Welcome to the MRC WIMM blog, a blog aimed at a scientifc, but non-specialist, audience. All posts are written by members of the MRC WIMM!
How students see scientists: Part XI
15 August 2016
For the past two years, we have posted a series of blogs over the summer months written by students who give up their free time to undertake work experience placements at the WIMM. In the first of this year’s posts, Casper Woods, a lower sixth student at St Paul’s School in London, tells us about the time he spent in Richard Gibbon’s lab in the MRC Molecular Haematology Unit in July. Casper is one of eight grandchildren of Anya Sturdy, in whose memory the Anya Sturdy Fellowship was established to support the training of clinical fellows in the WIMM.
Science in the supermarket (and other unusual places)
1 August 2016
You might reasonably expect to be accosted by a double-glazing salesperson or someone shaking a bucket for charity as you go about your weekly shop – but you’d probably be pretty surprised if someone intercepted you on your way out and asked if you know what your immune system does. That’s exactly what a team of scientists from the WIMM did in June this year, in collaboration with the Department of Oncology – they took their research to the public, driving all over Oxfordshire to stand in shopping centres and tell the public about the incredible science that their taxes help to fund. In this blog, two DPhil students who volunteered for the event, Layal Liverpool and Helen Winter, tell us about their experience of being part of this innovative project.
Lessons from looking at clouds: Uri Alon and emotions in science
18 July 2016
Earlier this year, Uri Alon, a professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, came to the WIMM to give two talks: one about his research, and one about his view on the importance of considering emotions in the scientific process. Uri Alon has spoken on this topic many times, including as Ted Talk that has had almost a million views. In this blog, Juan Ruiz Villalobos, a DPhil student in the MRC Molecular Haematology Unit, describes Uri’s key message that science has a culture – and culture can be changed.
Scratching the surface: how to kill a cancer cell
4 July 2016
The side effects of many cancer treatments are notoriously damaging, sometimes to the extent that they have a greater impact on the health of the patient than the cancer itself. The reason for this is that cancer drugs also kill healthy cells as well as the cancer cells, and so scientists are working hard to try and develop ways to deliver drugs specifically to the cancer itself. In this blog post, Pete Canning, a postdoc working in Terry Rabbitts’ lab in the MRC Molecular Haematology Unit, describes recent research from the lab which uses information about the proteins on the surface of the cell to do just that. Read on to find out more.
Scratching the itch: towards a new treatment for eczema
6 June 2016
Atopic dermatitis is a common form of eczema that affects millions of people worldwide, and for which there is currently no cure. Characterised by dry skin sometimes over the entire body, and intensely itchy lesions in places such as the knees and elbows, the condition makes life extremely uncomfortable for the many people that suffer from it. Understanding how and why this form of eczema develops is critical to identifying new, more effective treatments for the disease, and new research led by Graham Ogg in the Human Immunology Unit at the WIMM holds the promise to do just that. In this latest blog post, Lauren Howson explains what they found.
Scientists without borders
23 May 2016
Here in Oxford, scientists have access to some of the best research facilities in the world. These resources allow researchers working here to develop skills and techniques that those in less well-resourced parts of the world cannot. In recognition of this, Erdinc Sezgin, a postdoctoral research scientist working in Christian Eggeling’s lab in the HIU, recently organised a microscopy workshop in Turkey (funded by the British Council) to help bridge this divide, and allow researchers in Turkey access to the skills, techniques and facilities that we in Oxford so often take for granted. In this blog, he describes the international friendships that the workshop inspired, and explains the importance of sharing resources and expertise across borders.
It’s not all about sex: there’s a biological clock ticking in fathers too
9 May 2016
It is well known that as a woman ages, the number and quality of eggs that she produces declines – making it more challenging to conceive later in life, and increasing the risk of difficulties during pregnancy. But what about men? In a recent study published in PNAS, a team of Wellcome Trust-funded scientists led by Andrew Wilkie and Anne Goriely at the WIMM have shown that older fathers are at a greater risk of having children with genetic diseases such as dwarfism and craniofacial malformations. In this blog, Geoff Maher, first author on the paper, explains what they found.
What’s in a brain?
25 April 2016
Studying human neurological diseases has always presented scientists with a major challenge due to the ethical and clinical inaccessibility of living human brain tissue. In order to circumvent this problem, scientists have turned to an exciting new approach: taking skin or blood cells from a patient with a neurological disease, and turning them into brain cells in the lab using cutting edge stem cell technologies. These lab-derived brain cells arguably represent the best currently available method to study human neurological diseases in a lab without the need to obtain brain tissue directly from the patient. As with every experimental model, however, scientists need to ask: “How well does this actually mimic real thing?” An answer to this question was provided in a recent study designed by Dr. Handel from the Neurogenetic Disorders Group and led by Zameel Cader at the WIMM. Bryan Adriaanse, a DPhil student in the Cader lab, explains more.
DNA origami: how do you fold a genome?
30 March 2016
Inside each of the cells in your body is an entire instruction manual containing all the information required to build an entire human being. Yet it isn’t just the words in that manual that are important: you have to read the right chapters, and in the right order. To build one particular part of a human, sometimes the end of one paragraph will redirect you to a different part of the book – but how do cells get redirected to the right bit? Complicated interactions between different parts of the instruction manual (otherwise known as your DNA) underlie the fascinating complexity of the human body, but understanding when, where and how they occur remains a fundamental challenge in biological research. In this blog, Marieke Oudelaar, a DPhil student in Jim Hughes’ lab at the WIMM, describes a new tool developed in the Hughes lab that holds the promise to decipher this complex code.
Know your enemy: fighting cancer from the inside out
15 March 2016
The horrific side effects of many cancer treatments are all too well known: hair loss, muscle wasting, loss of appetite – and many more. The reason that the majority of cancer therapies have such broad and devastating effects on the health of the patient is that these treatments are often what is known as non-specific: that is, although they will hopefully eventually kill the tumour – they will also kill a vast amount of healthy tissue in the process. To try and minimise the side effects of cancer treatments, scientists are working hard to try and understand precisely what goes wrong inside cancer cells to allow them to develop into tumours, and therefore arm themselves with the knowledge to develop better, more specific treatments for the disease. In this blog, Laura Godfrey, a DPhil student in Tom Milne’s lab in the WIMM, describes work from their group (done as an equal collaboration with Marina Konopleva’s lab at MD Anderson in Texas) which hopes to do just that.
Dealing with damaged DNA
11 March 2016
The DNA inside your cells is under an enormous amount of strain, every second of the day. It is constantly being pulled, twisted, folded, squashed and stretched – and all it wants to do is carry on doing its absolutely essential job of keeping you alive. In patients with Fanconi anaemia, a form of blood cancer, a set of proteins which is essential for keeping the DNA intact whilst it undergoes all this stress are faulty, leading to damage to the DNA molecule that eventually leads to the development of cancer. Scientists have known for some time that these proteins play a critical role in preventing DNA damage, but precisely how they work has remained elusive – until now. A recent study by Wojciech Niedwiedz’s lab, published in Molecular Cell, shows some critical insights into why patients with Fanconi anaemia develop the disease. Martin Larke explains more.
How do you train a super-sense?
29 February 2016
In order for you to complete pretty much every bodily function you can think of, your brain must continuously communicate with every single part of your body. This communication is co-ordinated via your nervous system, a highly complex network which connects your brain to your muscles, and allows you to physically respond and adapt to changes in your surroundings. At the WIMM, David Beeson’s group are interested in how genetic mutations affect the communication between nerves and muscles, but researchers in other departments within the Medical Sciences Division are working on the other end of the system – how we perceive the sense of touch. In this post, guest blogger Harriet Dempsey-Jones (a DPhil student in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences) explains more about her own research into how our sense of touch can actually be heightened by training, and the context in which this could be an enormously valuable skill.
Lighting up our sentinels
15 February 2016
Traditionally, gynaecological cancers (those found in a woman’s reproductive system) are diagnosed using an invasive and potentially dangerous technique that often leads to additional health concerns for the patient – as if coping with the cancer itself wasn’t enough. Fortunately, scientists working in Professor Ahmed Ahmed’s lab at the WIMM have recently developed an alternative method to diagnose these cancers, which could revolutionise how doctors treat women suffering from this disease. Eva Masmanian explains more. When the phrase “the circulatory system” is heard, one’s mind may first jump to the cardiovascular system that transports blood around the body. However, the less-famous-but-equally-important second component of the circulatory system, called the lymphatic system, should not be neglected, as it is a critical line of defence in protecting our bodies against infections.
From stem cell to specialized cell: but what happens in between?
1 January 2016
Stem cells have the remarkable ability to develop into a whole host of highly specialized cell types, but the process by which this happens is extremely transient and therefore enormously challenging to study. However, a new paper from Claus Nerlov’s and Sten Eirik Jacobsen’s labs, published in Nature Cell Biology two weeks ago, is one of the first studies to show that the physical environment within which these elusive cells mature is critical to their development. Bryony Graham explains more.
Knowing your enemy: viruses as the Trojan Horses of our immune system
14 December 2015
It’s that time of year when we all seem to pass around the same cold; everyone seems to be sniffing a bit more than usual, or suffering from that irritating cough that you just can’t get rid of. A cold is just one of many ailments caused by viral infections, and although it might not always feel like it, your immune system is constantly fighting these viruses. But how does a cell know when it’s infected? New research from Jan Rehwinkel’s lab, published in Science earlier this year, shows that infected cells can in fact hijack the viruses themselves to help the body fight against them. Intrigued? Alice Mayer explains more…
How students see scientists: Part X
30 November 2015
In the latest of our series of blogs written by students who chose to spend their summers at the WIMM, Kristian Rutenberg-Houchen tells us how his time in Jan Rehwinkel’s lab has inspired him to pursue this ‘exciting and ever-changing career’.
How students see scientists: Part IX
17 November 2015
Rarely do scientists regard failed experiments as ‘exciting’ (in fact, one would imagine they have a variety of choice words which they might use instead to describe such occurrences). However, in the latest in our series of blogs written by students who undertake work placements at the WIMM, Aliya Chandaria and Lisa Li remind us that what many scientists regard as routine and mundane procedures are actually pretty remarkable, and enable scientists to investigate human biology in fascinating detail.
Can our own immune system beat cancer?
9 November 2015
The MRC’s annual science writing competition, the Max Perutz Science Writing Prize, challenges MRC-funded PhD students to communicate the importance of their research to a non-scientifically trained audience in 800 words or less. This year, several students from the WIMM submitted excellent entries to the competition, including Tomek Dobrzycki (whose entry was published on the blog last month) and the article below written by Lauren Howson, a DPhil student in Enzo Cerundolo’s lab.
How students see scientists: Part VIII
28 October 2015
In the latest in our series of blogs written by students who spend their summers undertaking work placements at the WIMM, Miriam O’Hanlon describes her experiences during the week she spent working in Hal Drakesmith’s lab in July – and how relieved she was not to just be making the tea.
How students see scientists: Part VII
20 October 2015
Last year the WIMM established a collaboration with the Chinese University of Hong Kong to encourage and support medical students on the Global Physician Leadership Stream to participate in exchange studies overseas. This year, Timothy Liong Tipoe chose to spend the summer break from his medical studies working in Paresh Vyas’ lab with Lynn Quek, and in this latest post in our series written by students undertaking placements at the WIMM, he explains how his time here has inspired him to pursue a career in clinical research.