• Question: How could your research help people? Example: illnes, Diseases, disabilities etc

    Asked by u11tlustyk to Heather, Elaine, Derek, Keith on 26 Jun 2013. This question was also asked by abbie520, izzykay44.
    • Photo: Elaine Marshall

      Elaine Marshall answered on 26 Jun 2013:

      my research initially focused on how particular hormones regulated the womb lining during a woman’s menstrual cycle. But what we discovered was that above the very tightly controlled balance of hormone levels which we all know about, there was a huge amount of interaction of the hormones at the genetic level. This means that a couple of the hormones regulated the same genes and biological pathways but did so in a very precise way. In some circumstances the same gene could be regulated in opposite ways by 2 different hormones. Finding out that the hormones could regulate the same genes was very exciting, and lead us to investigate what can go wrong when the hormones levels are disrupted or even how they regulate genes goes wrong. This is where disease comes in. The genes we discovered are involved in disorders of the uterus such as endometriosis, heavy bleeding, fibroids and cancers and even fertility issues. So by understanding how the genes/tissue works normally we can understand and work to preventing disease or illness.

    • Photo: Heather Eyre

      Heather Eyre answered on 27 Jun 2013:

      My work is early stage research (just testing something out) looking at whether or not the hormone Urotensin II might be a useful target in treating kidney disease.

      So yes there is the potential for my research to help people – but that would be a long way off yet!

    • Photo: Keith Siew

      Keith Siew answered on 27 Jun 2013:

      My research is on regulating salts in the body and thereby water levels which then in turn effect blood pressure.

      1 in 4 people over the age of 25yrs get high blood pressure! That’s a staggering 1.75 billion people on the planet… and 90% of these have what we call in medicine “essential hypertension” which is a fancy way of saying we have no idea what causes it!!! So just under a quarter of the world have a condition with no single identifiable cause and no cure… we can only manage the condition at the moment (though we’ve gotten reasonably good at it).

      So my work is looking to understand the mechanisms involved with regulating blood pressure (especially those associated with the kidney). We’re focusing on a group of proteins which regulate the activity of salt transporters, attempting to understand their functions and identify potential drug targets for new more effective treatments.

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