{"id":443,"date":"2020-10-23T13:00:39","date_gmt":"2020-10-23T00:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/go\/?p=443"},"modified":"2020-10-12T19:01:53","modified_gmt":"2020-10-12T06:01:53","slug":"when-people-and-science-come-out-on-top","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/go\/when-people-and-science-come-out-on-top\/","title":{"rendered":"When People and Science Come Out on TOP"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Ben Peters isn\u2019t your average scientist – and he\u2019s certainly not what most people think scientists are like.<\/p>\n

For a start, he\u2019s a committed member of his local church, an outspoken advocate for both science and social issues, and, to<\/p>\n

TOP it all, is the gene-editing spokesperson and Dunedin candidate for The Opportunities Party (aka TOP) in the 2020 General Election. He\u2019s also studied philosophy, theology, management and maths on the way to earning his PhD in Biochemistry, which he now\u00a0teaches at Otago.<\/p>\n

Yet his seeming interest in anything and everything does have a central focus: improving human welfare.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Ben\u00a0in the plant room next to his transgenic\u00a0Arabidopsis thaliana\u00a0plants.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWhat drives me is goals-based problem solving,\u201d<\/em> he explains. \u201cHow can we fundamentally help human beings?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s what drew him to biochemistry in the first place (that, and a liking for the \u201cfancy name\u201d when he first heard his two\u00a0favourite school subjects, biology and chemistry, combined). In Ben\u2019s view, to truly understand human beings, we must first understand the basis of life itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing that really excites me [about molecular biology] is the level of understanding that this gives us for solving human\u00a0<\/em>problems – like when medicine applies the findings of biochemistry and genetics.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Yet according to Ben, health isn\u2019t the only area where such science can help \u201csolve problems that affect people in a detrimental\u00a0way\u201d<\/em>. For example, Ben points to environmental concerns such as pollution and climate change, and asks whether we could use gene-edited crops to reduce carbon emissions in agriculture, say, \u201cor use designer microorganisms to consume plastic waste\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

This also explains his interest in politics.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
In Korea before presenting at an international conference.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe reason why we\u2019re not equipping scientists to solve problems is because we have a political system that hasn\u2019t featured\u00a0<\/em>scientists,\u201d<\/em> he reckons. But with the COVID crisis showing the crucial importance of scientific advice, Ben\u2019s hopeful that the situation will improve.<\/p>\n

Educating and informing people about science is, therefore, one of Ben\u2019s major motivations; another is to highlight \u201call the\u00a0diverse pathways that scientists can go into,\u201d<\/em> especially for school students thinking of studying science at Otago.<\/p>\n

And for those that do, Ben encourages them to \u201ctake interest papers that give you a flavour a bit outside the norm\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIt gets you in touch with other issues and rounds out your understanding,\u201d<\/em> he says.\u00a0Who knows, it might also help to make the world a better place.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Written by Mick Whittle<\/p>\n

Photos Supplied by Ben Peters<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ben Peters isn\u2019t your average scientist – and he\u2019s certainly not what most people think scientists are like. For a start, he\u2019s a committed member of his local church, an outspoken advocate for both science and social issues, and, to TOP it all, is the gene-editing spokesperson and Dunedin candidate for The Opportunities Party (aka […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37560,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37560"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/go\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}