Dorothy Hodgkins

I have to shamelessly admit before seeing her 'Google Doodle' celebrating the scientists 104th birthday yesterday I had no idea who Dorothy Hodgkin was, my knowledge of key female scientists stretched about as far as Marie Curie and Rosalind Franklin. After a bit of reading ad scrolling through various wikipedia articles I discovered that she's the only British women to have won a noble prize in a science category and one of only four women to have won a noble prize in chemistry (the others being Marie Curie, her daughter Irene Joliot-Curie and most recently in 2009 Ada E. Yonath).

Hodgkin studied at Oxford and then went on to do PhD at Cambridge, it is there that she first became interested by the potential of X-ray crystallography to determine the structure of proteins. Her most notable achievement is the discovery of the structure of penicillin in 1945 which she published in 1949 and her analysis and work into the structure of the vitamin B12. On the day of her noble prize award in 1964 the Daily Mail reported 'Oxford Housewife wins Nobel!', a somewhat degrading headline for a pioneering scientist. She held her post as a fellow and tutor in chemistry at Oxford for an impressive 41 years, till 1977. During the 1940s one of her students was Margaret Roberts, the future Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who installed a portrait of Hodgkin in Downing Street in the 1980s.

Hodgkin died in 1994 from a stroke in her home at Warwickshire. Her work on X-ray crystallography became a widely used tool and was critical in later determining the structures of many biological molecules where knowledge of stucture is critical to an understanding of function. Also notably Hodgkin was also one of five 'Women of Achievement' selected for a set of British stamps issued in August 1996 and again in 2010, during its 350th anniversary, the Royal Society celebrates with the publication of 10 stamps of some of its most illustrious members, bestowing Professor Hodgkin wit her second stamp. She was in the company of nine men. 

-Izzie

Brain Awareness Day

The Institute of Psychiatry (IoP) with the support of the Maudsley Charity hosted a Brain Awareness day at the Maudsley research and learning center in Camberwell today. 

The day was made up of a number of activities and stations where you could learn something new about an area of psychiatry or try out new and developing technologies such as racing these toy cars using only the brain power. It was a surreal experience and did vividly remind me a scene in the Matrix (when Neo bends a spoon using only the faux concept of reality), the technology is however nothing to do with the concept of reality but concentration, balancing stress, excitement, motion and relaxation. The experience is altogether immensely satisfying and frustratingly hard to control.

In addition I met a psychiatry student who explained the theory of neuroregeneration to me, where previously I had believed nerve cells couldn't replicate via mitosis I discovered that new neurons can in fact be formed throughout your lifetime, the recipe for the fastest formation of neurons includes exercise, social engagement and a diet high in dark chocolate and blueberries!

-Izzie 

How to Make a Human -Alice Roberts

National Darwin day is an event held every year on the 12th of February globally, celebrating Darwin's birth on the same day in 1809. In central London Richard Dawkins chaired an event where Alice Roberts took on a packed lecture hall of 1,000 to talk about embryology and evolutionary biology; the lecture orientated mainly around the developing embryo and historic nature of the Epigenis theory.

 

Professor Roberts took on this complex and controversial topic with amazing grace and made the subject accessible to everyone in the lecture hall, the majority of whom had no higher education in biology. She gave a brief overview of the history of how our knowledge of embryo development came about and then talked about how an embryo is made. A particularly interesting point came up when she enlightened the audience with the fact that our ears evolved from ancient fish gills and how at early stages in our development they could differentiate into just that (if we were going to be a fish of course).

Roberts also discussed the ethical morality of killing an embryo and whether she thought that it could be viewed as a living thing and why it is important to continually question this.

She proposed the argument -do we save a baby or a dish of 4 week old embryos from a burning building, given the choice? This makes us truly question whether we view an embryo as a human life.

Alice Roberts talk was really very thought provoking and it made me question my own opinion as to whether abortion of an embryo is ethical- I now doubt whether abortion is ethically just. I can say I'm proud to have two X chromosomes in common with such a fantastic biologist.

-Izzie 

Medlink 2013- A worthwhile experience?

Last Christmas I  visited the Medlink conferences at Nottingham University, for any potential medics wondering what the experience offers or anyone with an interest I hope this gives a good overview.

The advertisement for Medlink on the website shows a smiling young person happily clutching a clip board, giving her best 'I love being a doctor' smile and the slogan 'The home of Future Doctors' is branded across the page. I personally think this is an awful way to advertise the experience, the website tries to sell it off as the must have experience for medical school application but the experience is nothing like that so don't be misled. 

Rather than being the home of future doctors Medlink is an experience which can help to show a few of the different sides to medicine and enrich your knowledge. There is bound to be a lot you will already know which is reiterated at you in the talks and if you are already certain medicine is for you and have a good knowledge of the career it may not be suitable for you. 

It's nice to meet other young people going through the same experience and hear about other people's thoughts and opinions but you can't help but feel did I just pay to hear overly enthusiastic people shout 'YOU WILL BE THE NEXT GENERATION OF DOCTORS!' at me? There is a slight feeling of being conned as you receive multiple talks from a man named James (with no medical degree) who shouts at you a bit and tells you to get off your lazy ass and actually do something for your application. At most points off each day someone will be trying to sell you something, guaranteed.

On the other hand there are moments when you'll be brought to the edge of your seat by passionate people from all sorts of medical areas, telling true stories of how they dealt with patients on the verge of death. It is these people that truly show you what the profession has to offer and the change you can make. In addition you receive talks from current medical students who give you a truthful idea of what it's like and talk a little more about the ups and downs of university life. 

The best bits:
-talks from a Helicopter rescue doctor and international aid worker
-meeting new people
-free stuff

The worst bits:
-people selling you the experience
-some talks are boring (but that's part of university life) and the information could easily be found online.

-Izzie

Stem Cells The Miracle of Life and Health- Alleyn's Medical Society

Dr Ali M Ghanem- UCL Research Department of Cell and Developmental Biology

Today Dr Ghanem visited our school to give a talk on stem cell development to the Medical Society. 

Stem Cell: An undifferentiated cell that is capable of giving rise to indefinitely more cells of the same type and from which certain other types of cell arise by differentiation.

Dr Ghanem began by talking about the first stages in the discovery of stem cells, he explained with awe about some of what he to be considered the greatest biologists in history such as Aristotle, who looked at stages of chicken embryo development, and Nicolaas Hartsoeker who invented the screw barrel simple microscope in 1695. He presented the idea that during this time the two opposing theories of stem cell research were developed: Preformation and Epigenisis.

Preformation- A theory popular in the 18th century that all parts of an organism exist completely formed in the germ cell and develop only by increasing in size. 
Epigenisis- The theory that an individual is developed by successive differentiation of an unstructured egg rather than by a simple enlarging of a preformed entity.

In the late 19th century scientists such as Hans Drieson and Hans Spemann confirmed the theory of Epigenisis by experimenting on embryonic stem cells from mice, thus disproving Preformation. 

Following this brief history Dr Ghanem then presented to us the fundamental questions:

-How is cell diversity generated and can we control this differentation?

The possibilities for this fields are huge and present amazing advances in regenerative medicine, with the possibilities of restoring cells destroyed from diseases like Alzheimer's and using stem cells to produce food and solve the global food crisis in countries especially LEDCs, where famine is a key issue.

Dr Ghanem showed us a PubMed citation illustrating just how huge the developments for stem cell research have been in the past 20 years with noble prize winners such as the 'Golden Triad' in 2007 and Sir John Gurdon and Dr Shinya Yamanaka in 2012 all recieving their awards for work on stem cells.

To understand the complexities of this topic Dr Ghanem then showed us the growth of two mice, one without the Pax6 gene, which codes for the developement of the eye. The mouse without this gene naturally had no eyes. Whilst this is simple to understand other genes such as the Sox2 are integrated into a huge number of areas and so cannot be simply described as coding for a single feature. He stated this was what was posing as the barrier to further development for scientists.

He presented this exciting and relatively new area of medicine showing us some of his own research into what 'switches' the coding in a stem cell to differentiate into any certain type of cell, comparing it to a goat in a tree which may choose to climb any one branch. But which branch the goat chooses is what Dr Ghanem has researched, which cell would be 'chosen' by any stem cell. He compared his efforts at 'cracking this code' to the efforts by Jean Francois Champollion to translate Hieroglyphics, which took 3 years. 

Dr Ghanem's insight presented the exciting possibilities of stem cells for regenerative medicine, one day we may be able to simply produce new organs when our own deteriorate or malfunction, a possibility which could herald the turning of an age in medicine.

-Izzie

Periodic Tales -Book Review

Hugh Aldersey Williams- British author,natural sciences at Cambridge, has curated exhibitions at the Victoria and Albert Muesum. b.1959

The writer Hugh Aldersey-Williams book 'Periodic Tales',published in 2011, was described by the Telegraph as 'a paean to the building block of matter'. 

The book takes us on a journey from the earliest days of copper and bronze works in the stone age era, right the way through to 21st century discoveries. In doing so Aldersey-Williams helps to create a sense of excitement and wonder that in years to come we still have a spectrum of knowledge to be gained about the elements.

The book provides an endless array facts on some of the most famous elements and rather than just look at the 'science' edge and statistical facts of each element it explores it's discovery and in doing so helps to develop a sense of character and personality for each element.

The book is great for broadening perspective on how we view the elements and how they play a role in our lives. It's also an easy read so was a great way for me or anyone else to begin reading more into science.

My personal favourite chapter would have to be the element 'Polonium', so named after Marie Curie's homeland (Poland), in this chapter we explore the story of Marie Curie and her contribution to chemistry whilst living in France. She was the first woman to be awarded a Nobel prize, and the only woman to have won a Nobel prize in two fields. In addition she was the first woman to become a Professor at the University of Paris.

Other memorable parts of the book include the American Platinum Craze and the discovery of Phosphorous which Aldersey-Williams himself tries to recreate using his own urine! 

Overall the book is an interesting and easy read, and has an interesting numbers of stories. The only disadvantage is that there is little relation to the AS-level syllabus and the book is close to verging on being a story book, so not suited to those looking for a more intense read, in addition Aldersey-Williams doesn't cover all the elements but only those with the celebrity like fame to be common knowledge for everyone.

-Izzie