Question: What are the possible benefits of your work?

Natalie Stanford answered on 15 Mar 2010:

Understanding the metabolism of cells is really important for two areas of research. The first is in metabolic diseases, these include some diseases I’m sure you have heard about such as diabetes and obesity. By understanding how the chemical reactions in cells work we can hopefully learn more about what changes cause the metabolic diseases and work out ways to cure and prevent them.

The metabolism also produces some interesting chemicals that can be used for energy instead of the fossil fuels: coal, gas and oil. If we can understand more about the metabolism we can hopefully re-wire it so the cells will produce more of the chemicals that are useful as fuels, these would be renewable and so wouldn’t get depleted easily.