Have you invented any thing? – MRC Medical Research Zone

Question: Have you invented any thing?
- Keywords:
  career,
  invention
Asked by anon-267897 on 20 Nov 2020.
- Paola Galdi answered on 20 Nov 2020:
  
  I wish I could say I invented some revolutionary device! But as a computer scientist the things I create are methods to accomplish a specific task. In this sense, I can say to have invented a clustering algorithm. An algorithm is simply a sequence of steps you need to follow to get a result, like a recipe. In my case, I came up with a sequence of steps to tell a computer how to divide objects in groups (what we call clusters) on the basis of their properties. I wasn’t the first person to come up with a method for this, what was new was the approach to accomplish it. The thing about science is that it is a great team effort: every single scientist might contribute with something that might seem small, but all small contributions taken together over time are what makes science and technology progress.
- Guy Yona answered on 20 Nov 2020:
  
  Yes – I invented something called “the virtual infinite capacitor”, which is a (smallish) electrical circuit that can replace physical large capacitors in some applications, such as solar panels. It was patented, but the patent was abandoned for commercial reasons.
  In my work as a scientist, I often develop new experimental setups, in various degrees of complexity. Some of them, like a new method I came up with to study the motor system in mice, could be called “an invention”, but it would be only useful for a few other scientists, so it’s being published in scientific journals rather than being patented and commercialised.
- Romain Laine answered on 23 Nov 2020:
  
  Hey, yes, I have invented a microscopy method that allows people to look at many many viruses very quickly and look at their shapes and understand what they’re made of. It is useful for the companies that make vaccines for instance, since they can use this tool to understand how the vaccine works!
- Berengere Digard answered on 24 Nov 2020:
  
  Well, it’s not the most exciting invention, but I have invented a computer task that measures our ability to understand other people’s points of view. It’s not super impressive, but I really needed a task to do that, and there was none that already existed to do what I wanted, so I created it!
- Carissa Wong answered on 26 Nov 2020:
  
  I developed a type of experiment as part of my research project that seems to be very useful in finding out how specific molecules alter the cancer-killing ability of T-cells!

Question: Have you invented any thing?

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