Personal statement

Prof Stuart Reid FRSE leads a multidisciplinary team working across medical and astrophysics/quantum research areas. He is Co-director of the Centre for the Cellular Microenvironment (http://glasgow.thecemi.org) and Director of the Extreme Performance in Optical Coatings testbed (www.epoc.scot) at the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (www.nmis.scot). He is co-inventor of “nanokicking”, where nanoscale vibrations are used to persuade stem cells to turn into bone in the lab (ACS Nano 2013, Nature BME 2017). He is in the process of co-founding a company (Nanokick Technologies) to help supply bone graft (the most transplanted tissue after blood) for regenerative medicine. UK Charity, the Sir Bobby Charlton Foundation, is funding the first-in-man study of nanokicked stem cells, planned for 2025/26, with the aim to provide bone graft for patients injured by land mines. The first in vivo study of nanokicking using wearable vibration devices was trialed in partnership with the Scottish Centre for Innovation in Spinal Cord Injury at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.02.12.578222). Reid's lab is also developing and manufacturing some of the most advanced laser mirrors in the world, to enable future gravitational wave detectors to be limited entirely by quantum effects. The team has pioneered the first high-energy ECR (electron cyclotron resonance) ion beam deposition facility, manufacturing the world’s lowest absorption sputtered amorphous silicon (PRL 2018) and highest sp3 content sputtered diamond-like carbon. The EPOC facility is one of the largest ion beam deposition facilities in the world and can coat two optics of 620mm diameter (up to 200kg each) reaching optical absorptions <0.5ppm at 1064 nm in HRs. Reid is also Director and CEO of BRL Laser Damage (www.laserdamage.co.uk) which provides the UK's photonics industry with Laser Induced Damage Threshold (LIDT) tests and pass/fail certification for specified laser powers.