MRC National Institute for Medical Research, London
Science for Health
Schools’ Day 2003
The theme of the 2003 meeting was varieties of stored biological information.
Talks
The afternoon began with scientists from the Institute who gave twenty-minute talks about their work, based on a theme of varieties of stored biological information:
- How a chemical model of DNA revolutionised our understanding of the living world - Dr Annalisa Pastore
When the structure of DNA was deduced fifty years ago, it focussed the minds of scientists on new ways of understanding the living world. DNA is a completely unique molecule that is a template for its own replication but it also contains information that can be transcribed into RNA and translated into many kinds of protein.
In the last fifty years we have come to understand many implications of this molecule that can be used to understand numerous aspects of human biology, including why we age, the meaning of genetic disease, why we get cancer and can also be used to make novel medicines.
- Memories are made of this - Dr Sam Cooke
Mans capacity to remember, in some cases for a hundred years, is one of the great wonders of the living world and the loss of this faculty in old age one of the biggest challenges to medical science. A widely accepted model for the physical basis of the brains capacity to record and retain experience is that specific neurones when activated through a synapse acquire an electric potential that can be maintained for long periods.
- Why we need stem cells - Dr Derek Stemple
Many cells of the human body have little or no capacity to divide but one kind of undifferentiated cell, known as a stem cell, has an unlimited capacity to propogate and can also make daughter cells that can differentiate into specialised cells. Cells of this type have immense practical importance. In the bone marrow they generate many kinds of blood dell and transplants from a donor can permanently overcome a bone marrow deficiency. Most stem cells make a restricted range of differentiated cells but cells cultured from a fertilised egg can make many kinds of cells if they are exposed to the right cues, a facility that has enormous potential for therapeutic purposes.
Demonstrations
A break for refreshments was followed by visits to laboratories to see demonstrations of practical procedures used in bio-medical research, ranging from physical techniques to the micro-injection of frog eggs:
- from egg to embryo with frogs, chicks and mice
- images of biological material: transmission and scanning, electron microscopy, confocal light microscopy
- x-ray crystallography: molecular structure from X-ray scattering
- large scale culture of bacteria and animal cells
- mass spectrometry: determining molecular structure from fragments
- nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy: molecular structure from magnetism
- the FACS machine: a method of physically sorting different cell types using fluorescence
- electronic access to scientific information
Quiz and discussion
The demonstrations were followed by a quiz, and the afternoon finished with a discussion panel comprising scientists from the Institute who addressed questions the students raised, bringing to an end another successful Schools Day.
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