• Question: Do you think the world benefits from what you do and how does this make you feel?

    Asked by anon-196630 to Sebastian, Paddy, Lee, Jennifer, Fiona, Eleanor on 6 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Sebastian Cosgrove

      Sebastian Cosgrove answered on 6 Mar 2019:

      Science happens in increments, which means that the more we know as a community, the more this contributes as a whole to society. What that means is something that I do could seem very small, and even insignificant sometimes, but it could tell another scientist something about their work that they didn’t know before. So these small contributions all add up to really make a difference over a long term.
      That being said, some people discover really specific (and impressive!) things, and these can give benefits to the world immediately (new drugs that cure diseases, or new technologies like graphene for example). Knowing that what we do is helping the world in the long run is a good feeling ultimately.

    • Photo: Lee Steinberg

      Lee Steinberg answered on 6 Mar 2019:

      The world benefits from what I do, as the development of the techniques that I work on can be used to speed up the drug discovery process, saving time and money, and enabling us to cure disease faster and better! It makes me feel happy to think of the tangible impact that my discoveries could have – as opposed to some other jobs which have less direct impact on society.

    • Photo: Eleanor Senior

      Eleanor Senior answered on 6 Mar 2019:

      I feel the potential benefits from my work, once a fully working vaccine has been created, is pretty big. The parasite costs farmers and those in the beef and dairy industry hundreds of millions of dollars each year and it causes suffering to the cows and is a food security issue. I really enjoy having a project with implications and potential results that you will actually be able to see and it’s a really nice feeling.

    • Photo: Fiona Scott

      Fiona Scott answered on 7 Mar 2019:

      The medicinal chemistry community benefit from me working on the enzyme I am working on because it is one less for them to explore its viability for new drugs. Looking much wider, my work is part of a tiny cog of the massive effort trying to find cures for different cancers and that gives me huge job satisfaction.

Comments