• Question: @mark@linda@koi@franco@claire bonjour what have you invented if you have invented anything

    Asked by emily to Claire, Franco, Koi, Linda, Mark on 11 Jun 2016. This question was also asked by lexparf123.
    • Photo: Franco Falcone

      Franco Falcone answered on 11 Jun 2016:

      Dear Emily

      I was involved in inventing a technology that can be used to test whether you are sensitized (which means, whether you are likely to be allergic) to certain proteins called allergens (e.g. in food, or in pollen). The technique which we developed allows you to test for several hundreds of allergens using only a small dop of blood, so is quite powerful.

      But more than invent new things, scientists discover new things. I would say that most of the time their work is incremental. By this I mean that what they discover is not completely new, but it extends the boundaries of knowledge, so that overall, the whole research area moves forward and we know more and more.

      Roughly speaking there are two branches of science, applied science (which tends to be more ‘technical’ with very specific aims), and ‘pure’ or ‘basic’ science, where knowledge is sought for its own sake. I am more of a basic scientist, although I have been involved in more applied projects in the last five years or so, as I have started working in collaboration with Industry. Also, the division between basic and applied science is not always as clear as it seems, and a research project can be applied while advancing basic science as well.

      Regarding the whole process of discovery, you have to imagine this more like adding individual pieces to a huge jigsaw puzzle, one that will never be finished and whose image also changes with time.

    • Photo: Mark Booth

      Mark Booth answered on 12 Jun 2016:

      Hi Emily

      At lot of my work is about generating ideas for new studies that are testing specific hypotheses, which is a kind of invention, but doesn’t result in a a new device.

    • Photo: Linda Anagu

      Linda Anagu answered on 12 Jun 2016:

      Emily and lexparf123, inventions are veiwed differently by different people. Some inventions are obvious and may even make the scientist popular or are patented (thus enabling the scientist earn big cash). Others are subtle and provide a better understanding that will enable other scientist solve meaningful problem or write a text book. I have certainly discovered that it is not good to take pawpaw leaf herb with artesunate antimalaria drug as it may prevent the malaria from being treated. This discovery still need to be verified by other scientist and may not have my name stamp at the end, but my name will certainly be mentioned as a preliminary researcher in this area.

    • Photo: Arporn Wangwiwatsin

      Arporn Wangwiwatsin answered on 12 Jun 2016:

      Hi Emily, Hi lexparf123,

      If we take invention as anything that make life easier or make any processes faster, then I can say I invent the “Octopus”! We have snails in our lab and we want to separate the baby snails from the big one so that we don’t lose them during the cleaning. So we tried a very simple tool for the snails to lay eggs on so that we can transfer the eggs to a separate tank and the babies will be there from the start. The tool consists a plastic platform holding 8 long tubes dangling downward, hence the name “Octopus”; I smile every time people in my team refer to it with this name 🙂

      Just like many other inventions, the idea of this “Octopus” came out after our team discussed the issue and exchanged ideas. Then after some trials and errors, we found what works!

    • Photo: Claire Bourke

      Claire Bourke answered on 14 Jun 2016:

      I ‘invent’ new research questions all the time and I also need to develop new ways to investigate parasites and immune cells, but I don’t make new products, if that’s what you mean.

      One of the research questions that I came up with which was the most unusual was exploring how stem cells in the skin can become activated by schistosome larvae (young parasitic worms) as they burrow towards a blood vessel. For this project I had to find a new way to label live parasites with fluorescent dyes so that I could see them under the microscope and also find a way to take skin samples and identify the stem cells and whether or not they were activated. It took me a long time to get the techniques right and make the parasites fluorescent, but at the end of the project I managed to show that infection activated the stem cells throughout the skin surface and that this might be one way that immune cells get recruited to infected skin.

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