Doug Naysmith, MP for Bristol North West, sponsored a reception in the House of Commons on behalf of Set for Britain, an organisation which encourages Britain’s younger scientists, engineers and technologists.  The aim of the annual reception, which includes an exhibition and competition, is to bring the latest UK science, engineering, medicine and technology to Parliament by the people who are doing it.  It also improves dialogue between scientists and MPs and gives the researchers a chance to meet each other and discuss their work

Presenting the prizes to the talented winners and runners up of the 2004 Millennium Medal, Dr Naysmith recalled his younger days as a scientist at the University of Bristol.  “It was heartening to see that these young scientists are just as excited about what they are doing as I was,” he said.  “I was particularly pleased to meet two young researchers from UWE who live in my constituency.” Elizabetta Liverani and Amanda Wallington, from the Faculty of Applied Science, described their work in progress in two excellent poster presentations.  Amanda’s project described ‘The characterisation of the taxiome in liver spheroids’ while Elizabetta’s was entitled ‘The role of adrenomedullin in mediating glucocorticoid control of the blood brain barrier function.’

Doug Naysmith told the young researchers that, important as research is, they should not think it is the only good lifetime’s work for a scientist.  “Many of the research projects we heard about are related to the issues MPs are trying to tackle such as health, the environment and energy policy”, he said.   “We need more people in Government who know about science and technology.”