• Question: What can your work be used for?

    Asked by Sparky to Matthew, Rebecca, Laura, Andrew on 7 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by randy orten (out of no where).
    • Photo: Matthew Camilleri

      Matthew Camilleri answered on 7 Nov 2014:

      I am part of a team of sustainable chemists at the University of Bath, and together we believe we can make a difference in the world.

      My actual work is funded by a pharmaceutical company, with the aim of being able to find a new method how to make a number of medicines, which would make them cheaper. So at the end, my work should be used to make cheaper medicines.

    • Photo: Laura Schofield

      Laura Schofield answered on 8 Nov 2014:

      Hi. My work has only one use but it’s a pretty major one really! Plastic is literally all around us, from clothes we wear (check the label for nylon and other man made materials), to the bottles of drink we buy and from the screen I’m reading your question on to the glasses that help me see it. At the moment it’s made from chemicals taken from crude oil, a non-renewable source that we are quickly running out of!
      That’s where I come in, I am working on a way to make plastic from fruit peel! It already works and I have a few lumps of plastic in my flat that prove it. Now the big question is can we scale it up so that we can make tons of plastic every day in the same way!

    • Photo: Andrew McKinley

      Andrew McKinley answered on 10 Nov 2014:

      My work in research can be used for electronic applications – using DNA as a molecular wire – how cool is that!
      My teaching work – typically I produce teaching resources which can be used by many people (that is my intention).

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