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Asked by anon-257247 on 16 Jun 2020.
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Alex Holmes answered on 16 Jun 2020:
Hi! I think it’s important to work in the area I work in because it let’s people understand how biological things work.
I try to work out what proteins look like and how they move. Proteins are a bit like tools cells use and in diseases often proteins are what go wrong, so if we know how they work we can hopefully fix them. Just like tools in your house knowing about them but not what they look like doesn’t really help you work out how they work – for example picture a tool you could use to put up shelves that had a handle, a metal bit and has to move to work. What are you thinking of?
For me it’s a screw driver, but for you it could be a hammer or an electric drill or maybe something else entirely! Each of these work differently – rotating, using electricity or swinging through the air, but you don’t get that detail from their description.
In the research I do it’s just the same, we know what proteins are made of but it’s helpful to know what they look like to so we know which bits are important and help it do its jobs.
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Helena Fisk answered on 16 Jun 2020:
I think it’s important to work in the area I work in because there are many diseases called noncommunicable diseases, meaning they are not passed from person to person, which develop over a long period of time usually as we get older and are affected by our lifestyle choices (in addition to other factors). Noncommunicable diseases are the cause of 71% of all deaths worldwide so these diseases are a big threat to our health globally. It’s important for us to understand how these diseases develop and for us to trial ways of intervening to stop the progression of disease and more serious complications arising.
To give an example: one type of non-communicable disease is diabetes. It’s estimated that 415 million people worldwide (3.5 million people in the UK) have diabetes. Diabetes and complications related to this condition cost the NHS in the UK £9 billion each year.
Type-2 diabetes tends to develop in later life and is impacted by our diet and lifestyle. In the UK 90% of adults with type 2 diabetes are overweight or obese. Some individuals with type-2 diabetes have been able to control their condition and avoid the need for medication through weight loss and increasing their physical activity (this will not be the case for everyone). How conditions such as diabetes develop in obesity and how our diet and lifestyle impacts the development and severity of such conditions is of great interest as if we can understand what is changing and how it is changing in the body, we can look at ways to intervene and prevent development of these diseases. This would be of great public benefit not only to people’s health but also the strain on our health care system.
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