• Question: Do you always experiment and do tests that involve blood?

    Asked by twinkles to Chris on 16 Mar 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Chris Cooper

      Chris Cooper answered on 16 Mar 2010:

      Not always. Quite a lot of work on blood proteins doesn’t involve blood. For example I take the genetic information for haemoglobin – the red protein in blood – and put it in a bacteria. The bacteria then make a lot of the protein for me (this genetic engineering is the same as is used by doctors to make insulin for diabetics).

      Some of my other research is not remotely connected to blood. For example I work on mitochondria, the small parts of our body that consume all the oxygen we breathe.

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