I have been thinking about this for a quite while, but finally got a kick up the backside. And now it\u2019s done.<\/p>\n
With two members of my group I\u2019ve put together a short movie on our research and, thanks to the good folks at Nature Network who enabled video embedding<\/a> just last week, it is presented here for your\u2026 delectation?<\/p>\n What can I tell you? It\u2019s a moving but ultimately uplifting tale of triumph over adversity set in lab in a once fashionable part of London. The production values are sky-high and<\/em> you get to enjoy my mellifluous Northern Irish lilt.<\/p>\n The well-placed kick was aimed by the organisers of a conference on Control of Foot-and-Mouth Disease<\/a> that will be held in Sicily next month. Noting the dearth of FMD videos on the internet (how did that<\/em> happen?), they asked participants to come up with short movies on their research. This is a trend that Heather<\/a> flagged up recently.<\/p>\n Our FMD work<\/a> is focused on the poetically named 3C protease from the virus<\/a> that causes the disease. We\u2019ve used X-ray crystallography (did I mention that already<\/a>?) to determine the structure of the protease and are keen to pursue antiviral drug development, though this is likely to be a long and arduous road.<\/p>\n The conference audience will mostly be veterinary scientists whose primary focus is well above the molecular level so I have tried to keep the story relatively simple. I hope that the material might also be suitable for a wider audience \u2013 and might be able to engage the public<\/em>. Now I realise that most people around here are already terribly scientifically literate (and in so many other<\/a> ways<\/a> too) but I would still be interested to hear any responses. It was an interesting project to undertake – one of the most tricky aspects was how to streamline the story without<\/em> distorting the underlying science.<\/p>\n (For those without 6 minutes to spare, there\u2019s a cool<\/em> bit starting at 1 min 50 sec\u2026!)<\/p>\n