Birth: April 19, 1956
Specialty: Biochemistry
Major Contributions:
Former Chief Scientific Advisor to President of European Commission
First ever Chief Scientific Adviser for Scotland
Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire
Image: Wikimedia (CC BY 4.0 DEED)
As the former Chief Scientific Adviser to the President of the European Commission and the first Chief Scientific Adviser to Scotland, Dr. Anne Glover has been helping to influence scientific policies in the United Kingdom and Europe.
Earning a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry in 1978 at Edinburgh University, she continued her studies at Cambridge University, being awarded a doctorate in Molecular Microbiology three years later. While she was a professor at Aberdeen University the focus of her research varied during her career but has included the investigation of how proteins are synthesized and directed to the correct locations within our cells and the development of biosensors to detect environmental pollution.
Playing major roles for United Kingdom research councils, she has been involved in the setting of strategic priorities and budgets for science across the UK. Appointed in 2006 and serving in the office for five years, she was the first Scientific Adviser to Scotland where her role was to further enhance Scotland’s reputation as a science nation. She was selected in 2012 to fill a similar role for the European Commission where she provided independent expert advice on any aspect of science, technology, and innovation as requested by the President of the European Commission.
Some of her recent work has been examining how humans respond to stress at the molecular level which has particular relevance to how we age and how we respond to artificial stresses such as chemotherapy. She has also returned to some of her earlier work in biosensors and using these for environmental studies. Biosensors have been applied to investigate factors which affect the activity of bacterial cells as well as developing a rapid toxicity test which enables contamination to be detected in environmental samples such as water, soil, sediment and sludge and determining the bioremediation potential of contaminated land and water.
For her work in environmental sciences, she was awarded the Commander of the British Empire by the Queen of England in 2006 and was promoted to Dame Commander of the British Empire in 2015. She served two years as President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and is currently Special Advisor to the Principal at the University of Strathclyde and the President of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society.
Written by Angela Goad
Sources:
Anne Glover – Chief Scientific Adviser
The Royal Society: Anne Glover
Professor Dame Anne Glover elected new President of Royal Society of Edinburgh
See Also:
The Life Scientific: Anne Glover
The Access to Inspiration Podcast Ep. 105: Professor Dame Anne Glover