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Asked by Qadeerboss to Mark, Linda, Koi, Franco, Claire on 11 Jun 2016.
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Franco Falcone answered on 11 Jun 2016:
Good question qadeerboss! And it is a question that we need to answer at length every time we apply for research funds. Research money distributed by Scientific bodies such as the Medical Research Council (MRC) or charities (such as the Wellcome Trust, which is very good at funding neglected tropical diseases), and when you apply for money, you need to explain exactly why your research is important and should be funded (rather than someone else’s, as funds are limited).
My work is mainly in three areas
1) allergy (which affects about one third of the UK population), where my focus is on developing better diagnostic technologies,
2) Helicobacter pylori – a bacterium which infects 50 % of the world’s population so that staistically speaking , either you or I are infected (or both), and which in a minority of individuals causes stomach ulcers and stomach cancer – we aer working on improving the available treatment as the bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics
3) schistosomiasis – here my work is more basic, trying to understand how the parasite interacts with our immune system, and of the three, this is pobaly the least relevant research for citizens of this country, as there is no schistosomiasis in the UK.
Having said this however, I consider all humans to be equally important, so I do not ask myself the question whether my work benefits the citizems of the country I live in or those living in anpother country- I am not British myself and my nationality has no importance at all for me or for my work.
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Mark Booth answered on 12 Jun 2016:
Hi Qadeerboss
Most of the parasites I work on are a problem in the tropics and sub-tropics. They affect hundreds of millions of people. In this country parasites are less of of a problem, but there are still thousands of people each year who visit clinics such as the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London because they have picked up a parasite whilst abroad.
In the future some parasites may become more of a problem in this country if the environment becomes more suitable due to e.g. climate change. There is already some evidence that some parasites are now being transmitted within Europe that have not been transmitted previously. People and animals are moving around more than ever before and taking parasites with them. If these people and animals end up in a place that is suitable for transmission of the parasite then the parasite itself may become transmitted to other individual animals or people.
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Linda Anagu answered on 12 Jun 2016:
Qadeerboss, this is a typical question every scientist is asked especially by top politicians and philanthropist who dole out big cash for these researches, and you have to justify your budget. However, when the ordinary citizen asks this question, they really want to know how your research can better their life.
Well you know how food, even veggies build up our bodies to what it is today, equally science builds a society and readily solve problems even before the problem becomes evident. My doctor once told me to let your food be your medicine. So in science, we have to keep searching in order to better understand our world and thus readily provide answers to immediate or distant problems.
My area of research involves better understanding the malaria parasite and how they cause severe malaria in children. Although, we have drugs for severe malaria, the drug does not work for everybody and we have to know why. A lot of kids still die even after they have been given the drug in endemic areas. In Britain, there is no severe malaria due to the unique cold weather. But with global warming, there could be a weather change and the colder climates may be warmer making diseases that were once problems only in the hotter climate to become a global problem. In science, you do not wait for the problem to reach your door step before you do something about it because research takes time. You have to tackle the problem before it becomes a global pandemic.I hope I have been able to satisfy your curiosity.
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Arporn Wangwiwatsin answered on 12 Jun 2016:
Nice one Qadeerboss!
I’m working on a kind of parasite that live in human blood, and trying to understand how they live and what they do. They live in human and so learning about them can form a basis to understand better how human body work or how other similar diseases might affect human.Also, diseases and parasites do not respect country borders. The parasites that were once a problem only elsewhere can become a problem here due to many reasons, mostly to do with the world being an ever-changing place, (e.g. people travel, global shipment of stuff, climate change). Recently a kind of parasites that was mainly in sub-tropical has been found in Frances in people who have never travelled to sub-tropics. So it is important that the research we do cover a wide range of topics so that we are ready for whatever the future may bring.
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Claire Bourke answered on 14 Jun 2016:
My research focuses on how existing treatments can be used to control disease-causing damage by parasites and the immune system. Often the immune system can be just as damaging as an infection, if not more so, because when it tries to kill an infection that persists for a long time then it can start causing colateral damage to body cells and tissues. This is really important to understand better because if we can regulate damaging immune responses and boost helpful ones we can reduce deaths and disability due to conditions like parasitic infections, sepsis, HIV and malnutrition.
Some examples of the real-world applications of my research are:
1) together with other researchers we found that an antibiotic called cotrimoxazole can reduced inflammation in the blood, so could be a beneficial way to reduce death and disabilities in HIV-infected children who have high levels of infections and inflammation.
2) I’ve also shown that treating schistosome infection with praziquantel can increase inflammatory responses and in this case it might be beneficial because schistosome infections can dampen down immune responses (both good ones and damaging ones) and weaken protection against other infections. Both of these studies can help us to refine the way that we treat human diseases.
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