• Question: have any of you worked with any famous scientists i may know?

    Asked by x Miss Sugg x to Christie, Dan, David, Dawn, Sian on 15 Jun 2016. This question was also asked by spec.
    • Photo: Christie Waddington

      Christie Waddington answered on 15 Jun 2016:

      I currently work with a professor who has recently been knighted for his services to research and for changing the law on treating mitochondrial disease: Professor (Sir) Doug Turnbull. He’s been in the news a lot recently, especially last year when we were trying to get the law changed!

      Other than that, I attended a lecture by James Watson, one of the discoverers of DNA, and Sir Paul Nurse who won a Novel Prize for his work on the cell cycle. I didn’t work with them though, just listened!

    • Photo: Sian Thomas

      Sian Thomas answered on 15 Jun 2016:

      I worked quite closely with Prof Sir Roger Jowell for a few years – he was the chair of the Agency’s Social Science Research Committee when I was the secretary. It was a fantastic experience and he was a wonderful man. His mind was so quick and I would sometimes think he was not concentrating at all just before he said something really profound.

      If you don’t know him, google him – he established the UK election survey and was often who the BBC used as an anchor for their expert on analysis of election results on election night.

      Lots of the scientists on the Agency’s Scientific Advisory Committees are leaders in their field, and some of the scientists within the organisation are also renound for their work.

    • Photo: Dawn Lau

      Dawn Lau answered on 15 Jun 2016:

      Simon Ridley, who is the director of research at Alzheimer’s Research UK (a leading charity), attends the same conferences as I do, and he has visited our labs before. I’ve also spoken on the phone with him once where very generously gave me some career advice! He’s often quoted in the news when they run articles on the next new study on Alzheimer’s disease, or when clinical trial results are published.

    • Photo: David Robertson

      David Robertson answered on 19 Jun 2016:

      Kip Thorne, the theoretical physicist and astrophysicist has worked in gravitational physics for a long time and I’ve been to many of the same conferences and meetings. However I’ve never worked with him directly.

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