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Steve Walker Following a visit to Monterey Bay Aquarium whilst on holiday, Steve decided to ditch his career as a drummer in a rock & roll band for something more substantial by studying for a degree in Zoology at Newcastle University. Whilst researching his honours project on the effect of snake venom toxins on neuroregeneration, Steve became interested in free radicals and their effect on biological processes. As luck would have it, John Bythell and Jeremy Thomason were looking for a PhD student to study the role of environmental stress on free-radical mediated protein oxidation in marine invertebrates, this started Steve on his present research. Consequently, Steve decided this was a good point to tackle another ambition and joined the University scuba club, which he is now Chairman of, as well as being one of the clubs' several instructors as well as a committed diver, though only in the cold waters of the British Isles! Like most research, Steve's PhD deviated from the original plan and resulted in using massive amounts of gamma radiation to investigate stress in the common mussel. Surprisingly, mussels can survive radiation doses many thousand times higher than humans could survive. A few months ago Steve was pleased to announce to John and Jeremy that the results of recent experiments had been accepted for publication. At the same time John & Jeremy offered Steve his first chance to try tropical diving as support diver on their upcoming Aquarius mission. Steve plans to investigate environmental stress in corals during the mission, thankfully he plans to use something more friendly than gamma radiation. |
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