• Question: Whats the most dangerous experiment you have done, if you have done any

    Asked by anon-193358 to Heidi, Emma, Carl on 5 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Carl Heron

      Carl Heron answered on 5 Nov 2018:

      hmmm, good question. I have used hydrofluoric acid (HF) to dissolve ceramics (silicates). This is nasty stuff. A tiny drop on your skin can cause a lot of pain as it burns through tissue quite easily. There is an antidote gel that can be applied and users must apply this immediately and seek urgent medical treatment.

    • Photo: Heidi Gardner

      Heidi Gardner answered on 5 Nov 2018:

      Interesting question.. the most dangerous experiment I’ve ever done was with pieces of human brain tissue. They had been donated to our lab after people had died, and we were testing them to see if they had certain proteins that have been linked to Alzheimer’s disease.
      Everyone in the lab had to have vaccinations before we handled the samples in case we were hurt. It was really interesting though, and great to be involved in research that had a direct impact on people.

    • Photo: Emma Crawford

      Emma Crawford answered on 5 Nov 2018:

      I once worked on analysing some data from an ophthalmology trial. Ophthalmology is a branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of diseases of the eye and visual system.
      The trial involved patients receiving monthly injections in their eye to treat their chronic eye disease that was causing them blurred vision or blind spots. The thought of having an injection in your eye made me cringe – I’m very squeamish!, as I imagine it could be quite dangerous if something went wrong with administering the injection, eyes are very delicate!
      I therefore found it very rewarding that I was asked by a client to help them develop a tool for doctors to use so they could determine if a patient had a low, medium or high risk of needing treatment for their eye disease so that those with lower risk could receive treatment less frequently/ or as needed. This involved me building a statistical model based on different characteristics of the patients (e.g. age, gender, severity of disease) that I then developed into a user-friendly computer tool for a doctor to use. I think the possibility of giving the patient the chance to have less injections in their eye and not to compromise the treatment of the disease is a win-win!

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