• Question: what kind of research have you done??

    Asked by starlight to Paula, Nathalie, Laura, Katy, Hermine on 16 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Paula Salgado

      Paula Salgado answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      My research has always be on proteins and their shapes (structure) and how that relates to what they do, that is, their function.

      I’ve worked on different proteins, all of them related to diseases.

      When I was still an undergraduate in Portugal, I worked on a protein that can cause a disease common in the north of Portugal, where I came from. If the protein has certain mutations, it accumulates on the outside of nerve cells, so people stop feeling anything – it usually starts in their feet but eventually extends to the whole body. I was trying to determine the structure of one of the mutated versions of the protein to compare with the normal one and understand how it could cause disease.

      I then come to England to do my PhD and I studied proteins that read and copy RNA (like DNA, but it has one less oxygen atom, it also contains genetic information). Lots of virus have their genetic information as RNA instead of DNA and if so they have these proteins. I was studying one that is very good model for RNA copying proteins from Hepatitis C virus, a virus that can lead to liver cancer. We were trying to understand how the virus copies its genetic information so that drugs that stop it can later be developed.

      Now, I work on proteins from a fungus that can cause infections in humans. The fungus needs to stick to our cells to cause disease and these proteins are responsible for that. The idea is if we know how the proteins from the fungus stick to our cells, we can find ways to stop and stop disease from happening.

    • Photo: Hermine Schnetler

      Hermine Schnetler answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      I am actually more of an inventor than a researcher. In my job I am finding technical solutions so that we can provide the UK astronomers with world class facilities to do their research with.

    • Photo: Nathalie Pettorelli

      Nathalie Pettorelli answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      Hi there,

      A lot of my work is about understanding what makes the number of animals vary from one year to another, in order to understand why some populations grow while other decrease in numbers. Another topic of mine is whether satellite data can be used to predict the effect of environmental change on wildlife. And then I’m interested in carnivores and how to enhance coexistence between humans and carnivores

    • Photo: Katy Mee

      Katy Mee answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      For my PhD i studied a volcano in Chile. I was studying the different types of volcanic rock that had been erupted from the volcano throughout it’s 640 thousand year history. I was trying to work out what the climate had been like at the time of the eruption. For example, if lava is erupted onto snow or ice, it cools much more quickly than if it is simply allowed to cool by air temperature. The lava looks very different when it is cooled quickly compared to when it is cooled slowly so by studying the rocks closely you cn get an idea of how it cooled and how this may have been linked to the climate.

      The overall aim was to try and work out what the climate history at the volcano was – this is very important because it enabled me to make predictions about the future and particularly how changing climate may affect the style of eruptions that may occur.

    • Photo: Laura Dixon

      Laura Dixon answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      My research all involves trying to figure out why animals behave in certain ways and what they need to ensure good welfare.
      I’ve studied laying hens who are prone to pecking each others feathers off and eating them (quite painful and a bit bloody :P). I determined that because these birds are usually kept without proper foraging material (either on wire floor or with wood shavings, which aren’t a really natural type forage) they began to ‘forage’ on the feathers of each other. If you give chickens lots of fun things to forage in, like free range chickens who have grass and dirt, this problem usually goes away 🙂
      I’ve also looked at hutch size in pet rabbits – there are no rules as to what size enclosure pet rabbits have to have and you can buy really big hutches and really small hutches. So we looked at rabbit behaviour in different sizes of enclosure to see what behaviours were possible in each then we got the rabbits to ‘work’ (by pushing through weighed cat flaps) for access to larger enclosures to see how important larger space was to rabbits – they harder an animal will work (more weight it pushes) the more important the resource. We found that rabbits would work very hard to get to larger enclosures and that they used this space for exercise – something not possible in smaller hutches. We’re hoping to continue this work and have a PhD student starting soon who is interested in rabbit housing.

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