• Question: How will your work help everyone and not just a small minority?

    Asked by ramboshotxobile to Chris, Kay, Kerstin, Lorna, Liv on 15 Mar 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Chris Needham

      Chris Needham answered on 15 Mar 2010:

      Hopefully, in collaboration with other scientists, and through the availablity of data online, and the publication of research results, computational methods, such as the learning of gene regulatory networks will help everyone.

      For example, there is now quite a lot of interest in food security – how will we feed ourselves if climate change alters the growing conditions of the plants that we eat? Is it possible to understand the mechanisms that plants use, and to identify how they might grow better in drier conditions, or with hotter summers and colder winters.

    • Photo: Kay Penicud

      Kay Penicud answered on 15 Mar 2010:

      1 in 3 people will get cancer in their lifetime, and everybody knows somebody who has had cancer. I think my work hepls a very wide range of people, not a small minority

    • Photo: Lorna Houlihan

      Lorna Houlihan answered on 15 Mar 2010:

      Not sure just yet! Honestly, research takes a long time from finding the discovery to putting it into practice. BUT I think that we will all get old (hopefully!) and the happier and easier our lives are when we get older the better. And most important to me is that I can think, remember things and do things like read books, etc when I get older. So my research may help how to improve this.

    • Photo: Olivia Hibbitt

      Olivia Hibbitt answered on 15 Mar 2010:

      Hey ramboshotxobile,

      My work is looking at developing a completely novel way of treating genetic conditions….this does effect almost everyone! Specifically, the condition I work on actually effects a really large number of people! 1:500 in a population is really common for a genetic condition. Compare that to other big genetic illnesses, cystic fibrosis for example effects 1:2000, genetic parkinsons disease accounts for just 5% of all parkinsons disease patients.
      But without getting into a ‘my disease is better than yours’ argument (that does go on in science labs!) any research into anything has relevance for everyone. Every new discovery gives more information about how our bodies work…..this helps everyone!

    • Photo: Kerstin Zechner

      Kerstin Zechner answered on 15 Mar 2010:

      Hey Rambo! That’s a really tough question to answer. What I do in our lab is basic science. Which means we look at the basics of how certain processes work in animal cells. Without that knowledge, medications and medical procedures can’t be developed. So on the one hand you can argue that we are trying to help everyone. On the other hand, since our science has no direct application (which means other labs have to use our results and develop drugs etc from them), you could argue that we’re really not helping anyone. I guess it’s up to you to decide 🙂

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