• Question: Why did you pursue this particular area?

    Asked by shreedesai to Lyn, Katy, Paul, PB, Ruth on 14 Jun 2013. This question was also asked by bola123, sassydeepaige, kill131, rosielawrence, tiyanaaaserenity.
    • Photo: Ee Lyn Lim

      Ee Lyn Lim answered on 14 Jun 2013:

      I think I’m probably a slightly strange one when it comes to motivation for research 🙂 Of course, it’s really awesome that my work will one day help people who are ill, but to be honest – in my own imaginary space this story unfolds.

      The immune system is an army, highly efficient, highly disciplined and always on alert for intruders. But from the inside, cancer cells are growing, dark wicked pools that threaten to destroy everything. Why isn’t the army attacking? Do the cancer cells have a power that stops them and weakens them, a power we don’t know about? What is it that we must do to make the army rise up in full force, before it’s too late?

      …and every time I think about this I get really excited, which is why I’m working in tumour immunology!

    • Photo: Peter Balfe

      Peter Balfe answered on 14 Jun 2013:

      Basic research is what we do. It’s important work and it will make a real difference to people’s lives. Maybe not today, but down the line it really matters.

    • Photo: Katy Brown

      Katy Brown answered on 14 Jun 2013:

      The viruses I study are the origin of nearly 10% of our DNA and are related to lots of viruses causing all kinds of diseases, so in my opinion they are really interesting. I chose this topic because I like using computers to analyse data and study evolution and there is loads of data out there about these viruses which no-one has looked at properly yet.

    • Photo: Paul Waines

      Paul Waines answered on 17 Jun 2013:

      I had been working in microbiology for a while, and was getting involved in an awful lot of different projects, such as looking at bacteria in the oceans, bacteria on spiders, even bacteria in Lion poo! However, I often was not able to see these projects through to the end and found this a bit frustrating.

      When I got the opportunity to do my own scientific research I gave it a lot of thought before I said yes- after all, I was going to be working on it solidly for a number of years. However, once I had read about the topic and realised how interesting it was, as well as how much interest there was in it from the ‘non-scientific world’ (i.e. in industry), I decided to go for it

      Now I spend a lot of my time finding out how and why bacteria love living in our taps. More importantly, I’m trying to find out what we can do to stop them from causing diseases in hospitals (This happens occasionally but not a lot, so don’t worry about drinking the water if you have to go in for an operation!)

    • Photo: Ruth Mitchell

      Ruth Mitchell answered on 17 Jun 2013:

      General interest. Starting from school, I was interested in biology and the human body and disease. That influenced my decision to do a more scientific route at A levels and a Biomedical Science degree which is very board. At university, I met PhD students (scientists in training! (a degree gives you the theory about science and a PhD gives you the practical aspect)) and that got me thinking about scientific research. But that is still a huge field! I really enjoy immunology and seeing how the body fights diseases.

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