What would you want to achieve in 3 years (in your work) ?

Question: What would you want to achieve in 3 years (in your work) ?

Asked by emmamarie to Louise, Michaela, Sian, Steve, Yvette on 17 Jun 2010 in Categories: About.
- Michaela Livingstone answered on 17 Jun 2010:
  
  Well, I’ve only got a few months left of my PhD, I suppose in three years I would want to answer a whole multitude of questions that I’ve not been able to answer so far. For example, one of my proteins that I started working on last September, I know it’s involved in the process of switching genes on and off and I’ve shown how it does this in terms of the other proteins it works with to do this, but I haven’t really been able to have a chance to really pin down what part of the protein is doing this. Also, in a test tube we’ve found that it can work with this other protein, but we can’t work out why it would do that in an actual cell, so I’d like to do the experiment form proteins in a cell rather than in a test tube. Also, I’d like to be able to see if it affects a certain set of genes rather than all genes in general…
  
  Lots and lots and lots of questions to answer!
- Yvette Wilson answered on 17 Jun 2010:
  
  I’ve only got 15 months of a 2 year contract so will give a brief outline of my plans on what I want to achieve:
  1) to test what happens when I suppress the activity of 2 genes that I think are involved in lignin synthesis in barley (they are candidates because they are involved in other species). I have genetically engineered some plants to do this (they are in a strictly contained glasshouse and no material will escape into the environment). They are still growing and I will test their straw towards the end of the year.
  From this part of my project we will at least know that these genes are definitely involved in making lignin in cereals and can then look for either mutations as described in 3, or natural variation in them.
  
  2) I’m trying to identify new genes that might be involved in the lignin pathway by using public databases on the expression patterns of all known barley genes. ie I look to see which genes are expressed in the stem. Then I can try to get mutations in them (see 3) to see if they are involved.
  3) I’m developing a population (5000) of barley that are all of the same genetic background, but the seeds have been mutagenised by a chemical. They’re growing at the moment and I’m looking at each plants DNA to see if there are mutations in genes that I think are involved in the lignin pathway. If I find plants that have mutations in these genes I will be growing their seed to see if the resulting plants’ lignin is affected. I should get some results from this towards the end of my project. We can then use breeding to introduce useful mutations into agricultural barley varieties, but that might be after my time here.
- Steven Kiddle answered on 17 Jun 2010:
  
  I have developed many theories, but they are hard to test. If i could show which were right and wrong after 3 years then i would be very happy. Basically, we went from a situation where next to nothing was known about gene regulatory networks that respond to the disease we study, to good predictions. This is great, but until we’ve tested them in the lab they could be wrong, this will take at least a year if not longer.
- Louise Johnson answered on 17 Jun 2010:
  
  I’d like to get people to come and work in my lab, so I have a team to work with. I worked in some really fun labs before I came here, so it’s a challenge being on my own at the moment!
- Sian Harding answered on 17 Jun 2010:
  
  I want to see whether this stress cardiomyopathy is actually a natural protective mechanism which explains why women live longer than men and that we might be able to harness

Question: What would you want to achieve in 3 years (in your work) ?

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