In the latest in our series of blogs written by students who spend their summers undertaking work placements at the WIMM, Miriam O\u2019Hanlon describes her experiences during the week she spent working in Hal Drakesmith\u2019s lab in July \u2013 and how relieved she was not to just be making the tea.
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\u2019 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.
Craniofacial malformations, i.e. those that affect the head and face, make up over one-third of all congenital birth defects. These types of abnormalities can also have the greatest impact on patients, who often have concerns about their appearance that can have a significant impact on their quality of life. Professor Andrew Wilkie has been part of the WIMM for over 20 years, where his Clinical Genetics Group try to understand the molecular basis of a type of skull malformation called craniosynostosis. In this blog, Aimee Fenwick tells us how far our understanding of this devastating disease has come in the past ten years.
To enter this year\u2019s MRC Max Perutz Science Writing Award, MRC-funded PhD students were asked to answer the question: \u2018Why does my research matter?\u2019 Here, Tomek Dobrzycki (a PhD student in Roger Patient\u2019s lab) publishes his entry for the Award, in which he describes why zebrafish might hold the key to understanding how blood stem cells are formed.
Twenty-five years ago the gene that codes for the protein LMO2 was discovered. To mark this anniversary, the lab that made this initial finding, now based in the WIMM, have written a review article to highlight the history, current understanding and continued importance of this remarkable protein in human health and disease. In this blog, Jennifer Chambers, a PhD student in the lab, focuses on some key characteristics of this complex protein.
In the latest post in our series of blogs written by students who undertake summer placements at the WIMM, Isabella Watts (a second year medical student at the University of Oxford) tells us why she would definitely advise other students to do a research placement as part of their training, and that actually science can be quite fun\u2026
Every year, the WIMM plays host to students at varying stages in their careers who are keen to get an insight into life in the lab and, of course, to find out what scientists are REALLY like. In the latest in our series of posts written by students who undertake placements at the Institute, Eva Masmanian, a second year medical student on a Wellcome Trust Scholarship, tells us about her experiences working in Tatjana Sauka-Spengler\u2019s lab.
We all know that it\u2019s important to eat our greens, but can any of us actually explain why? Vitamins are critical for the normal growth and function of our bodies, but not always in entirely expected ways. In this latest blog, Lauren Howson explains how a subset of white blood cells can use vitamins to detect and fight bacterial infections. Who knew?
The idea that the information contained in your personal DNA sequence could be used to develop treatments that are specifically tailored to you is a hot topic in medical research, but how likely is it that this will ever become a reality? A recent collaborative study, involving scientists from the WIMM and many others across Oxford, set out to answer this question: and their findings were published in Nature Genetics earlier this month. Martin Larke looks into what they found.
Congenital Dyserythropoietic Anaemia (CDA) is a rare disease that causes insufficient production of red blood cells. This means that the body is unable to carry enough oxygen around to its vital organs, resulting in dizziness, chest pain, tiredness and shortness of breath. In severe cases, patients are dependent on regular blood transfusions for life. In a subset of these patients, the underlying cause of how this disease is passed down from generation to generation remains elusive \u2013 but two grants recently award to scientists working in Veronica Buckle\u2019s lab in the MRC MHU hope to help solve this problem. Bryony Graham explains more.
Two years ago, Dr. Kathryn Robson, a senior scientist at the WIMM, ran a five-week course on Life Sciences for 10-11 year olds at a primary school in Abingdon. Using the pedigree cats that she breeds, Dr. Robson introduced the concept of genetic inheritance and a complex biological phenomenon known as X-inactivation to a very young audience. This month, one of the famous felines (then merely a kitten) gave birth to her own litter of kittens. To mark the anniversary, here Dr Robson explains how (sometimes!) working with children and animals can actually do the trick\u2026
The United Kingdom boasts a colourful history of wars, invasions, and both immigration and emigration of many, many different people. Archaelogists and historians can tell us much about how the Romans, Vikings, Normans and many others impacted the lives of the native Britons who lived here \u2013 but how are these historical events reflected in the genetic makeup of the population? Did these conquerors leave a lasting impact on the DNA of the people of the British Isles? Twenty years ago, Sir Walter Bodmer (a group leader at the WIMM) initiated a colossal study to collect DNA from thousands of individuals in the UK to address this very question, and the findings were finally published last month in Nature. Katarzyna Hutnik, a scientist in Sir Bodmer\u2019s lab who was involved in the study, explains more.
In short: we don\u2019t know \u2013 but scientists at the WIMM are hoping to find out. Just over a year ago, Professor Irene Roberts moved from the Hammersmith Hospital in London to the WIMM, where she is continuing her long-standing research into haematological disorders that affect newborn babies \u2013 particularly those with Down syndrome. In this blog, Dr. Barbara Xella talks to Irene about her work, and how she hopes it will help to improve diagnosis and treatment of these devastating childhood disorders.
As many of us are painfully aware, bees and wasps are best known for their irksome ability to deliver a nasty sting. But what isn\u2019t so well known is that the contents of the sting can provide insights into how the body detects attacks from the outside world, and even provide potential new avenues for treatment. In this blog post, we find out how Graham Ogg and his team have been taking a lesson in immunology from an unexpected source.
\u2018Interdisciplinary collaboration\u2019 is a phrase familiar to many scientists. It is tied into funding applications, policy decisions, and teaching. But sometimes, it is the wonder of science and science alone that brings people from all different walks of life together, and that\u2019s what happened on Friday March 20th when, briefly, the moon eclipsed the sun and the earth was plunged into darkness. Here Kevin Clark explains how scientists from the WIMM were joined by members of the public to witness this remarkable event.
A group of undergraduate students studying human biosciences at Petroc, a further education college in north Devon, were invited to visit the WIMM for a day. In the fourth blog from our series of posts by students who undertake work placements at the WIMM, they share their impressions of the experience.
Just over a year ago, the WIMM Blog first appeared on the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine\u2019s webpage, tentatively re-posting an article that had originally been written for the MRC blog Insight. Today, the blog is a fully-fledged interactive site, and has had over two and half thousand hits in the last four months alone. Here we review the blog\u2019s first year, and take a peek into what the future might hold\u2026
Last year, the Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded to Eric Betzig, William Moerner and Stefan Hell for developing powerful new microscopes capable of looking at cells in unprecedented detail. Known as super-resolution imaging or optical nanoscopy, this new technology allows scientists to ask fundamental questions about how cells work that previously could only be speculated about. Professor Christian Eggeling (a group leader in the WIMM Human Immunology Unit and the scientific director of the new imaging facility at the institute) worked as a senior scientist with Stefan Hell, and here Dr. Bryony Graham explains how Prof. Eggeling\u2019s team has in collaboration with some of his old colleagues been using optical nanoscopy to observe novel details on how molecules interact on the surface of the cell, otherwise known as the cellular membrane.
Your blood is made up of many, many different types of highly specialized cells: white blood cells to fight infections; red blood cells to carry oxygen; and platelets to allow your blood to clot (to name but a few). Scientists now know that all of these diverse cell types originate from a single parent cell \u2013 the blood (or haematopoietic) stem cell, which is found in the bone marrow. These rare stem cells have huge clinical potential for helping to cure people with devastating blood-related diseases such as leukaemia, but to date little has been known about where these cells themselves originate. However, new research from Roger Patient\u2019s lab helps to shed light on how these unique cells are made. Bryony Graham explains more.
In the third instalment of our series of blogs by students who have undertaken work placements at the WIMM, here Jonathon Leung explains why he chose to come to the Institute as part of a unique undergraduate medical course at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The programme, known as the Global Physician-Leadership Stream, encourages its students to travel abroad during their studies to experience research or clinical environments in other countries. Last year, Jonathon spent six weeks in Doug Higgs\u2019 lab, and here he describes how his time at the WIMM has inspired him to pursue clinical research in the future.
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