Scientists SET to present their work at Parliament

Biologists, engineers and physicists from the University of Glasgow will visit the UK Parliament in London on Monday 18 March to present their research to a range of politicians and a panel of expert judges as part of the SET for Britain event. A total of nine postgraduate and post-doctoral researchers from the University will be judged against dozens of other scientists in the only national SET (Science, Engineering and Technology) competition of its kind. The participants were shortlisted from hundreds of applicants to appear in Parliament. Each participant has prepared a poster on their research to explain its significance and will compete in either the Biology, Engineering or Physics categories of the contest. Each category, judged by leading academics, has gold, silver and bronze prizes worth £3000, £2000 and £1000 respectively. Biologists Steven Bryce, James Doonan and Allison Jackson will each present their work on, respectively, the control of cellular migration by the atypical chemokine receptor CCRL1; how the human body's immune system could be used to treat osteoporosis; and the ways in which the Toxoplasma gondii parasite enters human cells. Engineers Soumyadeb Chowdhury, Ian McNally, Nicola Beveridge and Samantha Mulholland will discuss their research on the usability of images as passwords for online accounts; collecting solar power in space to generate electricity on Earth; silicate bonding techniques to invisibly fuse glass surfaces together; and 3D visualisation using octree compression techniques.