• Question: If you could do anything or study anything, what would it be? Money doesn't matter.

    Asked by idascientist to Derek, Elaine, Heather, Keith on 26 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Elaine Marshall

      Elaine Marshall answered on 26 Jun 2013:

      for me it would have to be in making pregnancy and child birth safer for families around the world. We are getting better at some things but premature birth and miscarriage rates are still very high. And sadly we just don’t know why.

    • Photo: Keith Siew

      Keith Siew answered on 27 Jun 2013:

      Comparative physiology has always interested me! The way different animals have adapted to their environments and developed various mechanisms to solve the same problems we face or the extremes this planet offers!

      I think that we can learn a lot about ourselves by studying the similarities but more importantly the differences between us and other animals… There isn’t enough of this research done and I think it would really help us understand how our own bodies work, find new treatments/cures for diseases and develop exciting technologies.

      A couple of cool examples include: the Naked Mole Rat that never gets cancer… they discovered it’s cells build a cage around themselves to stop cancer in its tracks before it occurs! Or Gila Monster Lizard who’s saliva has helped people with diabetes by helping to regulate blood sugar levels… Or even Toads and Frogs that go into a sort of suspended animation during hibernation, that we could exploit to use in diseases where we need to buy extra time to treat the condition.

      So If money wasn’t an issue… I’d probably get together a big team of super-excited scientists who loved working in the lab but also wanted to go off and explore the world and study these animals in their natural environments as well as in a lab setting to better understand their physiology!

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