Creating inspiring science demos – Fran Scott, 2013

Fran Scott, a science communicator who designs demos for TV and live events, shows us what you can do with some water, a plastic bottle and a secret ingredient.

Fran is a science translator and demonstration developer, drawing on her knowledge to present science in a jargon-free, accessible and accurate way. She runs Great Scott! Productions, a science communication production company that runs bespoke workshops and demos. She writes regularly for National Geographic Kids, The Week Junior and Huffington Post, as well as contributing to numerous science books and kits aimed at kids.

Scott also designs demos for BBC live stage shows, DK books and the Science Museum.  She has designed demos for CBBC’s Absolute Genius with Dick and Dom, was the Engineering judge on Channel 4’s Lego Masters, and an expert on Abandoned Engineering. She is also a pyrotechnician and Science Content Producer at the Royal Institution.

You can follow her work here:

Website: https://www.franscott.co.uk/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Frans_facts
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/franscottpresenter/
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/franscottpresenter

Recorded at Imperial College London and sponsored by the Biochemical Society, you can watch the rest of the Ada Lovelace Day Live 2013 playlist here.

Professor Omowunmi Sadik

Professor Omowunmi “Wunmi” Sadik is a Nigerian chemist and inventor who has developed an “electronic nose” – microelectrode biosensors that can detect trace amounts of organic materials and is used for detecting drugs and explosives. She has also developed a biosensor that can identify the presence of the HIV virus in a matter of minutes rather than the three-to-four days it takes with the ELISHA tests.

Sadik has developed methods for removing toxins such as organochlorine compounds from the environment, and is investigating ways to reclaim metal ions from industrial and environmental waste. Using microbial enzymes, she increased the conversion of highly toxic chromium (VI) to non-toxic chromium (III) from 40% to 98%.

Other research includes examining the whole lifetime impact of nanoparticles used commercially in products such as nano silver-impregnated socks. Silver nanoparticles are believed to have anti-microbial properties, but the consequences of exposure to these particles is poorly understood. Sadik is using conducting polymer membranes to trap or filter silver and other nanoparticles to help study how they behave in the environment and the human body.

Sadik co-founded and is currently president of the Sustainable Nanotechnology Organisation, a non-profit organisation which promotes the development and advancement of sustainable nanotechnology in all parts of the world. She was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2010 and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2012.

You can follow her work here:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/omowunmi-wunmi-sadik-1a8b009

Further reading

• Omowunmi Sadik, Wikipedia
• Omowunmi Sadik, Ph.D., Binghamton University
• Wunmi Sadik, New Jersey Institute of Technology
• Omowunmi Sadik, The History Makers, 10 July 2013
• Omowunmi Sadik, Africa Resource, 3 January 2014
• Meet Omowunmi Sadik, inventor of biosensors that detect bombs, Farida Dawkins, Face2Face Africa, 1 March 2018
• “My Father Was The First Person To Teach Me The Multiplication Tables”, Meet An Innovator – Professor Omowunmi Sadik, Science Communication Hub Nigeria, 8 March 2018
• Omowunmi Sadik, Physics Today, 19 June 2018
• How Omowunmi Sadik Keeps Breaking New Grounds In Scientific Research, Woman.NG, 7 July 2018

Her STEM Story, Prasha Sarwate

Her STEM Story is an ongoing masterclass for women in STEM professions, presented by first-generation immigrant Prasha Dutra, a product development manager with a background in chemical and mechanical engineering. It combines guest interviews and solo episodes, focusing on the personal challenges faced along a career path, to teach aspiring women in STEM what success means and what it takes to achieve it, at work and beyond. Exploring guilt and overwhelm, breaking stereotypes and why women leave STEM careers, it gives us an insight into stories often untold.

Recent episodes include: 

• Richa Bansal, founder and CEO, Pinkcareers and senior advisor corporate strategy, Cistel, on how to pursue career success without feeling inadequate, overwhelmed, or guilty;
• Caitlin Hirschler, a materials engineer from Georgia Tech who currently working for the world’s largest wire and cable manufacturer Prysmian Group; and,
• Romila Rout, an electrical engineer from UT Dallas, who works in the semiconductor industry.

You can follow her work here:

Twitter: @prashadutra
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/prashasarwate
Website: prashadutra.com

Professor Gerty Cori

Gerty Theresa Cori was a biochemist who in 1941 became the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for her co-discovery of the glucose-lactate metabolic pathway, work she carried out with her husband, Carl.

Cori was born in Prague in 1896, now in the Czech Republic but then part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. In 1922, due to the increasing antisemitism in Europe, she and her husband fled to the USA.

In 1929, the pair described how lactate travels from the muscles, is processed by the liver into glucose, and transported back to the muscles to become lactate again, a metabolic pathway now known as the Cori Cycle. It is an important biological process that enables the human body to store energy (although it can also lead to muscle cramps!).

Cori made several other groundbreaking contributions to medical science, such as identifying glucose 1-phosphate (also known as the Cori ester) which enables the breakdown of glycogen, after studying compounds in frog muscles. Her work led to improved treatments for diabetes, and greater understanding of glycogen storage disease, for which she identified four enzymatic defects. During this work she became the first person to show that a defect in an enzyme can cause genetic disease in humans.  

Despite her enormous contributions to the field, Cori was unable to get the same recognition as her husband, or to develop a similar career, despite the fact that they collaborated on most of their research. She was frequently paid a fraction of what her husband earnt, and was warned that she was damaging his career. While it took her 13 years longer than her husband, she eventually received the title of professor a matter of months before she was awarded the Nobel Prize.

Aside from her Nobel Prize win, she continued to receive other awards and recognition, such as becoming a Fellow of the American Arts and Sciences in 1953, and being appointed to the board of the National Science Foundation by President Harry S Truman in 1950.

Further reading

• Gerty Cori, Wikipedia
• Gerty Cori, Women Who Changed Science, Nobel Prize
• “Glories of the Human Mind” by Gerty Cori, Dr. Gerty T. Cori, Women In Health Sciences, 1953
• Cori: The Story Behind the Scientist and Supercomputer, Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, 30 March 2017
• Biochemist and Nobel Prize Recipient Gerty Radnitz Cori (1896-1957): Glycogen to Glucose, and Back Again, Dale Debakcsy, Women You Should Know, 21 March 2018
• STEMinists: Gerty Cori (podcast), Liz Kaplan and Jenny Kaplan, Encyclopedia Womannica, 9 September 2019
• Meet Gerty Cori, the Nobel-winning biochemist who uncovered how the body stores and consumes sugars, Maggie Chen, Massive Science, 1 June 2021
• The First Woman to Win a Nobel Prize for Medicine Revolutionized Biochemistry, Katherine, A Mighty Girl, 15 August 2021

Talk Nerdy With Me, Cara Santa Maria

Join Cara Santa Maria as she talks nerdy “with interesting people about interesting topics”. The subject range is vast, and recent episodes include: 

• author Michelle Nijhuis discussing her book Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction;
• Dr Natalia Pasternak, Brazilian microbiologist, skeptic, and popularizer of science, who talks about her work fighting pseudoscience in Brazil;
• computational neuroscientist Dr Grace Lindsay, who talks about her book, Models of the Mind: How Physics, Engineering, and Mathematics Have Shaped Our Understanding of the Brain, and efforts to quantify mental processes like sensation, perception, and memory; and,
• Dr Narissa Bax, the marine and coastal program coordinator for the South Atlantic Environmental Research Group in the Falkland Islands, who talks about conservation and ecology, especially the work she is doing to better understand and preserve deep-sea corals in the Antarctic region.

You can follow her work here:

Twitter: @CaraSantaMaria and @TalkNerdy_Pod
Facebook: facebook.com/ScienceCara
Website: www.carasantamaria.com