Question: what deseases woulde that cure

Christopher Bullock answered on 10 Jun 2017:

The focus of my work is all about treating degenerative diseases. These are conditions that affect the body’s ability to work normally and are commonly associated with ageing. People with degenerative diseases might not die from them quickly(unlike an infection, lets say) but might have a very poor quality of life. In many cases, they find themselves having to be looked after by other people because they can’t do things for themselves. This places a huge burden on their families but also costs the country a huge amount of money in having to pay for this care.

The aim of my work is really to help try and restore normal function to the people with these diseases, so that they and their families have much happier and easier lives.

Specifically, I do not work on any one disease but instead I work on what we would call foundational technology. This means technology that can be used for many different applications (in this case, treating many different diseases).

For examples, the neuroelectrodes that we are developing could be used to treat Parkinson’s disease or Epilepsy by stimulating the brain. Equally, however, they could be used to convey the information from a camera to your brain to allow you to see; this is called a retinal implant or artificial eye.

I also do some work on technology for growing stem cells. These are very special types of human cells that can be used for what we call cell therapy, this is a new type of medicine that could be used to treat a range of diseases from diabetes to cancer.