• Question: Do you think your research will benefit any other research other than the specific area you investigate? Maybe, help us understand the human body more? Or help us find cures for other diseases?

    Asked by crayon to Clare, Mariana, Pedro, Robert, Susanne on 12 Nov 2012.
    • Photo: Clare Taylor

      Clare Taylor answered on 12 Nov 2012:

      When I started up my research I was interested in the bacteria and why they cause infections, but as we have started to learn more about the bacteria we realised that they do things when they are inside the human body that could actually be useful, like targeting tumour cells so we’ve already found a useful application of our microbiology knowledge. One of the challenging things about research is that we have to find inventive ways to make things happen so we have to come up with new methods, and often these can be used in other areas of research. I can use a lot of my knowledge in all sorts of areas such as in food technology and I’m working with someone at the moment who is interested in hormone signalling in the reproductive tract. This is one of the wonderful things about science – we can use our knowledge to tackle all sorts of problems which affect us, including different diseases and environmental issues like climate change. This is just one of the reasons why science is so exciting!

    • Photo: Susanne Muekusch

      Susanne Muekusch answered on 13 Nov 2012:

      Hi crayon,

      Absolutely!

      It is very common that you get ideas for your own research from results someone else has found in a different field. My project was inspired by work on a very different kind of tumor. My findings, in turn, inspired a developmental biologist. He now investigates what my favourite protein does in the brains of unborn mice.

      It is quite important to look around in other areas to get inspiration from other peoples work. Or talk to people that are not from your field. Sometimes this can freshen up your ideas and suddenly you see things from a different angle and get new ideas for experiments.

    • Photo: Robert Insall

      Robert Insall answered on 21 Nov 2012:

      Allo Crayon

      Yes yes yes! Throughout the history of science, we find the way to make progress is just to study whatever you can make the most progress with. Everyone was really snotty about Lasers when they were first discovered, called them “an answer without a question”, but now they run everything from CDs to industrial factories.

      My work is on how cells move – but that’s important in brain formation and immunity (just 2 examples) as well as cancer

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