I have just started my three year project which means that I passed my MRes. I am going to be looking at the effects of maternal diet on the development of lungs. The structure of the lungs will be looked at to find any difference in alveolar (small air sacs) size and wall thickness, as well as the size, wall thickness and the thickness of the surrounding smooth muscle of these airways. I am going to be doing this in one if the labs that I visited during my three ten week rotations over my first year.

The first few weeks have been mainly looking at the way in which we are going to do these measurements. This is essential as it has to follow methods that have already been used in this field to ensure that the work will not be criticised for this if we manage to get any publications from it, which hopefully we will.

I have come back to the human genetics lab that I did my first rotation in and will have the same supervisor, Dr John Holloway. I have two other supervisors, Dr Susan Wilson and Dr Chris Torrens. I am very pleased with my supervisors as they all seem very approachable and prepared to spend time explaining the things that I need to know for this project.

Hopefully I will be able to give a bit more detail about the project when do my next entry in a month or so. Regards Shelley