 The Open University is best known for its distance learning. What surprises people is the amount of research we do here and the relevance to the modern world. For the last 20 years or so I've been working on the Rosetta mission here at the Open University. For me and the team, the 12th of November 2014 was an incredible day. It was the day the Philai lander finally landed on the comet. After its 10-year 4 billion mile journey around our solar system. On board within the Philai lander was the Ptolemy instrument that I and my colleagues at the Open University and Rutherford Airport laboratories designed and built. Ptolemy is a miniature research laboratory that sniffs and detects the chemical and isotopic make-up of the comet. Missions like Rosetta really push the boundaries of science and engineering and for me the really exciting thing is that space technology can help save and change lives here on earth. Here in the lab we're developing pioneering new ways to detect cancer in humans using smell. Since 2004 we've known that dogs can sniff cancer and what we've done is effectively build a robot dog that can work 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. One of the application areas we're exploring is prostate cancer, one of the most deadly cancers for men in the UK. Currently 80,000 men per year are incorrectly told that they may have prostate cancer based on the PSA blood test. Our technology should help reduce the number of false positives and help save the NHS over 50 million pounds per year. Another application of our research is this box. It contains several instruments which will measure and sniff the air quality inside British submarines. The atmosphere analyser allows the crew to measure the atmosphere continuously so they can react quickly to the build-up of any dangerous gases. Our technology will make the environment much safer for hundreds of British sailors. This box is a vital piece of safety equipment. It's smaller, better, cheaper, and most importantly it's British. On a more day-to-day basis you might like to think about our work the next time you take a shower or use expensive perfume or use a deodorant. Our sniffing robots are being used by perfumers in Paris to add to the information they get from human panels to help them optimise their perfumes. And so the expertise and the know-how we've developed to analyse the far-away comet can be applied back here on Earth for important things like hospitals, submarines and even perfumes. That diversity is the important and fantastic thing about research here at the Open University.