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I’m working on a condition known as hyperkeratosios which basically means the over production of skin cells. This condition is associated with many skin diseases. A simple example is eczema which infact is one of the mildest forms of hyperkaratosis associated with skin disease. An example of a more extreme condition is Autosomal Recessive Congenital  Ichthyiosis (ARCI). You should check out pictures on google.

No one knows what goes wrong in the body to cause hyperkeratosis and this is what I’m trying to find out (Who is/are the guilty culprits) so we can fix it.

Since we don’t know the cause, we can’t cure it. Hyperkeratosis can only be treated and sufferers have to endure a life time of various cream applications and other various skin maintenance therapies.

I’m currently looking at a selection of proteins which I think may be responsible for causing hyperkeratosis. Most of the work is done on rat keratinocytes (skin cells) at the moment. So on a typical day, I look after the cells and if they are ready to be tested, I’ll add my protein of interest to them, leave them for some time (could be anything from a fews hours to several days) and test them at a later date to see if it made any difference to how the cells are behaving.

If I observe anything interesting then I investigate further using various tests.

Techniques/Tests  I use at the moment include, Cell culture (maintaing and treating my cells), Western blotting (to idnetify my proteins of interest), Immunofluorescence (Looking under the microscope to see what’s happening to the cells and my protein of interest), PCR (more detail information on what effect the protein of interest has on the cells).

When I can fit in some time out of the lab, I do some reading and research on what other people working on skin diseases have done for advise.

Ofcourse there’s always time for tea and food. 🙂