• Question: Do you all study something other than cancer? If so what?

    Asked by jackyboy1999 to Clare, Mariana, Robert, Susanne on 21 Nov 2012.
    • Photo: Clare Taylor

      Clare Taylor answered on 21 Nov 2012:

      Another area I am researching is trying to understand how a bacterium called Listeria monocytogenes infects pregnant people more often than non-pregnant people. Statistics tell us that this is true, but no-one knows why. We’re doing some research in my lab to try and figure it out.

    • Photo: Robert Insall

      Robert Insall answered on 21 Nov 2012:

      Yes, I originally study amoebas (and have done for ages). You can study how cells move using amoebas, and the results apply to cancer cells, so I can study my aboebas for cancer research and save money and not harm animals.

    • Photo: Susanne Muekusch

      Susanne Muekusch answered on 21 Nov 2012:

      I study stem cells of the brain and compare them to brain cancer cells.
      You automatically study other things than just cancer, because it always overlaps with other fields. When you look at the proteins of cancer cells, you also study proteins and so on. No field is really completely isolated, there is always an overlap.

    • Photo: Mariana Campos

      Mariana Campos answered on 21 Nov 2012:

      I study flies and how they know what is the right size. I look at their wings and I think that if I can understand how they know till what size their organs, I work with the wings in particular, it maybe would help scientists to understand what goes wrong when people get cancer. One of the things that happens in cancer is that cells keep on dividing when they shouldn’t. I think that if I understand what tells cells to stop it will help us understand why in cancer they don’t.

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