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INTERVIEW | Research
(...Continued from page 35) to consolidate the position of Ireland as a clear leader in international health and translational research, is also critical to this ongoing development. “We have built a great reputation internationally in immunology, but in terms of scale we’re still small by international standards. We need to build that even more. The Biosciences Development will allow us to further reach our goal, which is to become a globally famous place for immunology where fantastic discoveries can happen,” he says.
In the meantime, Professor O’Neill will continue to balance delicately his research life with his teaching life, two tasks he believes are absolutely interdigitated. “It’s not really a question of balance. You’ve got to have both,” he says. “It’s very important to get the balance between the two correct and not to overburden the teaching side and equally, not to let the research prevent people from teaching, because it’s essential that our best researchers are teachers as well. It’s not a competition, both are equally important.”
Just as important, however, is communicating the world of science to the ordinary Joe and thanks to the Science Gallery – and in particular, the INFECTIOUS exhibit, of which Professor O’Neill was a key curator – tens of thousands of people every year see and experience what goes on in the science disciplines throughout TCD.
“One of the jobs of the University is to disseminate what we do. It’s the taxpayers’ money. So the more we can tell the man on the street what we do, the better. The job of the Science Gallery is to be a place where that can happen,” Professor O’Neill affirms.
The Science Gallery allows people from all walks of life to see science at work free of charge, but the INFECTIOUS exhibit went one step further. Back in 2001, TCD scientists discovered MAL, which is an on-switch for the immune system – the opposite of the aforementioned TAG discovery, which is an off-switch.
Following on from that, in conjunction with academics from Oxford, Professor O’Neill and co. discovered that MAL comes in two types in humans – a good type and a bad type and unfortunately, if you have the bad type, you have an increased risk of developing malaria.
It is possible, however, to test for MAL and more specifically, which type is in your system, so at the INFECTIOUS exhibit, visitors were able to extract their own DNA and analyse it before logging on some days later to find out what type of MAL they had.
Now this might not sound like fun to the uninitiated, but this piece of research provided some previously ungathered data. “We had all these Irish samples now so we could look at how common the gene was in the Irish population and therefore, the relative risk of the Irish to, say, the Germans, Americans, and so on. We have loads of samples from all over the world but this is the first time we’ve looked at the Irish population and we’re still analysing the data,” he says. So somewhere down the line, we may be able to develop the perfect antidote to malaria, but – and this is the big question – can scientists save the world? Professor O’Neill is confidently succinct in is response: “Yes, they can.”
Of course, research takes time, money and highly skilled manpower, but Professor O’Neill is crystal clear when it comes to the goal of science. “You’ve got to ask why we do what we do. Particularly in immunology, it’s always very much targeted towards disease,” he says. “So even though we seem like a bunch of boffins with test tubes, the ultimate goal is to understand human disease and come up with better treatments. What is certain is that the treatments won’t come from anywhere else.”
www.tcd.ie/biochemistry
"the ultimate goal is to understand human disease and come up with better treatments"
Biochemistry and Immunology explained
In a nutshell, biochemistry tries to explain the chemistry of life, the chemicals which constitute any living system from plants to animals to humans.
Biochemists were the first to discover that DNA is what genes are made of and without that discovery, humankind wouldn’t have benefited from all the discoveries that came with genetics.
In short, it’s a fundamental science that tries to explain the molecules of life and how they work.
Immunology, on the other hand, is kind of a spin-off of biochemistry. Immunologists try to understand the molecules of the immune system. They are very much like a car mechanic, trying to discover the building blocks that make up an engine, except the human engine is the cells in one’s body.
Immunologists then try to apply that information to the immune system, which of course are the cells that fight bugs and germs.
Immunology essentially unravels the chemistry or the component parts of the immune system, and studies the cells of the immune system, which enables us to then understand disease.
34 | Trinity Today
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