GENETICIST, cell biologist, Nobel Prize winner and president of the Royal Society Sir Paul Nurse was in West Somerset on Tuesday to officially open a new £500,000 design and assembly facility at Roadwater-based Singer Instruments.

The company manufactures and exports world-leading robotics equipment for yeast and cancer research and Sir Paul is the sometime director general of Cancer Research UK and the chief executive of the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation.

As one of the world's best-known and influential scientists it was a real coup for the Exmoor-based company to secure a personal visit from Sir Paul to open the firm's new extension.

Harry Singer, managing director of Singer Instruments, said: "This new building is a far cry from the disused joinery workshop in which my father started in Roadwater in 1980.

"Since then we have invested heavily in new buildings, design facilities and a state-of-the-art machine shop.

"This new building is part of our planned expansion and I believe that hi-tech, high added-value specialist manufacturing businesses like ours are ideal for locations like Exmoor."

Singer Instruments exports to more than 60 countries and employs 20 local people.

Among the sixty invited guests to the grand opening were the master and wardens of the Worshipful Company of Scientific Instrument Makers of the City of London, Nigel Stone the chief executive of Exmoor National Park Authority, Sheila Wheeler the chief executive of Somerset County Council, Nick Swann the principal of the West Somerset Community College, architect Louise Crossman, as well as customers, suppliers and friends.

Photo: Steve Guscott