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Dr. Tim O’Leary, University of Edinburgh
Recently we performed an experiment to test whether or not a compound that is reported to be a sodium channel blocker is effective at blocking potential activity in neurons. The first part of planning the experiment was really about that finding. Looking at the facts that were already out there and published data. Once we had done that we were convinced there was some solid evidence that this compound might work. We then designed an experiment in the system that we had. This system consists of neurons, cultured neurons, they grow in the dish but they otherwise behave just like neurons would in the nervous system. Then we worked out appropriate concentrations of this compound that would be expected to block the sodium channels and therefore block action potential activity.
We then thought about controls. When you apply a drug sometimes that drug might not dissolve in the solution that surrounds the cells. It might require some other vehicle to get the drug to dissolve. If you were to compare the condition where you applied the drug to a condition where no drug was applied, you have to take into account that if the drug is not there, you also need this vehicle as well. An example of the control that would be we have a vehicle plus the drug applied to cell and you compare that not to a cell that has nothing applied to it but to the cell that has only the vehicle, only the dissolving substance.
If you were to just try the experiment once and it had the effect that you expected, then you stopped, it might be the case that the cell you looked at was somehow not representative of a population cell. But worse still it actually reflects some error you made during the experiment. Perhaps you did not even weigh out the drug properly. It is very important to reproduce these experiments to show that it is reliable. Also reproducing experiments in identical conditions, or as identical as you can make them gets an estimate in the variability of new response.
Once we have established and repeated the experiments a good number of times, we looked at the results and found that there was a big difference in the percentage of cells firing action potentials in control conditions with the drug present. From that, we concluded that the drug was doing something and had a functional effect on the ability of cells to gain action potential. One conclusion we might drop on this is that this compound might be useful as a drug, but this is just the beginning stage and it is somewhat an artificial system. We have not tested this on people for example. The result that we have need to be communicated to the wider community because it is not necessarily ourselves that will take the work further but other people can as well.
That is typically down through general papers. We collect the results, write the bit of the background for people to read and we will write down what other conclusions are. So they will offer their professional opinion to whether they regard our experiment as being done correctly. If they do our papers get published and other groups around the world, other researchers and perhaps the general public, will be able to read the results and will be able to learn from what we have done.
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Recently we performed an experiment to test whether or not a compound that is reported to be a sodium channel blocker is effective at blocking potential activity in neurons. The first part of planning the experiment was really about that finding. Looking at the facts that were already out there and published data. Once we had done that we were convinced there was some solid evidence that this compound might work. We then designed an experiment in the system that we had. This system consists of neurons, cultured neurons, they grow in the dish but they otherwise behave just like neurons would in the nervous system. Then we worked out appropriate concentrations of this compound that would be expected to block the sodium channels and therefore block action potential activity.
We then thought about controls. When you apply a drug sometimes that drug might not dissolve in the solution that surrounds the cells. It might require some other vehicle to get the drug to dissolve. If you were to compare the condition where you applied the drug to a condition where no drug was applied, you have to take into account that if the drug is not there, you also need this vehicle as well. An example of the control that would be we have a vehicle plus the drug applied to cell and you compare that not to a cell that has nothing applied to it but to the cell that has only the vehicle, only the dissolving substance.
If you were to just try the experiment once and it had the effect that you expected, then you stopped, it might be the case that the cell you looked at was somehow not representative of a population cell. But worse still it actually reflects some error you made during the experiment. Perhaps you did not even weigh out the drug properly. It is very important to reproduce these experiments to show that it is reliable. Also reproducing experiments in identical conditions, or as identical as you can make them gets an estimate in the variability of new response.
Once we have established and repeated the experiments a good number of times, we looked at the results and found that there was a big difference in the percentage of cells firing action potentials in control conditions with the drug present. From that, we concluded that the drug was doing something and had a functional effect on the ability of cells to gain action potential. One conclusion we might drop on this is that this compound might be useful as a drug, but this is just the beginning stage and it is somewhat an artificial system. We have not tested this on people for example. The result that we have need to be communicated to the wider community because it is not necessarily ourselves that will take the work further but other people can as well.
That is typically down through general papers. We collect the results, write the bit of the background for people to read and we will write down what other conclusions are. So they will offer their professional opinion to whether they regard our experiment as being done correctly. If they do our papers get published and other groups around the world, other researchers and perhaps the general public, will be able to read the results and will be able to learn from what we have done.
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