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Asked by paige101 to Ben, Dave, Ed, Sam, Susana on 19 Jun 2013.
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David Briggs answered on 19 Jun 2013:
I helped design an drug that stopped the protein that gives us gas gangrene (a nasty bacterial disease). However – whilst it worked very well, it turns out that it was also toxic to our cells (D’oh ❗ ) so it was never turned into a medicine.
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Sam Horrell answered on 20 Jun 2013:
No cures just yet, but who knows what will happen in the future.
I’m currently working on a protein involved in the development of various cancers. It’s not likely to result in a cure but understanding it better will help with diagnosis and possible treatment in the future if I can figure out how exactly it works.
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Susana Teixeira answered on 20 Jun 2013:
Not yet, no, just a few new structures of molecules that help us understand better some structures of DNA, or how water changes the taste of some molecules. May not seem like much but I am very proud of it 🙂 Every bit of information and results is important, so even if we are not involved in the last step that takes us to curing a cancer for example, it is important to contribute to the walk in that direction!
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Ed Lowe answered on 20 Jun 2013:
A lot of the early work on Relenza (the anti-flu drug) was done in our lab.
An interesting story on the way science works sometimes – I worked on a drug that was intended to treat leukemia. It didn’t work very well, but has wound up being useful anyway as it prevents hair loss during some forms of chemotherapy. -
Benjamin Hall answered on 20 Jun 2013:
I’m only a few months into my PhD but already I’ve identified several candidate mutant versions of a protein that’s targeted by the late blight pathogen. The mutant versions are able to evade attack by the pathogen and produce enough of an immune response to stop the pathogen dead.
I need to test these further and make sure my results are really strong though!
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