• Question: How long can you see your projects lasting for, how will they benefit us and what have you discovered so far?

    Asked by hyellop01 to Akshat, Gemma, Judith on 23 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Judith McCann

      Judith McCann answered on 22 Jun 2011:

      My research project lasts for 3 1/2years-but I think I have to hand in my thesis (full report on all the research over the phd) within 4years. The actual benefits of research take years to be seen in real-life applications! My project could be used to make drugs targeted to specific areas in the body (that are diseased) which could reduce side-effects and help make drugs more effective. Or they could be used to make scaffolds in the body to help regrow of cells in damaged tissue.

      So far I have discovered that research takes far more time and planning skill than i currently possess! and that making polymer particles that swell is hard to do and even harder to prove! 😀

    • Photo: Gemma Sharp

      Gemma Sharp answered on 22 Jun 2011:

      Hi hyellop01 🙂

      Well technically my project lasts three years, but I won’t have the answers to all my questions by then. To be honest I think it’ll take us decades to find out exactly what triggers women to go into labour when they do, but it shouldn’t be too long before pregnant women start to benefit from the kind of research I’m doing. I think within the next five years we should have better drugs to help stop premature birth. If we can stop it, then it’ll save a lot of babies’ lives. Obviously that will benefit the babies and their parents directly, but it’ll also save the NHS a lot of money because it costs a lot to look after a baby that’s born prematurely.

      So far I’ve discovered that when I add a chemical to womb cells the levels of different proteins in the cells change. That’s probably one of the things that triggers labour in pregnant women, so now I’m trying to find out how the protein levels change, and maybe that will give us an idea of which sort of drugs might be able to stop premature labour.

    • Photo: Akshat Rathi

      Akshat Rathi answered on 23 Jun 2011:

      Same as Gemma and Judith, my project will last three years and a bit. I believe I wil be able to synthesize the molecule that we aimed for but after that the testing of the medicine would be done by someone else.

      As for the utility of my project, the work I have done will make it easier to understand this class of medicinal compounds and if after tests they are found useful then it may become a medicine we can use to fight cancer and fungal infections.

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