• Question: How do you think your current research will contribute to research in the future?

    Asked by GYip to Alex, Laura, Lesley, Richard, vediacan on 18 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Richard Prince

      Richard Prince answered on 18 Jun 2015:

      Hey GYip!
      My current research is on how exercise (from playing an instrument) affects lung power. Did you know that playing a trumpet or tuba is one of the most strenuous things you can do with your lungs? I got interested in this topic because I have played wind instruments for a long time – let’s get it out in the open – I am an old guy (48), not one of these young striplings I’m competing with. I may not match them in looks, but I am pretty sure that if you hooked us up to a spirometer (for measuring lung function), I would blow them out of the water. Literally. I know this because despite lung function naturally declining with age, I am WAY better than 99% of the fit young medical students (age 21-22) I test myself against every year. I wondered if this was due to 40 years of playing sax and tuba. It turns out it probably is: from measuring a bunch of brass players and the same number of controls, we’ve found that wind instrument players have about 30% stronger lungs than average.
      How could this help save the world and further future research? Well, asthma is a big problem that is steadily getting more common. It could be that learning a wind instrument might help kids or adults with asthma – it’s a form of physiotherapy in a way. Of course, if everyone took up the trumpet, we would all go deaf (and probably mad), which would be a serious problem too.
      But you did ask……
      Check out my band’s twitter feed and see if you can spot me!
      https://twitter.com/nlso77
      Cheers
      Richard

    • Photo: Laura Newton

      Laura Newton answered on 19 Jun 2015:

      Hey GYip!

      If I manage to find a way to measure heme levels in cells (it’s looking good so far, fingers crossed) then it should help a lot of researchers figure out what heme is actually doing in the cell and then fully understand how the cell controls how much there is and what causes there to be too much. Then we would be able to find more diseases that it’s involved in, we know quite a few already so there are probably more.

      And if I manage to find a way to change the amount of heme in a cell then it will allow a lot of research into how we can treat diseases that it’s involved in, like diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease.

      Then we might be able to find ways to stop such diseases before they even start.

      Thanks for your question!
      Laura 🙂

    • Photo: Vedia Can

      Vedia Can answered on 22 Jun 2015:

      Dear GYip,

      I hope that by confirming that Osteoarthritis is an inflammatory mediated disease, more Pharmaceutical companies can help us devise a drug specifically for Osteoarthritis in the near future.

      Best Wishes,

      Vedia

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