• Question: Have you ever donated other money to help with scientific projects to do with microbiology?

    Asked by erin95 to Cat, Daz, Holly, Johnson, Pamela on 21 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Cat O'Connor

      Cat O'Connor answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      Hi Erin95,

      I’ve never donated money but I have donated my time do help students like you understand what us scientists do in the lab. Does that count?

      Cat

    • Photo: Holly Shelton

      Holly Shelton answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      Hi Erin

      I have not donated money for microbiology but I go give for cancer research as I would really like to see more progress in understanding and getting rid of cancer as it affects so many people!! I obviously spend a lot of time in microbiology doing my own work and trying to get funding for projects involved in microbiology from the research councils that fund alot of our work as scientists in the UK so does that count instead?? 🙂

    • Photo: Pamela Lithgow

      Pamela Lithgow answered on 19 Jun 2011:

      Hi erin95,
      I have also not donated money to microbiology projects. I do pop the odd pound in the collection pots for cancer research and other good causes.
      Science research is very expensive so we get funding as Holly said from research councils who bring money from lots of places together so we have enough money to do things. I did do some of my research for FREE when I was a student so I kind of donated my time for free to a microbiology project, I don’t know if that counts.
      Pam 🙂

    • Photo: Darren Braddick

      Darren Braddick answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Hi erin95!

      I have yes, and I have donated time too. I think time may help more, because money can be misused and lost, but time is constructive and you can be sure your input is used well.

      The answers of the other scientists is good – but actually you can help in different ways to money and even time. For example, there is a project which uses spare processing power of people’s computers and dedicates that power, over the internet, to some biological problems.

      An important example of this is protein folding – an incredible important process for life, but currently understanding this is beyond even our best physicists. It’s very complex, and answering questions in this needs huge amounts of computer power (The website for such a group is here: http://folding.stanford.edu/).

      So yes, we can donate money, and time, and power. Anyone can, and its a great thing to do!

      Hope this helps,

      Daz

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