Building and Breaking our Bodies

Proteins are the building blocks of life and should be seen as more than just meat and shakes. We will explore the where, what and how of proteins, which are the original nano-machines. Proteins form large structures 1000s of nanometers long, whilst 0.5 nanometer proteins convert our food and oxygen into essential energy for survival. How they do this array of jobs is amazing and often still a mystery. We will look how these machines fold like origami into intricate structures and when this goes wrong, what diseases they cause.

Stem cells are everywhere in the media these days, from the Financial Times to Family Guy. But what are they? Where do they come from? And what can they do for us? I’ll be discussing the potential uses and abuses of stem cells, from revolutionising the way we look at medicine to a future food source. I’m going to tell you about the work our lab is doing on using the power of stem cells to create new therapies for hearing loss, and how we’re working at the cutting edge of science to develop a ‘bionic ear’ for the 21st century.

For the last 25 years, doctors and scientists have debated whether modern life is a threat to male fertility. This talk will examine whether this is actually the case and whether sperm counts are declining and young men of today are really less fertile than their fathers.