Two Penarth residents have been recognised in the Queen's New Year Honours List 2021.

Professor Anthony Campbell has been named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his services to biochemistry.

Anthony, who is also chairman of Penarth Bridge Club, said he was "very pleased to be recognised for science".

"I was thrilled to get this," he said.

"It was quite a surprise and nice for Penarth to have this sort of thing."

Anthony says it was difficult not being able to tell anyone the news until now.

"We were just about to leave for Pembrokeshire but I had a quick look at my emails. I saw one that said New Year's Honours and I thought it must be spam," he said.

"But of course, I opened it and there was a letter attached from 10 Downing Street and I realised it was genuine.

"You're told it's absolutely confidential, you can't say anything even to your family.

"We had a Zoom call with my children last night and told them and they've been Facebook-ing non-stop ever since."

Anthony now resides in Penarth, after coming to Cardiff in 1970 as a lecturer in medical biochemistry at the then Welsh National School of Medicine.

"When I started working, we were the first department," said Anthony.

"I helped set up the department of medical biochemistry, which is the biggest department in the hospital. We do about two million clinical tests a year.

Much of Anthony's work has focused on bioluminescence, studying organisms that produce light.

One invention he developed with colleagues came from an idea Anthony had about a bioluminescent jellyfish.

"The technology is now used in several hundred clinical tests per year," said Anthony.

"It's one of the most successful Welsh inventions and brought in quite a bit of money to the medical school.

"I never expected to make any money as a scientist, so that was why we decided to find a base to set up a science centre educating the public and inspiring school children, which was one of my dreams," he said.

The Darwin Centre was set up in 1993 in Pembrokeshire. It has since raised over £1 million of funding and influenced about 40,000 children.

"Many of those children have chosen science or engineering as a career, and I'm thrilled about that," said Anthony.

"I still have hopes to do something in Penarth. It's always seemed to me that the beach there is a fantastic resource.

"We use the Kymin and we got some microscopes to use to examine samples from the beach with children.

"They were amazed by the barnacles on the pier, which they didn't realise opened up under water.

"I often take children glow worm hunting, there's quite a big colony at Cosmeston. July is the month to see them."

Anthony's natural curiosity and passion for helping people understand science has also led him to create the scientific journal with his wife, called The Young Darwinian , where students can publish their projects, and also to write scientific mystery novel 'Mirror Image' during lockdown.

"I feel very strongly that scientists have a responsibly to explain why they do what they do to the general public, particularly if you're in the public sector," said Anthony.

"It is also a lot of fun. When you're passionate about something you never give it up.

"When I started working on bioluminescence at the medical school, they said 'what's going on here?'

"They said 'we brought him in from Cambridge to do medical research and he's going off at night looking for animals that glow in the dark. What on earth has that got to do with medicine?'

"But we changed their minds in the end with these tests. Another technology we developed a way of putting DNA from other animals into human cells.

"Then the cells glow in the dark so you can see chemical reactions happening in the cell – it's called chemiluminescence.

"My boss, supervisor from Cambridge, said I had to patent it, and I remember them asking how to spell chemiluminescence!

"It's led to amazing breakthroughs in biomedical research and the drug companies use some of what I developed.

"It was a big surprise, but to me it's a lovely example of how curiosity unpredictably leads to medical breakthroughs," he said.

Another Penarth-based figure on the New Year's Honour list is Craig Stephenson, who has been named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for his services to parliament and equality.