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How can cancer research be aided by astrophysics? What can studying worms tell us about nanoparticles? Join us in exploring a series of problems facing the real world, and the novel approaches that today's physicists are taking to solve them. Please note that this event takes places on the first floor and is not accessible for those with impaired mobility.
Curing Cancer with Space Physics
Freddy Wordingham
(PhD student, University of Exeter)
Each day, human skin is exposed to dangerous UV light from the Sun. As a result of this, non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC) is the most common form of cancer worldwide. The number of cases increases each year and NMSC is expected to cost the NHS £180M by 2020. NMSC is currently treated with surgical excision, which is both expensive and can leave patients with cosmetic damage. However, Photodynamic Therapy (PDT) is an alternative treatment option which allows for cost effective treatment whilst achieving excellent cosmetic results. In this talk I will discuss our work on PDT using astrophysics.
Don't lose your head! Nanoparticles in the environment and how headless worms help point the way.
Richard Cross
(PhD student, University of Exeter)
We all knew the myth: cut a worm in half and watch both ends wiggle away. Well, no smoke without fire. There is some truth to this for one amazing aquatic worm. This blackworm reproduces by tearing itself in two: the head goes off and grows a tail. Even more impressively, the tail goes off and re-grows a head! We use this impressive feat of nature to probe how man made nanoparticles might get into the food chain. How might they accumulate? Can we use this knowledge to incorporate environmental safety into nanoparticle design? Intrigued?
Optical diagnostic methods: shining it where the sun don't shine
Alex Dudgeon
(Research Fellow, University of Exeter)
Observing symptoms first-hand is key to many diagnoses. Unfortunately human bodies are not very see-through. Observing illness after death (post-mortem) was a little too late for patients. Our journey starts when one patient's accident provided a gruesome window into the unknown. Follow the path from mirrors on a stick to swallowable cameras as we have a look inside the body.
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