• Question: If you had the chance, would you move to a poorer country and try and help them find cures for diseases?

    Asked by biriantan to Darren, Deuan, Duncan, Lori-An, Michelle on 22 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Darren Nesbeth

      Darren Nesbeth answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      Science done in UK universities is made available to the entire world, including developing countries. Unfortunately developing countries seldom have the resources to take advantage of the new knowledge – so the problem remains economic.

      Having said that, many scientists I know collaborate directly with other scientists in developing countries such as Ethiopia and Bangladesh. I am in the early stages of arranging a collaboration with scientists in Sudan.

    • Photo: Michelle Hudson-Shore

      Michelle Hudson-Shore answered on 22 Jun 2010:

      I honestly don’t know. A lot of the research that is done in this country is to try and find cures for diseases in poorer countries and many scientists do work with people from those countries on joint projects. So I don’t think that you necessarily have to move to the country to help.

    • Photo: Lori-An Etherington

      Lori-An Etherington answered on 22 Jun 2010:

      It is not necessary to move to a poorer country in order to do research into diseases as there is more money for research in more developed countries, for example Deuan is doing research related to Sleeping sickness which affects poorer countries, but he is doing his research in Dundee.

Comments

  • Photo: Daniel

    Daniel commented on :

    That was actually my motivation behind studying medicine (in addition to biophysics). But after I had done my first internship in the best hospital in Yemen, one of the poorest countries of the world, and visited a whole bunch of other hospitals throughout the country, I decided to discontinue medicine in favour of scientific research, and trying to help the poor countries otherwise. Why? Because I think helping them with medicine can only be the first step, and it doesn’t help them address any of the other problems they have.

    Helping them to do science, or to communicate the science they are doing seems to be a better approach to me than to export our (expensive) medicine to them. One way in which I am trying to do this is via an internet platform for young scientists, ways.org, and it seems to work to some extent – most of the members there are from Africa and other developing nations, while most other online networks for scientists are singularily focused on Western countries.