Unsung heroes who help science's wild ideas take flight

Without lab staff, the atom would not have been split. Harriet Swain celebrates the ingenuity of technicians

John Rowden peers through a window into the dull red heat of the raging furnace. Bristol University's scientific glass-blower trains a flame on two glass discs inside. Using a long metal rod, he expertly shapes the molten material to form an entry point into the delicate envelope he is creating. It is an ambitious task that only the most skilled might attempt. But then Rowden's goal is ambitious.

Working to a design devised by Bristol physicists, he is making a prototype field emission display, a lightweight sealed vacuum unit used to demonstrate a promising new technology. If successful, it could spawn super-thin visual displays for everything from television sets to military computers. David Cherns, professor of physics and head of the Bristol team, knows that smooth progress relies on Rowden's input. "We couldn't do this without his experience," he says. "We design in collaboration."

There are about ,000 university technicians in the UK, individuals whose ingenuity and skills are essential to both research and teaching. They take academics' ideas and make them solid. Without them, the human genome would never have been sequenced and the atom would have been left unsplit.

Three years ago, Dick Holder retired after half a century as a technician in Cambridge University's zoology department. One of his most remarkable creations was a giant mechanical moth whose gently flapping wings revealed some of the last secrets of insect flight aerodynamics. The initial concept came from Charlie Ellington, professor of animal mechanics, who wanted a scaled-up moth to stir up smoke inside a wind tunnel. Holder worked to turn that dream into reality. "We chatted and threw things back and forth," he recalls. "But it was tricky." The curved metal-framed wings had to flex, move up and down at a particular rate and possess a precise angle of attack to replicate the real insect's movements. It made the cover of Nature and headlines around the world.

One of Duncan Ross's creations also made headlines, but for the wrong reason. Ross, chief technician at Leicester University, had a key role in the construction of the ill-fated Mars probe Beagle 2 . He was responsible for the design, manufacture and quality assurance of the electronic systems in the lander's arm designed to search the Martian terrain for signs of life. This involved impressive feats of problem solving, including finding a way to keep a key instrument warm in temperatures as low as minus 110C.

There was no room for a heater. So Ross converted the printed circuit board itself into a heater by incorporating a thin resistive layer within its structure. "We were extremely proud of what we achieved in the time and within the budget available," he says.

Like Rowden and Holder before he retired, Ross loves his work. "It is very satisfying," he says. "There is a lot of creativity and responsibility.

Scientists have science they want to achieve, engineers come up with the concepts and we have to realise those ideas. It is a team effort." Mark Sims, research fellow at Leicester University's Space Research Centre and Beagle 2 project manager, admits: "The technical staff are the glue that holds the system together. They are the people who, in reality, put the thing together rather than people like myself."

The academic can, in contrast, be the one who takes things apart, often in the most ham-fisted fashion. J. J. Thomson, discoverer of the electron, was reputed to be so clumsy that he dare not touch the equipment involved in his historic experiments. Holder recalls delivering a delicate Perspex construction to a scientist studying nerve cells. A few hours later she returned holding a blackened lump of melted plastic that she had accidentally fried in a dish while she nipped out to pick up a prescription.

Terri Westlake, one of three scientific glass-blowing technicians at Oxford University, observes that many academics have dismal practical skills. In her 15 years at Oxford, she says she has seen a dramatic fall in understanding and competence because many have not worked with equipment at school. Meanwhile, the number of technicians is set to plummet, according to Mike Robinson, national officer for education at the manufacturing, technical and skills union Amicus. He warns that the decline in popularity of maths and science at A level has created a dangerous demographic profile, with most technicians set to retire in the next ten years. Many universities have cut back, with technicians expected to diversify as lab teams are merged and off-the-shelf solutions replace bespoke apparatus.

Yet a technician's expertise can help generate funds. At Southampton University, James Chitty, manager of the engineering, design and manufacturing centre, made important contributions to the creation of the 3D Chirp profiler. This bright yellow fibreglass raft, the size of a large dining table, can probe below the seabed to reveal geological anomalies, buried cables and even archaeological remains. The technology has been licensed and looks set to make the university cash. The original idea was hatched by Jonathan Bull, reader in marine geophysics, to locate active geological faults. Chitty's team helped refine the design, locate materials and put the profiler together. Bull is grateful. "They enabled us to make our ideas a reality."

Technicians' ability to think laterally also saves precious research funds.

Holder recalls a colleague rescuing a scientist studying octopi. He needed a cheap way to return a submerged instrument package to the surface after it had gathered data. The technician's elegant solution was to use a Polo mint to attach the package and a float to the rest of the device. When the mint dissolved, the ensemble simply floated back to the surface.