• Question: What kind of experiments have you done? And what were your results?

    Asked by abbiew to Emma, James, Jayne, Kara, Sharon on 17 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Sharon Sneddon

      Sharon Sneddon answered on 15 Mar 2011:

      Hi abbiew,
      Gosh, I have done hundreds of thousands of experiments, all sorts of things from measuring cells, to seeing how fast they grow, to looking at how many genes are inside embryos at different stages and what happens if we change the genes in any way. Some of the results have not told us anything so we need to then go on to do more experiments, and hopefully we get good results in the future.
      Some of the most exciting results were when we were looking at the changes in the genes in early embryos , we discovered which genes are missing when embryos die instead of surviving and forming a baby, this work will go on to help stop this happening.

    • Photo: Emma King

      Emma King answered on 16 Mar 2011:

      Hi abbiew, thanks for your question. I don’t do experiments in the lab – instead I look at scientists and the way that they work and interview them about what they think about how stem cells are regulated in the UK, and whether that helps or stops them doing the work that they want to.
      Unfortunately I can’t tell you the results yet because most of it is confidential 🙁

    • Photo: Jayne Charnock

      Jayne Charnock answered on 16 Mar 2011:

      Ive done hundred and hundreds of experiments over the last few years.

      The worst bit is only about 20% of them ever work! and about 15% will give you either a negative result or something you totally didnt expect. The other 5% of the time you jump around celebrating and out comes the champagne! The problem is, sometimes you get a great result, then when you try and repeat the experiment it doesnt happen again. So you have to repeat it lots and lots to be sure what youre finding is true.

      My best results were back during my undergraduate degree- i confirmed that elastic fibres in the skin are broken down and reformed during the hair follicle cycle (the hair goes up and down in the skin). People always thought you only had the ones you were born with and that was that. When you challenge what people have believed for a long time it can be scary but its great at the same time!

    • Photo: James Chan

      James Chan answered on 16 Mar 2011:

      Hi abbie, in my research, I’ve been trying to find a drug to help broken bones heal quicker. so the exciting experiments I do include operating on mice – obviously they are tiny so i need to use magnifying glasses (check photo on my profile!) and I put the mice to sleep, operate on them, suture them back up and wake them up. don’t worry, we make sure that the mice don’t feel a thing, even after they wake up – we give them a really strong pain killer and in fact, when they wake up, they are scurrying around like nobody’s business. the other experiments I do are to look at how different chemicals make stem cells do different things, and I am particularly interestered in making stem cells turn into bone! check out the link on my profile to find out more http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12578388/stem%20cells%20and%20broken%20bones.pptx =)

    • Photo: Kara Cerveny

      Kara Cerveny answered on 17 Mar 2011:

      This is a great question, but it requires a really long answer to thoroughly explain what types of experiments I used to do. The short version is that I am interested in understanding how cells switch from proliferation to differentiation and how particular tissues in the nervous system use and maintain neuronal stem cells. For a more detailed answer, please take a look at the website from my previous lab, to read the summary of one of my research projects (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/zebrafish-group/outreach/summaries/kara1/index.php).

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