• Question: What is the majority of you work based on?

    Asked by anon-196443 to Sebastian, Paddy, Lee, Jennifer, Fiona, Eleanor on 4 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Sebastian Cosgrove

      Sebastian Cosgrove answered on 4 Mar 2019:

      Previous work that other amazing scientists have done. Most of my ideas, and that of my boss and colleagues, is from work that we read about in scientific journals published by other scientists. It’s about how you use their ideas to shape yours which is where the ‘new’ work comes from.

    • Photo: Fiona Scott

      Fiona Scott answered on 4 Mar 2019:

      Hi Connor. Most of my work involves working in a chemistry lab making tweaks to drug molecules other people made previously, to try and make them better at shutting down one particular enzyme in our bodies. Drugs work by fitting into the enzyme like a hand in a glove, which stops it from doing its normal job.

      I am working on a type of enzyme called a kinase. Kinase molecules have the job of telling a cell what to do: make something, start a particular process like cell mutiplication. Their involvement in cell multiplication/division has led to the understanding that they can be involved in different types of cancer so lots of scientists are now working on drugs that shut down kinases in order to treat cancer. There have been lots of success stories about kinase drugs.

      Making kinase drugs is difficult though because our bodies contain 518 kinases and they’re all very similar shapes. This often means drugs that are designed to fit into one particular kinase also fit into others which can lead to side effects.

    • Photo: Paddy Sudhakar

      Paddy Sudhakar answered on 4 Mar 2019:

      The majority of my work is based on understanding using a combination of computational and experimental approaches how bacteria interact with us and the other way around and how these interactions shift the balance from health to disease or vice versa.

    • Photo: Lee Steinberg

      Lee Steinberg answered on 5 Mar 2019:

      The majority of my work is actually based on applying new techniques from mathematics to solve chemical problems. For this, I have to perform simulations of chemical systems (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8aIQA3noy4 for an example). I then use this new mathematics to see what we can learn from them, in the hope that it can be applied to problems in drug discovery.

    • Photo: Jennifer Harris

      Jennifer Harris answered on 5 Mar 2019:

      The majority of my working is figuring out how Government, Universities, Charities and Pharmaceutical companies can all work together to develop new medicines for patients. Whether this is in research, drug discovery, clinical trials, regulation and legislation, patient welfare, or pricing strategies for new treatments – all must work together to achieve new and successful treatments.

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