By her own admission, Professor Anne Glover is helping to invent the future.
And the chief scientific adviser to the European Commission will be back in Aberdeen tonight to share the most groundbreaking research that will come to define they way we live in time.
Prof Glover CBE is giving a key note speech at Aberdeen’s Explorathon event, which will celebrate science and all its wonder at a series of talks and hands-on events across the city.
The scientist holds the chair in molecular and cell biology at Aberdeen University but transferred to Brussels in 2012 to take up the first posting of its kind.
She described being a scientist as a “wonderful life” and said we were now living in a time that had been explored by science fiction in the past.
Prof Glover, 58, said: “I want people to be excited about the great achievements of scientists, which affect us all.
“Every day is different and what you do makes such a difference.”
Prof Glover said the ageing population, obesity, climate change and energy resources were key issues being tackled by scientists today.
Tonight she will highlight work being done on two key fronts: the battle against Alzheimer’s, which is being led by Aberdeen University’s Professor Claude Wischik, and the isolation of a gut bacteria thought to lead to obesity.
Prof Glover, who was born in Arbroath and went on to study at Cambridge and Edinburgh universities, is now interested is how natural resources will be used in the future.
“We have to learn how do to more with less,” she said. “The only things that aren’t limited are sunlight and gravity.”
She said one big area of thinking was how we turn surfaces into energy sources, with solar powered tarmac being one idea.
“It might seem like science fiction but it could actually be quite simple,” she said.
“Look at Star Trek, which was only launched in 1966. The early films had people communicating with each other through screens. That is just what we know as Skype now.”
“Everything we saw then, we have now.
“It sounded like science fiction then, but we have delivered.
“The best tool we have available to us is the human brain, and that is simply an amazing thing.”
Prof Glover will speak at the King’s College Centre at 6pm. For free tickets, call 01224 641122.
