Heriot-Watt University's Institute of Biological Chemistry, Biophysics and Bioengineering hosted a meeting of over 100 Scottish scientists working in the physics and life sciences interface on Wednesday 27 February.
SUPA
The meeting was attended by physicists from the eight Scottish Universities that make up the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance: Heriot-Watt, Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, St Andrews, Strathclyde Universities and UWS.
It was sponsored by the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance, Heriot-Watt University's Institute of Biological Chemistry, Biophysics and Bioengineering, Institute of Physics in Scotland and the British Society for Cell Biology.
Alastair Thompson, Professor of Surgery and Molecular Oncology at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, delivered a keynote talk, challenging the physicists in the audience to apply their technologies to answering some of the tough current questions in cancer research. Other keynote talks from Horiba, Optos and MacPhie highlighted the value knowledge transfer and the benefits that academic scientists working with industry bring to the nation's welfare and economy.
Biophysics presentations
All the universities presented their research and capabilities in biophysics, including Debaditya Choudhury and William Ramsay and Alison Dun from Heriot-Watt's Institute of Biological Chemistry, Biophysics and Bioengineering and Nathan Gemmell from the Institute of Photonics and Quantum Sciences, who received the best poster prize. Alison presented the new state of the art imaging facility and the Edinburgh Super Resolution Imaging Consortium situated in IB3, recently funded by the Medical Research Council.