• Question: If you could discover anything that you wanted what would it be?

    Asked by katie14 to Emma, James, Jayne, Kara, Sharon on 19 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Sharon Sneddon

      Sharon Sneddon answered on 11 Mar 2011:

      Hi Katie,
      I’d find a cure for cystic fibrosis which is a disease that my 5 year old nephew has. At the moment there is no cure and people who have it need to take a lot of medication and stay in hospital a lot to stay healthy.

      If you are interested you can read about it here
      http://www.cftrust.org.uk/aboutcf/whatiscf/

      What would you like to discover?

    • Photo: Kara Cerveny

      Kara Cerveny answered on 12 Mar 2011:

      This is a great question, Katie, but it is a tough one. The thing about discovery is that you often don’t know what you’re going to find before you find it. When I was a post-doc, I wanted to discover the genes and molecules important for retinal stem cells. By investigating their properties, I discovered that signals from the mature cells around them influence them to stop proliferating and begin to differentiate. This isn’t what I set out to find, but it has changed the way we think about controlling stem cell growth. If I could discover anything in the whole world, I would love to discover a substance that would alleviate or at least ameliorate degenerative diseases of the nervous system including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Glaucoma, Macular degeneration. Unfortunately, I don’t think there is a magic natural extract that would do this, but hopefully with many scientists working together and approaching the problems related to these diseases from various angles, using different model systems, we will figure out a way to improve the quality and productivity of all people.
      Is there something that you are passionate about that you would like to understand more fully or discover? With science, the sky is the limit.

    • Photo: Jayne Charnock

      Jayne Charnock answered on 16 Mar 2011:

      how to turn iron into gold………. just kidding! 😉

      I would love to discover how we can make diabetic wounds heal properly….. although then Id be out of a job!

      I would love to go back to work for the pregnancy reserach group i did my PhD with, working towards a way to diagnose sick babies and help them before they are born was something that was very fulfilling. Also, even in this day and age, 10 women and over 1000 babies die every year because of something call ‘pre-eclampsia’- which is massively high blood pressure during pregnancy. We still cant really predict it and dont understand why it happens, with very luittle warning. I hope one day we can at least give Dads a reason why their wives have died, because at the moment all the doctors can say is ‘we’re sorry’. It is so sad 🙁 Then i hope we can save those precious lives

    • Photo: James Chan

      James Chan answered on 18 Mar 2011:

      Hi Katie, I’d love to find out how a little fertlised egg can turn into an entire human being who’s able to think, read, run, surf, play music, paint pictures… I think this is mind boggling! How can one cell know how to turn into the millions of cells that then all work together to make every single one of us??? If we can solve this puzzle, then we’d probably be able to cure most things!

    • Photo: Emma King

      Emma King answered on 19 Mar 2011:

      @katie14 – That’s a tricky question – I don’t work in the lab so I don’t think I’m ever going to discover a major scientific breakthrough unfortunatly. I would be happy if I managed to help more people to find out more about stem cell research!

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