“I was at a conference in the Algarve,” says Scotland’s newly-appointed “science czar”, whose role is to show the discipline’s more appealing face. “We’d had a party and afterwards we all went to the beach for a swim. We were in the water when my PhD student Brenda stood up and suddenly her whole swimsuit was sparkling like Lurex in the dark. It was stunning.”
Bioluminescence, a natural glow produced by microscopic waterborne organisms when stimulated with oxygen, has bewitched seafarers for millennia, but for Glover, a molecular biologist, it suggested entirely new possibilities. “It started me wondering how easy it would be to exploit that effect in other cells. At that point we were trying to think of ways of monitoring microbes in the soil — perhaps if we could make the one we were interested in glow in the dark, we could follow it. And it worked.”
A decade later, with collaboration from colleagues and a start-up company, Glover’s late-night dip has opened up a new field of science — microbial signalling — in which genetically-modified bacteria are helping identify polluted sites by extinguishing their glows in the presence of toxins. The discovery is now used commercially for wasteland clearance. “It’s like a microscopic canary taken down a mine to show the noxious gases,” says Glover. “We’ve engineered it to glow when it’s happy and turn the lights out when it’s unhappy.”
Impressive as the achievement is, it’s her striking and effortless explanations that demonstrate the real genius in Glover’s appointment as chief scientific advisor for Scotland. This petite, feisty communicator is a born natural at unravelling complex truths to ministers, schoolchildren, ordinary adults — even journalists.
“I was absolutely delighted to get the job, she says, swipe-carding her way through the foyer of the futuristic Institute of Medical Sciences in Aberdeen, where she has worked for 25 years. “I think the science community needs somebody to blow their trumpet — because they are outstanding.
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“With only 10% of the population, Scotland produces about 30% of all the PhDs in microbiology and genetics in the UK. People should know about that. It’s interesting for inward investors.”
These potential investors will be among her key targets when she takes up her new post in August as the public face of scientific Scotland, singing the country’s praises abroad and advising ministers on policy while simultaneously translating often baffling technical jargon. Today, proteins are, she says, “little machines that do things inside the cell”; microbes are “an unpaid workforce of billions, ready to break down our waste for us”.
“Science should be a source of pleasure to everyone in the same way that art, music and books are,” she says. “People shouldn’t feel closed off from the work because of the terminology we use. There’s no reason why they won’t be interested if we explain it properly.”
A firm believer in work-life balance, she indulges a passion for travel whenever possible, flitting across to Norway aboard her 34ft-yacht with husband Ian, or taking advantage of conference invitations to Rio, Japan, Barcelona, Portugal . . . “People don’t realise what a lovely life science can give you,” she laughs.
While this dynamic 50-year-old is far removed from the stereotype of socially-challenged male egg-head, she resists any suggestion that her gender earned her any special advantage in the bid to make science sexier. “I’d hate to think I was appointed because I was a woman,” says Glover, whose new three-day-a-week role nudges female representation on the Scottish Science Advisory Committee to five out of 18. “I hope I was just the most suitable person for the job.”
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Born in Arbroath to a chartered surveyor and an administrator, the young Anne showed an unorthodox scientific curiosity from the age of three, when she was photographed eating earthworms. “As a child I was always asking why, what, how and when, and was in libraries from an early age,” she recalls. “My elder brother was given a chemistry set and I remember being in the kitchen when he got something wrong and it exploded all over the ceiling. I thought: ‘Yep, that’s for me!’ I must have been about nine.”
A pupil at Dundee high school, and later a life sciences student at Edinburgh, Cambridge and Aberdeen, she attributes success not to any innate genius, but a determination to keep asking questions — a tendency many of her compatriots have historically shared.
“Scotland has always been small and outward looking,” she says. “We’re inquisitive people and at the end of the day, what is a scientist? Just someone who is very curious and good at observing.”
Not that scientific inquiry is without its controversies. Pioneers like Ian Wilmut at the Roslin Institute, who oversaw the cloning of Dolly the sheep, and geneticists in Glover’s own field, have often found themselves the subject of alarming headlines.
“GM crops have been particularly badly reported, I think. The reporting of the practical risks of genetically modified crops wasn’t really underpinned by any real data. In fact the risks from pesticides are much greater.”
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The fears surrounding genetic manipulation can obscure real benefits, she believes. In the case of her own genetically modified glow-in-the-dark bacteria, the technology not only makes environmental clean-ups much easier, but also has the potential to replace animal testing on food, cosmetics and drugs, and to be used in portable kits to detect safe drinking water in the developing world.
“I don’t think we’re very good at putting risk into context,” she says. “For example the risk of driving a car is much higher than the risks of GM food — but in a car we know where we are going, so it’s a risk we’re prepared to take. I want to remind scientists that they have an obligation to share our findings with the public — because we’re publicly funded. But I wouldn’t really blame anyone for mis-information. I think there’s already too much of a blame culture in Britain and it just pushes people further into their silos. Instead, I’d like to see more of a debate.”
Glover got a foretaste of her new role last Monday, showing off Scotland to the global science community, at a formal reception for the Antarctic Treaty consultative meeting at Edinburgh Castle. But just as satisfying was the opportunity to bend the ear of her taxi driver on the way there.
“I had to tell him that his exhaust fumes would end up in Antarctica, spinning off to the poles like the layer of smog from the industrial revolution, which I’m told you can see in core samples of snow. By the time we got to the castle, he was so wrapped up in the conversation we were travelling at 5mph with a queue of traffic behind.”
After two hours of scientific stream of consciousness, I think I know how the taxi driver felt. Glover eyes her watch and laughs. “That’s the other thing about scientists: once you get them talking, it’s hard to get them to stop.”