• Question: who is your favorite scientist and why?

    Asked by kx 100 to Sarah, Robert, Ian, Claire, Angela on 8 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Angela Stokes

      Angela Stokes answered on 8 Nov 2014:

      Hi kx 100
      My favourite scientist is Sir Alexander Fleming. He was a Scottish biologist, pharmacologist and botanist who was born in 1881. His major discoveries were the enzyme lysozyme in 1923 and the antibiotic penicillin in 1928 for which he won a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1945 (shared with Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain)

      Fleming was motivated in his work on penicillin by seeing soldiers in the First World War dying of infected wounds. The discovery of penicillin in 1928 marked the start of the discovery of the antibiotics we use today, in fact we still use penicillin, and it is estimated that millions of lives (both human and animal)have been saved thanks to the work of Sir Alexander Fleming.

      Great question…who is your favourite scientist?

    • Photo: Sarah Harris

      Sarah Harris answered on 10 Nov 2014:

      I particularly fond of Marie Sklodowska-Curie – she was a physicist and chemist who was the first woman to be awarded a Nobel prize and the only person to have won two Nobel prizes in two different fields! You’ve probably heard of her when people talk about cancer treatments.

      I also think my dissertation tutor at university, Dr Emma Robinson, is one of my favourite scientists too – she’s a neuroscientist who’s looking at ways to treat mental illness.

      I don’t have a single favourite though – there are so many brilliant scientists out there that it’s impossible to chose just one!

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