• Question: What kind of lab experiments do you do?

    Asked by chloeeee to Catherine, John, Del, Mo Rassul on 10 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by s12iteas, , sunshine246.
    • Photo: Catherine Mansfield

      Catherine Mansfield answered on 10 Mar 2014:

      I do lots of different types of experiments. Growing isolated cells from diseased hearts and altering their DNA to see if we can improve their function, then using various different methods to see if their function has improved. This can be anything from staining them and looking at individual proteins down the microscope (examples of some pictures of cells can be seen on my profile) to firing lasers at them to cause them to contract to investigate how much force that they can produce.

    • Photo: John Foster

      John Foster answered on 13 Mar 2014:

      I do many different kinds of experiments in the lab, but my favourite involves creating a model of lung tissue in a dish. I grow single lung cells from real humans until they form a layer. I then make this layer into the kind of cells that line the lungs, they produce mucous and move this around in the dish, just like real lung tissue!

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