E-'s full of ideas

Among the line-up of speakers at last week's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council annual conference were Gloria Laycock, director of the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science at University College London, and Steven Ley, president of the Royal Society of Chemistry and an expert in drug synthesis.

The EPSRC's Tony Hey suggested the pair develop a tester so that when his children go to a club and buy drugs, they could be sure they were safe. The notion puts a new spin on Professor Hey's role as director of e-science.