• Question: what is your latest experiment?

    Asked by 724tund35 to Aimee, Gemma, Hussain, Robert, Ross on 9 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Ross King

      Ross King answered on 9 Nov 2015:

      My latest experiment looks at how the immune system makes our blood vessels (our veins and arteries) leaky.

      Sometimes it can be good for us to have leaky blood vessels because it allows us to fight infection better. For some people in hospital, having leaky blood vessels can be very dangerous. Have you ever heard of pneumonia? It’s a lung disease that is common in hospital patients who are very ill. If their blood vessels are very leaky, then this can sometimes cause them to drown because there is too much fluid in the lungs so they can’t breathe properly.

      My work looks at how some very special cells that make up the immune system (called neutrophils) help to make your blood vessels leaky. I think that these cells store chemicals inside them that are released to cause leakiness. To study this, I use mice and I watch where these cells go in the mouse’s body and try to find out what they release and what happens when they do so.

      Hope this answers your question – please feel free to ask more! 🙂

    • Photo: Hussain Jaffery

      Hussain Jaffery answered on 9 Nov 2015:

      My latest experiment is looking at the role of a particular protein inside the cell nucleus, which is where the DNA is stored. This protein is like a little machine that attached to the DNA and helps it unwind an become read by other protein machines.

      I want to see what this protein does in bones, so I have mice which don’t have this protein, and mic which do. I am simply comparing how they grow for up to one year and taking X-rays of their legs. This will tell us the effect on bone.

      I have been waiting a year for the results so its a big one! Wish me luck! 🙂

      There are always shorter and different kinds of experiments that pop up here and there.

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