Having recently started my PhD on the conservation management of elasmobranch (sharks, rays and skates) populations, I embarked on my first fieldwork season to Ecuador. Many people, including most of my friends, asked me if this involved swimming with sharks- and as glamorous as that sounded – their faces dropped when I inevitably told them that I went to fish markets in Ecuador to collect samples from dead sharks. Perhaps not as exciting as they had hoped.
Ever since the first demonstration of gene editing technologies, the scientific community has been abuzz with debate and speculation about their potential applications. But rather less well known may be the parallel legal battles over how these powerful new methods should be regulated, one of which recently found its way to the European Union’s highest court, the CJEU.
f you work in a lab, you will know that feeling when your supervisor says ‘you have it easy, it was never like this back when I was doing lab work…’ To be fair to our supervisors, times have changed and with it, a lot of experiments are easier. The crazy thing is, these changes really have happened overnight.
Why not make your Christmas different this year and add a sprinkle of science to your decorations. If you are like me, you like to make your own decorations, and even better have a theme!
All sporadic cancer is caused by acquired somatic mutations (mutations that take place within cells of the body that are not passed down/inherited). Mutations often occur by incorrect repair of DNA damage by impaired DNA pathways such as the nucleotide excision repair (NER) pathway and the DNA mismatch repair (MMR) pathway.
As scientists, we need to break down the stigma associated with a career in science. By tackling the idea of ‘brainy’ and ‘highly organised’ people going into science, we can highlight the vast amount of opportunity in science, in and outside the lab.
This October, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the 2018 Nobel Prizes. This years’ prizes in particular show how much of an impact basic science can have on medicine – investigating the how and why can give us insights into treatments.
