help patients in the future. In the past, I have helped to discover which genes are important in very early pregnancy and this work is now used to help treat patients in our IVF clinic. The stem cell lines that I helped to create have also been used to grow liver and pancreas cells in the lab that one day might be able to be used for people who have liver disease or diabetes.
As for my work, I will be working on this project until 2013
Sadly, there will probably always be diseases that need researching and treating so I think that a scientist’s work is never done, there will always be new things to investigate. Scientific discoveries take a long time to develop.
-
-
Kara Cerveny answered on 12 Mar 2011:
This is a good question. I think that one nice thing about being a scientist, and now, in my case, a scientific editor, is the flexibility of being able to set my own schedule. Unlike jobs with regularly scheduled working hours, lab work and scientific editing can be done at any time, and sometimes require me to work on weekends or in the evening. Many of the basic biological questions, with an eye towards understanding, treating, and healing human diseases, take a long time to answer.
I think my work is important, not in the sense that it is going to cure a disease in the very near future, but in the sense that it expands our understanding of the basic biology of stem cells. My work that I’m doing now as a scientific editor is very important because it helps scientists communicate with one another as well as with the general public. Both jobs — basic research and scientific editing — are enjoyable and satisfying; I wouldn’t be happy doing something that I didn’t think would make a difference. -
Jayne Charnock answered on 13 Mar 2011:
Hi pkchristian,
The money for my current research runs out in a years time, but I expect it’ll take a good deal longer to get everything finished as I’d like. The thing with research is the more you fund out, the more questions you end up asking! So your work can never be truly complete but we set ourselves smaller targets in the short term like completing a set if experiments or certain studies or having a paper published about the work.
In research we spend alot of our time convincing the people with the money that fund our work that it’s incredibly important, so in answer to your second question I’d have to say VERY!! 🙂
Hope that helps!
Jayne -
Emma King answered on 15 Mar 2011:
Hi pkchristian, thanks for your question!
Well I know that my PhD is going to finish in Summer 2012 because that’s when my funding runs out! I guess as a researcher though your work never really finishes because you are always wanting to find stuff out.
I would say that my work is very important to me – but other people might not agree with that! -
James Chan answered on 15 Mar 2011:
We hope to be able to test our new drug in humans within the next year and if it works, hopefully get it produced by a drug company within a few years. but science is never finished because you can always go on to something else. what you discover can often be applied to different areas, so an advance in bone healing can help advances in heart regeneration, for instance. Kind of like, if you are good at tennis, you’d probably do well in badminton, squash and other racquet sports. So you need to keep a very broad mind and be flexible in your thinking.
I’d like to think the work I am doing is important in that it tries to address an important problem in society and can potentially help many many people. I feel that it’s fun because it is directly relevant to everyday people.
Comments