Tiny to Tentacled: Small Life, Big Lessons

When sea anemones sting you, they inject a mixture of toxins. One of them, actinoporins, are proteins that form holes in biological membranes – in other words, they break the barrier that keeps our cells together! Scientists have been fascinated by them for more than 50 years and have converted them into nanotechnological tools. They have the potential to be used in many applications, such as DNA sequencing, improving vaccines, cancer therapy and degrading plastic pollution. This talk will explore how the toxins of sea anemones can become life-changing nanotechnological tools.

Fruit flies (Drosophila) have long been used for neuroscience research, and continue to provide invaluable opportunities to understand more about the brain and behaviours. Humans and Drosophila share around 60% of genes, and by first understanding the biological processes in this simple organism, we can try to translate this knowledge to benefit humans. Remarkably, Drosophila exhibit the ability to learn, store, and recall memories, and through the development of advanced genetic tools which allow us to manipulate neurons, we can explore the pathways and neural circuits to learn how this happens in the Drosophila brain. Here, I will talk about how we use behavioural experiments and brain imaging to further our understanding of learning and memories.

Ageing is very recognisable to humans but when we delve into the biology of ageing it is very difficult to pin down exactly what it is. I will discuss some fundamental features of ageing and how I think that ageing is not caused by a particular set of molecules but is instead a built-in feature of who we are. While that means ageing is inevitable it also gives us lots of different ways we can increase our chances of staying healthier for longer. I will also discuss my research that points to manipulating our gut microbes as a way to slow ageing.