• Question: Why do you reasearch the things you do?

    Asked by anna13 to Clare, Mariana, Pedro, Robert, Susanne on 9 Nov 2012.
    • Photo: Mariana Campos

      Mariana Campos answered on 9 Nov 2012:

      First of all because I think is a really interesting question: I really want to know how my organs know what is the right size. For instance, your brain you could think that the size is defined by the size of your skull but what about your hands, your legs, your arms? why don’t they grow bigger and why, and this is what puzzles me more, do they end up at the same size? No one really understands this truly. And I think that, if we do we can understand what goes wrong for instance in cancer. Because one of the thinks that happens in cancer is that a group of cells doesn’t respect this STOP signal anymore and they just keep on multiplying.

    • Photo: Robert Insall

      Robert Insall answered on 9 Nov 2012:

      Lots of dumb luck, really.

      The thing is, almost anything in biology is fascinating and cool if you study it and look for things that people don’t understand and that you could find something about.
      I started working on how cells move. Started on it by accident, and 20 years later I’m an expert and Cancer Research UK have hired me to find out how cancer cells spread.

      But it’s pure dumb luck; I wanted to do chemistry at Uni but the chemistry lecturers were dire, while the cell biology dude was magnificent.

    • Photo: Susanne Muekusch

      Susanne Muekusch answered on 10 Nov 2012:

      Hi Anna,

      I was looking for a research project that is related to some disease, because it’s much easier to answer your grandma’s question “What’s the point?”. Actually, every graduate student will ask that question to herself at one point, so it’s good to remember once in a while what’s the point and pick a project where you feel there is one in the first place.

      With my previous project I got interested in neuroscience. Taken together, that’s why I study brain tumors.

    • Photo: Clare Taylor

      Clare Taylor answered on 12 Nov 2012:

      I. LOVE. BACTERIA. They are amazing! They are tiny and in comparison to animals, very simple… except they’re not! I am constantly amazed when I found out more and more of the complicated things that bacteria can do. Evolution has turned some bacteria into microscopic menaces that cause horrible infections, but when you start to understand how they do it, it’s mind-blowing! I am lucky that I can choose my research and I’ve chosen it because I want to do two things: 1) Understand how bacteria cause disease so that we can stop it, and, 2) Figure out how we exploit some of the clever things bacteria can do and use it for good purposes. I think it’ll keep my busy for ever but it’s a constant challenge and I love it!

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