• Question: What would you do with the prize money?

    Asked by uracheesefacelollollol to Michael, Panos, Sarah, MarkF, Mark on 16 Jun 2010 in Categories: . This question was also asked by imogen12, m3akinm3htxx, nic27, pricee, hippy123, kingie, yerseenee, robp, steven10, nkdee, curtis10, 123ben.
    • Photo: Michael Loughlin

      Michael Loughlin answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      well some would go to a student( or two depending on the conference) and pay for them to attend a research conference. This means they’d get an idea of what microbiology research is about, see what students of similar ages do and what type of careers they might like to go into. I am luck that a num,ber of my studnets worked hard and produced results that i was able to piut on a poster, and if that happens again ( fingers crossed) i’d like them to go to a conference to present the results.
      The other money would go towards setting up some sort of month long experiement outreach where we might visit a school once a week for a month and do some simple microbiology experiments..but looka t the results each week and see how that changes what we do the following week. It would be useful to see how much experiementsare designed based upon what happens previously and that you often are surpised by what results you get, and have to spend a long time trying to work out why something happenned.

    • Photo: Panos Soultanas

      Panos Soultanas answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      I would like to help an underpriviledged PhD student based in the UK to attend a scientific conference. There is a very good conference in the University of Sheffield in September and it would be very good if one of my students could go to meet other students and researchers and to hear the latest discoveries in the field of protein-DNA interactions.

    • Photo: Sarah Burl

      Sarah Burl answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      The answer is also in my profile. I would fund an Open Day at a place called Sukuta which is a small village where I recruit a lot of the children that are in my studies. The mothers of the children are all really willing to have their children in the studies and so we like to communicate the results of the work to the community by havign an Open Day where we have dramas and singing about our work and the immune cells in blood. We supply food for over 500 people so it is a good day of education and entertainment for the community.

    • Photo: Mark Fogg

      Mark Fogg answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      I would use the money to help primary schools, without enough resources, to borrow lab equipment and do a joint ‘Big Science Experiment’, so they can experience the thrill of doing real science. I, or another scientist, would go along to the school when they’re doing the experiment, to help out and tell them what it’s like being a scientist and what scientists do. I’ve put detail of this in my profile, so please have a read and I hope you like the idea. 🙂

    • Photo: Mark Travis

      Mark Travis answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      What I will use the money for is to help fund an event that gets kids from underpriveleged local schools come to our University to learn about the research we do and how cool scientific research is (to hopefully stimulate them to keep studying science at school, and maybe even consider it as a future job). So, hopefully the students would benefit in the short term (by giving them a really enjoyable day) and long term (keeping them interested in science to help their studies).

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