BBMS16 Poster Winners
Audience Winner: Francis Cruces (left)
Judge’s Winner : Megha Agrawal (right)
Francis Cruces’s abstract:
Mitochondrial disorders represent a group of clinically heterogeneous diseases characterised by a defect in cellular oxidative phosphorylation. It is estimated that 1in every 5000 people across all ages are affected. Currently, over 250 pathogenic mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations have been associated with these diseases. It usually presents as a multisystem disorder; largely affecting organs that have high energy-demand such as the brain, heart, lungs, muscles and liver. Management however is generally limited to symptomatic treatment and prevention of secondary complications, rather than curative measures. Early in 2015, the United Kingdom approved the use of nuclear DNA transfer techniques as means to prevent mitochondrial disease transmission. UK is the first country to approve laws allowing techniques in the conception of “three-parent babies”; with the first baby expected to be delivered in 2016. These techniques entail the transfer of nuclear material from a fertilised human zygote to an enucleated donor egg with normal mtDNA. Development to the blastocyst stage is carried out in vitro. This poster aims to describe two techniques used for nuclear DNA transfer as prevention for mitochondrial diseases; (1) pro-nuclear transfer and (2) spindle transfer. It also aims to explain some ethical issues involved in the “creation” of babies among three people.
Megha Aghrawal’s abstract:
Ultrasound can be used in innovative ways for medical diagnosis apart from the well established medical imaging through ultrasound. We have used ultrasound in a continuous transmission mode with swept frequency in a broadband system. Through inverse calculations from the acoustic transmission response, various elastic material properties can be determined. These have been studied analytically and through different proof-of-principle prototype systems experimentally. Some of these systems would be presented.
We had an image competition and the winner is Anne Streeter (image displayed below): Making connections between sciences creates a bigger and better world.