Fundamental discoveries can and should be made in industry or academies, but to carry that knowledge forward and to develop a new drug to the market has to depend on the resources of industry.

It is sometimes said that the major discoveries have already been made and that there is nothing important left to find. This attitude is altogether too pessimistic. There are plenty of ideas and plenty of things left to discover. The trick is to find the right path from one to the other.

After qualifying for a B.Sc. in pharmacology, I spent a few months in Sheffield University as a research worker in the pharmacology department but then went back to Oxford to the Nuffield Institute for Medical Research in order to study for a D. Phil. with Dr. Geoffrey Dawes.

At first, I was able to use a Bunsen burner attached to my mother's gas stove, but the use of the kitchen as a laboratory came to an abrupt end when a minor explosion involving hydrogen sulphide spattered the newly painted decor and changed the colour from blue to dirty green!

I have issues with anyone who tries to claim that science is unworkable - creationists who deny evidence for past history, yet are happy to benefit from the products of the methodology that they otherwise deny.

Of all the failed technologies that litter the onward march of science - steam carriages, zeppelins, armoured trains - none has been so catastrophic to prosperity as the last century's attempt to generate electricity from nuclear fission.

Science has made us gods even before we are worthy of being men.

We need to be more conversant with it because science is in our lives. It's in everything. It's in the food we eat. It's in the air we breathe. It's everywhere.