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Asked by sufmed to Chris, Eva, Michael, Paddy, Philip on 16 Jun 2011.
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Philip Denniff answered on 15 Jun 2011:
At uni I was doing what all good organic chemists do, making vial smells. And out of the stink came forth the synthetic gingerol, the chemical in ginger that gives it its hot taste. Then I moved on to trouble shooting on a penicillin factory. That was not inventing new things, more trying to get the old things to work again. And now I am developing a method of taking blood samples without having to poke a needle into your arm. The samples will be used to measure the amount of a drug that is in the body.
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Chris Jordan answered on 15 Jun 2011:
Synthetic ginger sounds interesting (one of the researchers I worked with at Uni does scientific chef stuff now, with Blumenthal) … but I’m mostly writing to say that I don’t work in a lab. I have a desk in an office with a stack of computers next door. I might do very small bits of electrics – eg solder a new computer cable together or replace a power supply, but only if I can’t find someone to do it for me. I also often trash my own computer by experimenting with it and have to rebuild it – it’s almost a hobby.
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Paddy Brock answered on 16 Jun 2011:
Like Chris, I don’t work in the lab much, but split my time between working in the field and analysing data on the computer. We do have a sort of mobile lab that we take with us to the sea lion colonies in the field. This consists of a microscope, two centrifuges and a tube turner (which keeps the tubes of blood moving, so the concentration of cells is the same thoughout the tube). One island we work on is uninhabited, so we have to take a generator to power the machines. During one trip the generator broke, so we had to invent a way to power the machines in order to process the blood samples before they became ruined by the heat. We managed to power the microscope and centrifgues by using a car battery and some solar panels, but had to take turns keeping the tubes moving by hand!
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Michael Wharmby answered on 16 Jun 2011:
As an inorganic/materials chemist I make new solids. These are usually brightly coloured powders and occassionally crystals (see my profile for some pictures). These things, although they look totally solid, are like sponges and have lots of open space inside them. These open spaces can be filled with gas molecules and some of these gas molecules will stick to the walls of the material better than others. My inventions will hopefully stick carbon dioxide (CO2) better than other gases and we can then trap this CO2 and stop it doing harm to the environment.
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Eva Bachmair answered on 16 Jun 2011:
We do not really invent things in our lab. We tend to find out if and how something is working.
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