• Question: Why are you interested in cell repair after injury or damage?

    Asked by cheechee to Callum, Gina, Katie, Michelle, Sam on 20 Nov 2012.
    • Photo: Michelle Linterman

      Michelle Linterman answered on 20 Nov 2012:

      Hi Cheechee,

      As you can imagine cell repair is vital for keeping the body functioning well. Some white blood cells, like macrophages that you mentioned earlier, are really good at cleaning up the mess from dead and injured cells, this makes sure that repair of the tissues can occur quickly and without too much more inflammation being made from the dead and injured cells.

      Some scientists think that without a proper clean up you can be at risk for developing autoimmune diseases, where your white blood cells mistakenly attack the body rather than germs.

      I hope this helps, let us know if you would like more of an explanation.

      Michelle

    • Photo: Sam Godfrey

      Sam Godfrey answered on 20 Nov 2012:

      Hey Cheechee

      I was always amazed by how our body can mend itself so well after damage or disease, whether it’s from a virus or a broken leg. I’m still impressed by the way there are all these cells that have specific jobs that fit perfectly with each other and that they communicate with each other to coordinate the whole healing process. But even though this system is good, it’s not perfect. Some injuries like brain injuries or spine injuries we can’t recover as well from, which is why people who are paralysed or mentally disabled often are for the the rest of their lives. So I got interested in why cells in the brain and spine aren’t as good at growing back and fixing themselves, and whether there is anything that we can do that can help the cells recover.

    • Photo: Callum Johnston

      Callum Johnston answered on 20 Nov 2012:

      Hi Cheechee,

      Brain cells are some of the most important cells in the brain and different ones control different things like memories, movement, sight, hearing. If these cells get damaged we can lose some of these functions and people become disabled in a variety of ways. If we find out how the cells get damaged we can try and come up with drugs which prevent that damage happening and then when people have a stroke, develop a disease or get a head injury, if we give the drugs quickly enough we might be able to stop the damage occuring.

    • Photo: Gina Tse

      Gina Tse answered on 20 Nov 2012:

      Hi Cheechee,

      Great question.
      Cell repair is important because without it, our cells would be constantly damaged – this could leads to all sorts of problems because the cell wouldn’t be able to carry out it’s job. If cells were damaged and never repaired we’d get really poorly.

      There are a few diseases that are a result of our cells not being able to repair things properly. Wikipedia has a list of disorders caused from when our cells can’t repair to themselves properly.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_repair#Hereditary_DNA_repair_disorders

      A lot of the symptoms are being super sensitive to things we shouldn’t bother us such as sunlight and so on. Those with this disorders are also more likely to get cancer too.

    • Photo: Katie Howe

      Katie Howe answered on 20 Nov 2012:

      Hey!

      I am specifically interested in egg cells and how they get damaged when the women gets older. These dodgy eggs mean that a lot of women find it hard to get pregnant when they are a bit older or they have a higher chance of having children with conditions like Downs syndrome.

      By the time the women is about 40 the eggs are very old and start making mistakes and ending up with the wrong number of chromosomes. The chromosomes carry the DNA which is the instructions for making the body – so if you have the wrong number of chromosomes the body gets confused and doesnt know which instructions to follow.

      We think that old eggs are a bit dodgy as they are missing a special molecule which normally helps them to maintain the correct number of chromosomes.Our idea is if we can put this special molecule back into the dodgy eggs from older women to make the eggs healthier. We hope this will then allow the women to have healthy children. The reason I think this is a really interesting topic is because nowadays women often want to have a career first so have babies when they are a bit older.

      Thanks for your question and let me know if you would liek to know anything else!

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