Meet the scientists!

Obesity is a popular word these days. It is a big problem without a big solution. My work aims to find an explaination for why some people get fat and some don’t. What happens to our brain that allows us to put on weight that is doing our body more damage then good. Usually our brains help control how much we eat by monitoring signals from our stomach which tell what and how much we have eaten and replys by telling our stomach if it needs to have more food or not, leaving us feeling full or hungry. The brain also gets signals from all our fat cells to say how much energy we have in store and regulates this carefully. Something must happen to the brain to then let some people have more fat then others. I am trying to find out what this something is and how it works.

I generally start the day by checking my emails and checking my diary to see what needs to be done. I will then go to the lab (I only feel like a real scientist when I am kited out in a lab coat) and run an experiment. This might be doing some immunohistochemistry, where I stain cells in slices of brain to see what chemicals are there or if the cells were young cells after dividing. Recently I’ve been doing bomb calorimetry, creating little explosions in a piece of equipment known as a bomb to measure how much heat is created this tells me how many calories (how much energy) there is in things. I work in a medical school so sometimes I help the junior doctors with experiments or supervise their exams to make sure they dont cheat. I will then write up what I found (simular to you do at school) and make a plan for the next day. It is then home time. In the evenings I will cook dinner, read a book (tends to be fiction), watch a movie or go for a run (this always means listening to some really loud music- I am starting to think my legs won’t work without seriously cheesy music).

I am currently thinking carefully about this – so many options. Perhaps run a competition in a local school for a chance to work with me in the lab over summer or run a science fayre or an open day or run a trip to a science museum or something completely different.