Dorothy Hodgkin by SATRO guest blogger John Faulkner

Many people will have been prescribed antibiotics to cure a nasty infection or even to save their lives. Behind the development of modern medicines like these is Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin who remains the only British woman to win a Nobel Prize in science. She won the 1964 chemistry prize outright for her techniques to find the atomic structure of biochemicals. Among her discoveries were the molecular structures of Penicillin (1945), Vitamin B12 (1955) and Insulin (1969). Knowing biochemical structure allows chemists to understand how drugs work. Microscopes cannot magnify to atomic level so the technique that she used was X-Ray Crystallography.

If you shine a laser through a fine lattice onto a screen, instead of a blurred shadow, a sharp diffraction pattern can be formed. It is possible to find out the shape of the lattice by using advanced mathematics along with the diffraction pattern measurements and the laser frequency. More energetic X-Ray's beamed through solids can create a diffraction pattern in a similar way. By focussing X-Rays through a crystal's lattice of atoms to get a diffraction pattern the molecular structure can be calculated. This was virtually impossible for the molecules that build living organisms but Dorothy Hodgkin was able to grow, mount the crystals and reveal their 3D atomic structure. With the relatively primitive equipment of the time, finding each structure took many years of science and engineering effort.

She was a mother with three children and worked as a scientist well into her eighties. Besides her Nobel Prize, Awards and Fellowships in 1965 she received the Order of Merit, given personally by the Queen and limited to only 24 living British Commonwealth citizens. Transforming the lives of the sick Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin was the first woman to be conferred this honour since Florence Nightingale.

- John Faulkner

SATRO COMPANY CHALLENGE - SIEMENS "NEXT BIG THING"

Today was the final judging for the KS4 Siemens Company Challenge. Taking place at Siemens headquarters in Frimley, the judging comes after 4 months of very hard work! Teams from ACS Cobham School, Charterhouse School, The Connaught School, Gordon's School, LVS Ascot, Reading Girls School and Tomlinscote School attended the Kick-off event back in January, when they were given briefs for their projects. The teams were given the opportunity to choose from a list of 5 categories, on which they would base their project and 'invent' a product. The categories were:

• Improving a patients experience when being scanned to identify potential health problems.
• A way of improving healthcare for elderly patients.
• The use of technology, internet and mobile devices to ensure that people living in a remote part of the world have access to the same level of healthcare as those who live in cities and major towns.
• Using products and technology that is available for us, improving the immediate follow up and response to save more lives after a possible natural disaster (tsunamis, floods).
• Thinking of patients, doctors and engineers, a way to control an infectious disease (e.g. Ebola) and reducing it's impact. 

Over the past 4 months, each group of students has been working with a staff member from Siemens who has been acting as a mentor to help guide the students in their project. The students will have learnt about marketing and product development, and what it is like to work in the technology/engineering industry - directly from those who do. This experience will have provided the students with a great item to include in university applications or interviews. 

Today the students have been presenting their projects to a team of judges. The teams were working towards 3 winning categories, "Best Presentation", "Innovative Research & Development", and "Overall Winner". Each team lead a very strong presentation and had worked very hard in the months running up to today's judging. The winners of each category were as follows; Overall Winners - Reading Girls School, Best Presentation - Tomlinscote School and Innovative Research & Development -  Gordon's School.