What was the biggest breakthrough in your fields.

Question: What was the biggest breakthrough in your fields.
- Keywords:
  discovery,
  progress,
  research field
Asked by Notvinay to Alex, Laura, Lesley, Richard, vediacan on 22 Jun 2015.
- Laura Newton answered on 22 Jun 2015:
  
  Hey Notvinay!
  
  My supervisor found out in like the 70s that when your skin gets hit by UV the protein that responds is heme oxygenase-1. That sparked a whole lot of research into what UV light does to your skin and what we can do to stop the damage. In 2004 it was found that the amount of heme oxygenase-1 in our cells is controlled by a different protein called Bach1. It’s now 2015 and I’m still trying to work out new ways to control Bach1 to respond to UV induced damage. Hopefully I can make a major breakthrough too!
  
  Thanks for your question!
  Laura
- Richard Prince answered on 22 Jun 2015:
  
  Hi Notvinay,
  In my field (pharmacology), and in life sciences in general, the sequencing of the human genome has been the biggest breakthrough. Now, we can begin to understand the genetic basis of huge numbers of diseases, not to mention develop medicines that are tailored to the individual (“personalised medicine”). We are truly in a new phase in science – the “post-genome era”.
  Best wishes
  Richard
- Vedia Can answered on 22 Jun 2015:
  
  Hi Notvinay,
  
  Hope you are well! One of the biggest breakthroughs by my supervisor was the identification of a tiny peptide called urocortin that naturally occurs in human cartilage. Another was the fact that Osteoarthritis is an inflammatory mediated disease.
  
  Best Wishes,
  
  Vedia
- Lesley Pearson answered on 23 Jun 2015:
  
  Gosh it is very hard to say that there has been a single ‘greatest’ discovery in my field (I usually think of myself as a biochemist). Way back when, the discovery of the structure of DNA was of huge importance. Moving further forward you could say that the sequencing of the human genome was the next large step. Then we have the discovery of lots of different techniques that allow us to work with cells and find out what individual genes do, things like RNA silencing or CRISPR/cas.
  
  Science is about building on the discoveries that came before us to make even greater ones!

Question: What was the biggest breakthrough in your fields.

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