Each week five scientists will be online to answer questions on the Life Fantastic; on where we come from, on mutations, and whether we could live forever.

Alison Woollard will be live every week to answer questions and take part in live chats. We also have a couple of “roaming scientists” — Andrew Beale from the Royal Institution, and Lynne Cox from the University of Oxford – who will pop in every week to answer questions.

On top of this, we have 25 scientists across the five weeks who will be online to answer questions and take part in live chats on the Life Fantastic! Let’s meet them:

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Week 1: 30 December – 5 January

Stefan Piatek PhD student, Imperial College, London	“Asthma is a really common disease, I’m figuring out how a special protein found in the lungs switches off genes, so we treat asthma better in the future.”
Leila Abbas Postdoctoral researcher, University of Sheffield	“I’m currently working in the Centre for Stem Cell biology, [my group] is focusing on using stem cells to repair hearing loss. [Before this I was] a pure developmental biologist; I used to work with zebrafish, looking at how the nervous system formed, and ear development.”
Kara Cerveny Assistant Professor, Reed College, Portland OR, USA	Kara looks at growth control, and the mechanisms which ensure that tissues form in the correct size and composition.
Hayley Lees PhD student, University of Oxford	PhD student in Alison Woollard’s research group.
Haihan Tan PhD student, King’s College, London	“Working in developmental genomics. My group uses various genome-wide techniques to study transcription factors involved in early germ layer and tissue development. Through that we are interested in how cell fate is allocated either in vitro or in vivo.”

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Week 2: 6–12 January

Rachael Inglis PhD student, University of Cambridge	“I’m studying the development of zebrafish embryos (a tiny tropical fish) to try to understand how they figure out which side of their body is going to be the left side and which will be the right.”
Penny Mason Postdoctoral researcher, University of Oxford	Postdoctoral researcher in Alison Woollard’s research group at the University of Oxford.
Jennifer Tullet Postdoctoral researcher, UCL	“My research uses the nematode worm to understand the ageing process at the genetic and physiological level. I am interested in finding genes/mutations in genes that regulate the ageing process and finding ways that they could be manipulated to promote a healthier lifespan.”
Jean-Paul Vincent National Institute for Medical Research	Head of Division of Developmental Biology. Fellow of the Royal Society.“I work in developmental signalling and also in the control of apoptosis.”
David Christensen PhD student, University of Southampton	“I do work in genetics and use cells! Although my work isn’t really focused on developmental biology, as I work with embryonic stem cells I do understand a bit about early development.”

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Week 3: 13–19 January

Vicky Forster Postdoctoral researcher, University of Newcastle	“I am a cancer research scientist, currently looking mainly at why people get leukaemia. I also look for ways which we can use less toxic drugs which are suited to each cancer patient, rather than giving everybody the same drugs even though their cancers are different.”
Thomas Butts Postdoctoral researcher, King’s College, London	“My research is centred on understanding how we make the neurons that allow us to sense pain, touch and muscle position, and how they have evolved in vertebrate animals. I also work on the brain and how the size of the brain has been modified during the last 500 million years of evolution.”
Simon Butt Lecturer, University of Oxford	“I am looking at the development of the brain. Specifically at how newborn nerve cells work out what they should be and then how they start wiring up to create the amazing organ that is our brain.”
Serena Ding PhD student, University of Oxford	“I am a third year PhD student in Dr Alison Woollard’s lab. I study how a non-muscle myosin gene affects stem-like seam cell divisions in the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans.”
Amanda Carr Postdoctoral researcher, UCL	“I’ve been part of the scientific team that have been making eye cells from human embryonic stem cells. I also make induced pluripotent stem cells from the skin of patients’ with various forms of blindness, we can then turn these into eye cells so that we can study what happens to cells and find out why patients to go blind.”

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Week 4: 20–26 January

Sara Maxwell University of Oxford	Researcher working in Alison Woollard’s group at the University of Oxford.
John Davis PhD student, King’s College, London	“I study Drosophila development, specifically how a group of cells interact to know where to be, how to organise themselves to make patterns and how this brings about important structures for the embryo to mature into larvae.”
Gemma Swiers Postdoctoral researcher, University of Oxford	“Basically, I am trying to work out how a blood stem cell is made, where it is made and how it knows to be a blood stem cell.”
Constanze Ochmann Researcher, Cambridge	“My work is focused on pain research. We want to know why some people feel more pain than others and some can not feel pain at all.”
Becky Cook Postdoctoral researcher, UCL	“I look at how normal cells protect themselves from becoming cancerous to help us better understand how cancer develops so we can beat it!”

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Week 5: 27–31 January

Samantha Hughes University of Oxford	“To understand how cells choose to divide or to become specialised I use stem cells in the worm Caenorhabditis elegans. I am looking at two genes which when you mutate them the worms get a tumour. The human counterparts of these genes are involved in cancers such as leukaemia and so eventually, I hope that knowledge gained in this small worm will point the way to future cancer therapies.”
Matthew Tomlinson Postdoctoral researcher, University of Leeds	“I work with stem cells from teeth, finding out how they work so they can be used to regrow teeth and broken bones.”
Karolina Chocian PhD student, University of Oxford	“I’m a PhD student in Alison Woollard’s lab and I look at worms getting old, a lot. I am particularly interested in the interplay between epigenetics and longevity.”
David Bowkett PhD student, University of Oxford	“My research is in the field of epigenetics. [Looking at modifications which] play a vital role in turning genes on or off. This allows each cell to interpret the identical DNA in different ways, allowing each cell to know exactly what job it is required to do.”
Anita Hall Lecturer, Imperial College, London	“I teach courses in cell, developmental and stem cell biology and also discuss these topics during my Outreach and widening participation activities.”