Healthcare Heroes

New technologies offer opportunities for patients to have a more active role in managing their health. Manufacturers, policy makers and politicians hail these technologies as a step towards ‘patient-centred care’, but what does this phrase really mean and how can we truly ensure that healthcare works for patients?

The human body has numerous methods to maintain the integrity of our DNA, the blueprint or instruction manual to our characteristics. Yet changes or mutations in DNA are inevitable across the population. When changes occur in our DNA, the message being read and sent to the cells of our body as messenger RNA (mRNA), becomes altered from what the original instruction manual intended, leading to disease. Importantly, these messages are formed of smaller pieces called exons, which fit together like sentences in paragraph. Critically these exons can be masked or rearranged, and the message encoded changed.

This talk will examine a mutated exon within Neurofibromin DNA / mRNA, which can lead to the formation of brain and nerve tumours in patients. Finally, it will explore the development of therapeutics, to target faulty exons or pieces of a message in the mRNA. Ultimately changing the message being sent to the cells of the body and improving clinical outcomes for patients.

You may not realise this, but the common fruit fly species that you may see around your bins has been used as a scientific model animal for well over 100 years! Research on Drosophila melanogaster (not by me) has been awarded 5 different Nobel Prizes during this time! This talk will tell you how I have been using fruit flies to study the mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases, particularly Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, and some exciting results that will hopefully lead to therapies for people in the future.