• Question: What was your favourite project to work on

    Asked by anon-354327 on 8 Mar 2023.
    • Photo: Thomas Swift

      Thomas Swift answered on 8 Mar 2023:

      I have two.

      I spent a year developing ‘self cleaning paint’ – i.e. paint that cleans itself when it gets rained on, stays whiter for longer on your walls, makes your building look new for longer.
      We can do it – it’s actually quite easy. The problem is that it costs twice as much – and people don’t want to pay the stipend.

      My other favourite project was looking for pollutants in sewage water – as I got to go on a lot of field trips to visit waterworks around the country and talk to the engineers on site. Really enjoyed the travelling on that one

    • Photo: Clara Zehe

      Clara Zehe answered on 8 Mar 2023:

      My favorite project is the one I am working on now. I work with luminescent carbon dots (carbon nanoparticles, they are very small) and how they interact with light. Carbon dots are made just by burning organic material under pressure – they can even be made from waste or orange juice. Carbon dots absorb UV- and visible light and are fluorescent – but scientists are still undecided why. So there is a lot of things to be found out about them, which I find very interesting.

    • Photo: Nathalie Oguntona

      Nathalie Oguntona answered on 8 Mar 2023:

      First that comes to mind was the one to develop a chewing gum for indigestion and heartburn

    • Photo: Martin McCoustra

      Martin McCoustra answered on 8 Mar 2023:

      Usually, the project I’m currently working on… But at the moment that means two projects. One is very fundamental science looking at how metal atoms on dust grain surfaces in space can make complex organic molecules – a project we call AstroCat! The second project we are just starting is more applied, is linked to a very large company, and is looking at how chemicals in wood flavour scotch whisky.

    • Photo: Graeme Dykes

      Graeme Dykes answered on 8 Mar 2023:

      Making drugs for Motor Neuron Disease. It was a great team and
      we were well on the way to a whole new medicine. Very exciting

    • Photo: Maryam Sani

      Maryam Sani answered on 8 Mar 2023:

      When I was doing my MSc in Analytical Chemistry, I worked on finding a method of detecting trace metals in water. It was fun and challenging. It involved lots of experimenting and critically analysing the methods that I was using. I would have loved to have continued the research but I was working full-time which made it difficult.

    • Photo: Sarah Lyons

      Sarah Lyons answered on 9 Mar 2023:

      I really enjoyed working on Parkinson’s. We were investigated a new biological target for treating Parkinson’s and the chemistry and biology were unknown. Was really interesting working together with people across the world to try to unravel this target area.

    • Photo: Craig Johnston

      Craig Johnston answered on 9 Mar 2023:

      Each project I have worked on has a special place in my heart. Although the most exciting ones tend to be the ones you are working on now because we are curious to learn about new things. We have many different projects going on in my lab at the moment including photochemistry (using light bulbs to power chemical reactions) and organocatalysis (using small organic molecules as catalysts rather than metals).

    • Photo: Jo Ellis

      Jo Ellis answered on 9 Mar 2023:

      Using my chemistry knowledge to analyze where the mercury in people’s fillings is deposited around a crematorium

    • Photo: Christy Sadler

      Christy Sadler answered on 10 Mar 2023:

      I work on making new tests to diagnose a range of diseases. Imagine the rapid Covid tests we all used at home… I make tests like that! It’s really rewarding thinking that my work may end up being used by millions of people across the world.

    • Photo: Graeme Barker

      Graeme Barker answered on 13 Mar 2023:

      Probably the first project we published a paper on when I started me lecturership – a new way of making a common molecular structure common to pharmaceutical molecules, called 1,3,4-oxadiazoles. The whole project came out of a completely unexpected result we had while trying to do something completely different!

    • Photo: Arno Kraft

      Arno Kraft answered on 14 Mar 2023:

      I am no longer “research-active” but moved on to do mostly teaching and admin. My favourite project in the past? My masters and PhD project were in Organic Chemistry and very exciting, mainly because it was very new to me to do research and the challenge – I should say the thrill – was to try to come up with ways how to make it work. After my PhD I did a postdoc and moved into Polymer Chemistry. It meant learning about a new field by reading textbooks. I joined a research group in Chemistry in Cambridge and worked closely with a group in Physics developing some of the first organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). Seeing OLEDs turn from an obscure research project to a household name over the next 20 years was very exciting.

    • Photo: Ai-Lan Lee

      Ai-Lan Lee answered on 14 Mar 2023:

      I don’t have a specific favourite and the answer will likely change depending on when you ask me this questions anyway. Nevertheless, my favourites tend to be ones where they didn’t necessarily initially worked as planned but we managed to come up with Plan B and Plan C…and sometimes Plan D to overcome the issues and end up with a much better project/results than if it worked according to plan. Often it’s the unexpected results that lead you to places you never thought of. That’s what keeps science so interesting.

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