• Question: Have you made up any experiments, is so what are they?

    Asked by ciaralydon to Amy, Sarah, Will on 21 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Sarah Martin

      Sarah Martin answered on 21 Jun 2012:

      Hi Ciaralydon,

      I make up experiments all the time – it’s my job!
      I’ve grown macrophages (a type of immune system cells) in petri dishes and infected them with virusses and checked how they defend themselves for the next two days, I’ve looked at friendly gut bacteria in a culture flask and analysed how they help us digest food, I’ve analysed brain tissue from surgery patients to see how cancer has affected the proteins in the brain and I’ve grown the smallest known green alga in different types of sea water and checked how fast its biochemistry can adapt to having much less food given to it.
      The one I’m planning for next week is to analyse bugs that live on volcanoes in iceland and eat rocks, by growing flasks of them and checking how they do that!
      Most of the big experiments I do I will work together with other scientists, and it becomes a team effort!

      What experiments have you done?

      🙂 Sarah

    • Photo: Will Reynolds

      Will Reynolds answered on 21 Jun 2012:

      Hi Ciaralydon. Yes I have. A big part of doing research is designing new experiments to test your predictions and push the boundries of your knowledge. In my research I am trying to make new catalysts which will be able to do new chemical reactions. This involves mixing combinations of metals together and seeing how they bond and then designing a series of reactions using these metals to make medicines, that will be more efficient than how they are made at the moment. Thanks for your question.

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