Biochemistry at 'Back From The Dead'
Volunteers from the Biochemistry Department have just completed a highly successful series of hands on events at the Museum of the History of Science as part of their "Back from the Dead" education program. The Back from the Dead exhibition commemorates the 75th anniversary of the first human trials of penicillin and aims to demystify some of the science behind antibiotics (http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/backfromthedead/)
Left: Helena Taberman making crystals with A-level students. Right: Michael Jacobsen helps with the construction of crystal lattices at the Yellow Magic event on 18th March. Photographs courtesy of the Museum of History of Science
Over 5 days, 29 members of the Department were involved in hands-on activities explaining how biochemistry contributes to our understanding of antibiotics. GCSE and A-level students made lysozyme crystals and learnt about how we can go from crystals to structure, whilst younger scientists enjoyed making their own crystal lattices using jelly babies and cocktail sticks. Our team also highlighted the importance of genomics in research as they guided students through a DNA extraction.
Many thanks to our team members Kirstin Anderson, Diane Barret, Carla Bramble, Jonathan Brooks-Bartlett, Alessandro Caputo, Michael Jacobsen, Aino Jarvelin, Elizabeth Hamilton, Johan Hill, Francoise Howe, Peter Judge, Anthony Keeble, Ilias Kounatidis, Angelica Lindsey-Clark, Alberto Merchante Gonzalez, Olga Nerusheva, Tom Newport, Katie Nichols, Delia O'Rourke, Maria Ordovas-Montanes, Shanlin Rao, Kathryn Scott, Lana Strmecki, Helena Taberman, Stephan Uphoff, Steven Walsh, Beth Watts, Sina Wittmann and Tianyi Zhang for sharing their expertise with enthusiasm and energy.
Elspeth Garman
22nd March 2017
