A city MP will tomorrow (Friday, January 19) get the chance to conduct an experiment in one of the state-of-the-art labs at the University of Aberdeen.
Aberdeen South MP Anne Begg is spending the morning at the Institute of Medical Sciences finding out more about the work of Dr Pieter van West, after the scientist spent a week shadowing the politician at Westminster.
The visits are part of a scheme organised by the Royal Society which aims to build bridges between some of the best research workers in the country and members of the UK parliament.
More than 80 scientists and politicians from across Britain have taken part in the MP-Scientist Pairing Scheme which began six years ago.
Dr van West spent a week with Miss Begg at Westminster in November where he was given a tour of Westminster and sat through several committees, including a House of Commons Science and Technology Committee and the Parliamentary All-Parties Fisheries Group Meeting.
Dr van West – whose research team is trying to find ways of controlling pathogens that wreak destructive diseases costing billions of pounds in thousands of plant species and fish – thoroughly enjoyed his week with the MP.
The Senior Lecturer within the School of Medical Sciences said: "It was a tremendous experience and I was pleasantly surprised to see how knowledgeable some MPs are about scientific matters and how quickly they are able to draw together information to debate any particular issue".
"I now look forward to welcoming Anne to the Institute of Medical Sciences and telling her more about the important work we do here. One area of our research is investigating the agent that causes potato blight which leads to global losses of over £3 billion annually.
"Another area we are investigating is the pathogen that leads to losses in the salmon aquaculture business which in Scotland alone is estimated annually at several million pounds.
"I hope Anne leaves with a good insight into our research."
Miss Begg said: "This is the second time that I have been paired with a biomedical scientist from the Institute of Medical Sciences at the University of Aberdeen through the Royal Society MP-Scientist Pairing Scheme.
"I have found it extremely interesting and worthwhile being part of the pairing programme, both from the point of view of being able to show the scientists what we do and also from being able to see the work that the scientists do and they constraints that they work under.
"The scheme is a great way of meeting a lot of very interesting people."