• Question: What stuff have you found out that no one has found out before???

    Asked by Blondey to Sebastian, Emma, Monica, Sinead, Thomas on 8 Nov 2016. This question was also asked by katelyn, 476mutg23.
    • Photo: Sebastian Gornik

      Sebastian Gornik answered on 8 Nov 2016:

      Hi,

      Nice question!

      I have found that in ancient times (millions of years ago) a virus has infected a single cell and as a result this cell, instead of dying from the virus took over some of the functions of that virus to make a better cell nucleus (where all the genetic information is stored). This single cell was then the ancestor of a group of single celled alga we call the dinoflagellates. This was a pretty big find! Dinoflagellates are now the most abundant single celled organisms in marine plankton and also important symbionts of corals and other marine life.

    • Photo: Emma Roycroft

      Emma Roycroft answered on 14 Nov 2016:

      Well Blondey, I was the first person to look at the DNA of TB in Ireland on such a large scale. I have proven that people coming from other countries, who develop TB when they get to Ireland, are not spreading it to the Irish-born population, which is lucky for us!

    • Photo: Sinead Loughran

      Sinead Loughran answered on 14 Nov 2016:

      Hi Blondey,

      Along with a team of researchers, I was the first scientist to show a role for a gene called ‘Bfl-1’ in Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, which is a cancer of the lymph system.

      When we published this discovery in a science magazine called the “International Journal for Cancer Research”, it was featured on the front cover which was very exciting and rewarding. Here’s one of the news articles that picked up on the discovery…

      Protein crucial to Hodgkin’s lymphoma identified

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