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I live in Edinburgh with my wife and two lovely daughters (2yr old and 4 yr old) who like to keep me very busy. I am a scientist with an interest in materials that are crystals and especially those that are pharmaceuticals (medicines). At work I try to find out way to let us produce crystals types that we want and also to crystallize brand new things too.

My current work uses high pressure conditions (up to ~100,000 times atmospheric pressure!) to try and produce new crystal forms of materials.  Particularly for pharmaceutical materials, the discovery of new crystal forms is important because they might be better for patients than the current forms we use already.

When we make some new crystals at high pressure, we use laser light, neutron particles, and xrays to figure out what the crystal form is and how it has changed.

The experiments can be very difficult sometimes and we cant do them using the equipment in our own lab and so we often go to big labs with special equipment and talented people to help us.  This allows us to look at tiny crystals and powders using xrays, laser light and neutrons