Research Encounter #4: Becky Jones

Some encounters aren’t all about work.  Becky Jones from the School of Biochemistry recently spent six months working with us at the Centre for Public Engagement.  Having just submitted her PhD, we met up to celebrate so the writing here may have been influenced by a glass of bubbly!

The cytoskeleton is a protein structure that helps cells to change shape.  This is particularly important for immune cells when faced with infections so that they can take up bacteria and dead cells, and interact with each other to fight the infection.  A protein called WASp (nothing to do with wasps) is only found in immune cells and plays an important role in regulating the cytoskeleton.  Mutations to the gene that produces the protein can lead to a rare but heritable disorder where patients are susceptible to bacterial infection.  Becky is studying zebrafish larvae, which are translucent – this means you can image them and look at cell behaviour and movement in living organisms.  By looking at the WASp protein and how mutations affect the fish she can start to uncover how such mutations might work in the human body.