• Question: Is there any controversy in your area of research or is it generally accepted?

    Asked by Toad to Sudhin, Sergio, Katie, Frances, Diarmuid, Aoife on 11 Nov 2019. This question was also asked by star42gas.
    • Photo: Katie Fala

      Katie Fala answered on 11 Nov 2019:

      There can be drama at conferences when you see people high up in the field clashing over their opposing theories! To give some specific examples, there is disagreement over whether bacteria might become resistant to drugs that interrupt bacterial communications (some people think so, because resistance would still give the bacteria an advantage over their non-resistant counterparts; others argue that it wouldn’t because stopping bacteria communicating with one another wouldn’t kill them directly so it wouldn’t exert such a strong selective pressure). But at the end of the day, theories are just theories, the field is still quite young so there are many questions for which we don’t have enough evidence to determine the correct theory right now. The important thing is to try to be kind and respectful of others (it really doesn’t cost you anything) and ensure that your science is on point so that the results you obtain are true and meaningful, and can help determine the truth of the matter.

    • Photo: Aoife Campbell

      Aoife Campbell answered on 12 Nov 2019:

      Yes there is with my area because we use mice in our research. It can cause a lot of controversy because testing on animals is very poorly understood. All drugs have been tested on animals, from paracetamol to antibiotics. Unfortunately its needed at the moment but hopefully in the future there will be ways to avoid using animals. But they’re very very well taken care of!

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