The winners of the 1999 Merville Lay Seminars will be presented with their prizes tonight by President McAleese. The awards, inaugurated in 1997, aim to encourage young scientists to communicate their work "in a way that is understood by the general public".

The awards will be presented to the prizewinners at the O'Reilly Hall in UCD during a programme chaired by RTE's Gay Byrne. Six PhD students - researching topics related to medicine, pharmacology, biochemistry and genetics - will make presentations to a panel of non-science judges, including film director Jim Sheridan, UCD president Dr Art Cosgrove and Irish Times science editor Dick Ahlstrom.

The panel will be chaired by the Labour Party's Liz McManus TD. Inflammatory bowel disease and the role of the immune system in breast cancer are among the subjects to be covered tonight.