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Asked by Jacob Holland to Adrian, Joe on 4 Nov 2016. This question was also asked by max219.
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Adrian Chu answered on 4 Nov 2016:
My work will contribute to better understanding how a bacteria can infect people without using a large arsenal of typical genes to help it cause disease. New knowledge from my research can also help fight bacteria that potentially have similar genes or behave similarly. Last but not least, it will help keep us one step ahead of a deadly bacteria that causes countless deaths each year in the world.
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Joe Bathelt answered on 4 Nov 2016:
That is a tricky question. On one hand, I’m doing basic research. That means that main goal of the research is to find out new things without any direct application in mind. On the other hand, I hope that finding out more about how children grow up and learn will help us to make it easier for children, who struggle in school. There are some immediate insights that can help teachers to better understand what difficulties children may be having. For example, results in our research group showed that children who find it difficult to keep information in mind also have problems to follow instructions in the classroom. Teachers can make some simple adjustments to the way they teach that can help these children.
The brain research will probably take longer to lead to any benefit to children. These benefits could be indirect. When we understand better how learning works and we are then able to design better teaching materials. Or it could be more direct. For example, we could use brain scans in the future to detect who will benefit from some intervention before any difficulties occur.
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