• Question: how long do you think it will take to a get a treatment that works?

    Asked by blondie15 to Andrew, Ben, Heather, Louisa on 23 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Louisa Chard

      Louisa Chard answered on 23 Jun 2010:

      That’s a very difficult question. There are of course already lots of treatments avaialble that work, herceptin for breast cancer, chemo and radiotherapy. There are already a few viruses being tested in clinical trials. The problem is it takes about 10 years from the lab through the trials to get a treatment that can be widely used. In this time, a lot of potential treatments are lost as trials show they are not safe or not nearly as effective as current treatments. Good news is, a lot are currently coming through phase 2 and 3 trials (phase 3 is the last phase) so we should start getting some results from these through soon. So far, the results are encouraging.

    • Photo: Heather McKee

      Heather McKee answered on 23 Jun 2010:

      A treatment for obesity?
      I believe with obesity the treatment is in prevention. It’s a lot harder to help cure someone than to prevent someone becoming obese in the first place. However by understanding the psychological processes such as knowing why people over eat, why people give in to temptation and why people avoid exercise, we can work on ways in which to counteract these behaviours and thus work towards both successful treatment and prevention at the same time. How long it will take I cant say but the more people we have in the field working towards the answer the better our chances of getting there sometime soon. Thats why platforms like I’m a scientist are so important as by understanding and gaining greater knowlege of the world of scientists hopefully it will inspire students to get involved and you could eventually be helping us get towards a treatment that works.

    • Photo: Andrew McKinley

      Andrew McKinley answered on 23 Jun 2010:

      This might be a question for someone else… But I’ll try an danswer it about our ‘photoinjection’ technique. Using lasers to inject cells currently works, but I think it will be at least 10 years or so before we see it becoming commonplace in our hospitals.

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