University of Bristol to Badminton for the prestigious opening of the Curie Laboratory, formerly L3. In celebration of the opening, we were honoured to welcome two guest speakers to Badminton to tell us about their interests and give us an insight into their current research.
We were first introduced to Dr Zoe Leinhardt who had an impressive résumé of working at Harvard and Cambridge before moving on to Bristol. She shared her current research on extra-solar planets with us and informed us of many weird facts, such as that there are planets called ‘Super Earths’ and some called ‘Hot Jupiters’. We agreed that the actual naming of individual planets was systematic and not that imaginative, but that is probably good, as there are so many you could run out of interesting names! I came to the talk not knowing what an extra-solar planet was and left knowing that they are not in our solar system, they are very diverse and numerous. How planets are formed we still do not know, but I can understand why people could spend their lives trying to model it and search for that answer. Her talk was very engaging and enhanced everyone’s knowledge in many different ways and certainly gave us plenty of food for thought.
After Dr Leinhardt’s talk, we were introduced to Dr Michele Barbour, who talked to us about things much closer to home. Her résumé was equally as impressive as she studied in Oxford and had a PhD from Bristol. Dr Barbour told us that though she had started in Physics, her interests had led her to carry out research in materials and then apply it to oral medicine. So from Physics to Chemistry and then into Biology, she can really be called a scientist! Her interest and passion was evident and very infectious. Her role in trying to stop infections was wonderful, though a bit gruesome in places. Currently, her group are developing a way to extend the release of chlorhexidine (an anti-microbial compound), to reduce infections from dental implants. They are going to patent it soon and she was telling us that it could be used in paint to stop the spread of MRSA in hospitals. The science was really good, but the applications were fantastic and really exciting.
It was quite amazing to find that both speakers graduated with the same degree in Physics, but ended up doing such different things. It was an unforgettable experience; to see research that is happening right now and to have help in how to make life decisions!
Jasmine, Year 10
