Dundee scientists feature in new BBC series

Two of the University's leading scientists were featured in a BBC series, "Under Laboratory Conditions", in January, which gave the public an insight into how science really works and what goes on behind the white coats.

In the two-part series neurobiologist Dr Daniel Glaser took a journey around Britain's labs and scientific institutions, speaking to Nobel prize winners, professors, lecturers and PhD students.

In the first episode, which featured Professor Sir Philip Cohen, Royal Society Research Professor and Director of the MRC Protein Phosphorylation Unit in the School of Life Sciences, the programme explored what it's like to be a scientist, what motivates them, what the levers and mechanisms are that drive a scientific career and the joys and frustrations of being involved in research.

The second programme, which featured Mike Ferguson, Professor of Molecular Parasitology, focused on the bane of a senior scientist's life - funding. Dan Glaser met the winners and losers of the funding game in an attempt to understand the Research Assessment Exercise, the importance of publishing in the right journal and how to squeeze money out of cash rich charities and big business.

Professor Ferguson has spent years negotiating the paths to funding and heads a new programme of drug discovery for tropical diseases at Dundee which has established an innovative new model of funding for an academic project.

The series also featured contributions from Bill Bryson, Lord Robert Winston and former President of the Royal Society Lord May.