Robert’s Visit to the Myelin Repair Laboratory, Cambridge University, 2 December 2009

It is a typical wet, chilly December morning when I arrive at the Myelin Repair Laboratory to be greeted by Professor Robin Franklin in his office. The window blinds are down, preventing the miserable English winter dampness from detracting from the mood of hope that pervades the work of research and discovery that goes on inside. Robin’s Jack Russell, Bumper growls at me from her litter, placed in a warm and cosy nook of the office. Robin tells me that Bumper is 11 and that her growl is far worse than her bite, at which point she curls up in a ball in her warm bed and dozes off.

I have interrupted Robin from his morning’s work of reviewing and lining what look like research papers that now lay spread on his desk. One can’t help thinking for a moment that perhaps the breakthrough that could mean so much for so many might just be in those papers. Then I remember that Robin has already told us that the process of research is methodical and step-by-step – one small step at a time, just like our walking challenge in 2010.

Robin offers me a tour of the laboratory. It is set among a complex of research, teaching and medical buildings on this University site on the outskirts of Cambridge. It comprises a maze of corridors, cluttered with filing cupboards and boxes, painted in hospital white, and lined with notices and posters. Around each corner a corridor opens up into various different sized laboratory rooms each with its own particular array of equipment and stores. Some are empty, manned only by pieces of equipment, waiting their turn. In one is an electron microscope, its electron beam not in use today to magnify the molecular world in which the secrets of myelin repair lay. It is on standby, ready to play its part.

In another lab room I meet 3 of Robin’s team – Ilias Kazanis from Greece; David Coutts from New Zealand; and Charlotte Bruce from Cornwall. I am struck at how young they look, or is it me getting older? The room is lined with shelves cluttered with containers, bottles, vials, and pipettes, with leads passing over and between sockets and bits of equipment. The room looks and feels ‘clinical’, an impression enhanced by the white coats and coloured gloves the team wear. They are in good spirits - perhaps motivated by the optimism and inspiration that comes from working on pioneering research.

In another room I find John Stockley from Ireland. This morning John is not so much trying to find the secrets of life but rather to prolong it. He tells me that today he is hoping to extend the life of certain cells that the team have been working with by nourishing them with a cocktail of nutrients. This is not precisely how John put it, but it is my layman’s translation! The red soup of life is carefully added to small containers containing I know not what, conducted under a sharp beam of light and behind a protective screen. It is a reminder that research includes hours of painstaking tedium and not just Eureka moments of discovery.

I visit one more room, perhaps the most inspiring. In this rather cramped, overcrowded cubicle I meet Helene Gautier. She is from France and I am suddenly struck by the international nature of Robin’s team – a world class facility that draws from the world’s best; a lab of all the talents! Helene is staring at 4 monitors and I get a sense that something important, fundamental is going on in here. This feeling is reinforced by Helene’s enthusiastic description of what she is doing and looking at. I pretend to understand – it sounds like cells are being cut and diced, reactions induced and results observed. The very fabric of life is being played with, its mysteries being prised open, its secrets exposed. She points to one screen on which I see a green viscous carpet with a bolt of green light splaying out from its centre. This is a brain stem cell. This is what all the bright minds, all the equipment, all the hours in this research facility are devoted to. You want to touch the green light, introduce yourself and just let it know that you understand how important it is.

I meet more of Robin’s team, including Chao Zhao who Robin describes as the brains of the team. He is reminded by another researcher, his wife Dan Ma who is also part of the team, to put on his glasses for a photograph. He is not sure where he left them, but Dan kindly and patiently produces them for him. Chao has that charming, unassuming air of brilliance. I am inspired by my visit – there is a feeling of optimism that pervades this establishment; in the white interiors, the impressive equipment, the smiles on the faces, the youthful energy and the buzz of activity.

As I drive away, not even England’s dank and drizzly winter worst can darken my recharged sense of HOPE.