• Question: what things have you discovered in the past?

    Asked by isabelle to Judith on 11 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Judith Sleeman

      Judith Sleeman answered on 11 Jun 2012:

      That’s such a hard question! I’ve contributed little bits and pieces to what we know about how cells use their genes to make proteins and about how the nucleus of the cell is organised. At the moment I’m looking at some tiny structures that move very quickly in the cytoplasm of the cell but I’m not sure if they’re a new discovery or something that other people have seen before using a different way to look at the cells. I’m doing experiments just now to find out.

Comments

  • Photo: Anouk

    Anouk commented on :

    aah really tough questions to ask modern day scientists. Most of us are ‘building on the shoulders of giants’ i.e. we are developing our research based on the major breakthroughs, discoveries, inventions and theories of great thinkers men and women. Our contributions are often small but important steps to our area of research.
    For me I think something that I did for my PhD was my last scientific discovery. I was looking at how being infected with two different species of schistosomes (the parasitic worms I am researching) may be different to being infected with just one species of schistosomes. There are places in sub-Saharan Africa where people are infected with so many different parasites and they all have an effect on the diseases that are caused. I found that there was a difference in the disease when you were infected with two species compared to being infected with just one. However similar discoveries have been done by some other colleagues and scientists. I was in fact adding to this information.