Science on the Hill

Last year, we attend several science lectures at the University of Warwick. Due to Covid19, these lectures have now moved online, and many our Lower Sixth pupils have watched them from the comfort of their own homes.

Lower Sixth student, Maya said ‘The omnipresence of Covid-19 has enshrouded our lives from the infection of misinformation to the biomedical triumphs of vaccines. On the 10th of November, Warwick university held their annual “Science on the Hill” event centred on “Covid-19: Transmission and Testing” virtually.

This was led by Professor Lawrence Young who introduced how Covid-19 was transmitted from animals to humans and likened the virus to a zombie: not quite dead but not quite alive. He highlighted the biomedical advances of repurposing drugs for the treatment of the virus as well as using antibodies from infected patients and subsequently the development of artificial antibodies. Following Professor Lawrence was Dr Nicole Robb who discussed her latest work on developing a 5-minute test by using imaging and AI for detecting and testing for the viral infection.

Dr Chrystala Constantinidou discussed how she could track the movement of the virus through a care home outbreak by sequencing the virus and detecting the miniscule changes in its genetic code. This showcase led by Warwick University was truly fascinating to be able to understand how humanity has been able to gather copious amounts of information in a short amount of time and apply it to pervade something invisible to the human eye’.

We look forward to the rest of the lectures in the Science on the Hill series by the University of Warwick.