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2024 School Captain Chanakya Seetharam relished learning about German culture, benefitted greatly from his deep dive into the language, and met many  “incredible people” – including an Old Elizabethan – during a three-week trip as a Dresden Scholar.

An A-level German student, Chanakya was nominated by the School for one of the prestigious scholarships offered by the Dresden Trust, a British charity that fosters relations with the eastern German city of Dresden. One of the greatest centres of European culture, Dresden, which is in Saxony, was destroyed by Allied bombing in February 1945.

His visit was hosted by a German family and included lessons at the St Benno-Gymnasium (a ‘Gymnasium’ is roughly equivalent to a grammar school), as well as plenty of time to explore.

In his report on his visit, Chanakya said: “My time in Dresden was simply unforgettable. I have learned so much about German culture, the German language, and have met such incredible people. Most of all, however, my experience is a testament to the profound benefits of language-learning.”

Like QE, the St Benno-Gymnasium, has a long and proud history, having been established in 1709 to educate boy choristers (‘Kapellknaben’).

“Each school year begins with a church service in the Kreuzkirche (Church of the Holy Cross) at which new students receive a model fish representing the school logo (the ichthys) to symbolise their acceptance into the school community. This year, the Year 6s were kind enough to make extra ‘Benno fish’ to be presented to the school’s exchange students. I certainly felt incredibly welcome being presented my fish at the end of a service that had otherwise been full of lovely German choral music,” he wrote.

“I also took great pleasure in noticing smaller differences between QE and school in Germany. The lack of uniform was perhaps the most immediately noticeable, but equally surprising was the discovery that chalk boards remain a common feature of classrooms across the country.

“Far from the stereotype that Germans are cold, all the students and teachers I met were incredibly lovely.”

Similarly, he greatly appreciated his host family’s “incredible warmness and openness to conversation”. He was able to talk to them about “the legacy of the GDR [German Democratic Republic – the communist east German state], life in modern Germany, and – much to my delight – German politics in the weeks leading up to Saxony’s state elections”.

Chanakya also enjoyed the reminder of home brought by 2024 QE leaver Arjun Patel. Arjun was in Dresden on his swansong tour with the National Children’s Choir of Great Britain. Chanakya attended one of his concerts at the ‘Auferstehungskirche’ (‘Church of the Resurrection’) and spoke to him afterwards.

During his free hours, he enjoyed exploring the city, especially its “gorgeous baroque church – the ‘Frauenkirche’ (‘Church of Our Lady’)”. This was rebuilt following its destruction in World War II, with the support of benefactors including the Dresden Trust

“A beautiful artistic rendering of the Old City is to be found in a painting by the Venetian artist Bernardo Bellotto often called the Canaletto-Blick,” he wrote. “I was lucky enough to see the painting up close when visiting the city’s Alte Meister (Old Masters) gallery.”

He concluded: “Without my German lessons at QE, I simply would not have been able to engage with another culture and build relationships in the way that I have. The lesson? Keep at it with the adjective endings!”

• To read Chanakya’s report in full, click here.

Old Elizabethan Sir Demis Hassabis has been awarded the Nobel prize for chemistry, jointly with a colleague at the AI company he founded and with an American scientist.

Demis (OE 1988–1990), who is the co-founder and CEO of AI company Google DeepMind, receives half of the prize with his DeepMind colleague, Dr John Jumper, for their work on predicting complex protein structures. The other half of the prize awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences goes to Professor David Baker, from the University of Washington, for his work on protein design.

In their statement, the prize committee wrote: “Demis Hassabis and John Jumper have developed an AI model to solve a 50-year-old problem: predicting proteins’ complex structures. These discoveries hold enormous potential.

“Since the 1970s, researchers had tried to predict protein structures from amino acid sequences, but this was notoriously difficult. However, four years ago, there was a stunning breakthrough.

“In 2020, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper presented an AI model called AlphaFold2. With its help, they have been able to predict the structure of virtually all the 200 million proteins that researchers have identified.”

The Nobel Committee emphasised the global impact of AlphaFold2. It has been accessed by more than two million researchers from 190 countries. Examples of its many applications include: helping scientists to understand better antibiotic resistance; and creating images of enzymes that can decompose plastic.

Reacting to the news, Demis, 48, said: “It’s totally surreal to be honest, quite overwhelming.”

He explained the “funny sequence” through which he actually heard the news that he was a Nobel laureate. Since the committee did not apparently have a telephone number for him, they had reached him through a Teams call to his wife, who was working on her laptop at the time. After at first ignoring it, she answered it at around the third or fourth call. The caller then requested to be put in touch with Demis, whom they asked for Dr Jumper’s number.

Demis thanked his colleagues, including Dr Jumper, adding: “David Baker we’ve got to know in the last few years, and he’s done some absolutely seminal work in protein design. So it’s really, really exciting to receive the prize with both of them.”

The Nobel prize committee praised the work of Professor Baker, which he began in 2003, saying that he had “succeeded with the almost impossible feat of building entirely new kinds of proteins.”

The committee’s statement concluded: “Life could not exist without proteins. That we can now predict protein structures and design our own proteins confers the greatest benefit to humankind.”

The illustration above shows a selection of protein structures determined using AlfaFold2 (©Terezia Kovalova/The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences).

• The scientific background to the 2024 Nobel prize for chemistry can be read here. A popular-level introduction is available here.

The 2024 School Play delved deep into the tumultuous events that marked the decades-long run-up to Indian independence in 1947.

Lions and Tigers explored not only the conflict between the eponymous British lions and Bengal tigers, but also between factions of the independence movement, including those, led by Gandhi, who espoused civil disobedience, and those favouring violent insurrection.

Written by British playwright Tanika Gupta, the play combines the story of her great-uncle, Dinesh Gupta, a 19-year-old Indian freedom-fighter hanged by the British in 1931 after shooting dead the Inspector-General of Prisons, with the broader history of the fight for Indian independence.

Congratulating all involved, Headmaster Neil Enright said: “The production did not shy away from the pain, violence and brutality of the period, but dealt with the complex issues sensitively and conveyed the emotional depth of the characters. It was impactful and, at times, shocking, yet done with a gravitas and maturity that belied the age of some of the young performers.”

Lions and Tigers was first performed in 2017 at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in Southwark, coinciding with the 70^th anniversary of Indian independence.

QE’s production involved 15 boys in the principal roles, supported by an acting ensemble playing other parts.

Two very well attended performances were held after school on consecutive days in the Main School Hall, while Year 9 attended a final dress rehearsal.

“The play was notable for a host of powerful and impassioned performances,” said Mr Enright. “The whole cast, including the ensemble, did a brilliant job, with Akshay Shah setting the tone with an amazing performance as the central character, Dinesh Gupta.”

Other notable mentions should go to Daniel Kollo as Charles Tegart, Nittant Moudgil as Mahatma Gandhi, Soham Sapra as Subhash Bose, and Aahan Shah as Jyotish Gupta, he added.

“It was nice to see a good number of other pupils attending, whether aspiring actors, older students who have been part of the QE drama community, or those who were just there to support friends.”

The play was directed by RM Drama’s Gavin Molloy. Musical support was provided by QE’s Indian Music Ensemble.

Assistant Head (Pupil Involvement) Crispin Bonham-Carter lauded the “immersive and visually interesting staging”, which was done ‘in the round’, as well as “the clever and effective use of newsreel footage and recorded voice-overs”. One example of the latter was that the actors had voiced in advance the words to the letters their characters had sent (as set out in the script): these were then played through the sound system while the boys acted out what had been written.

• Click on the thumbnails below to view the images.

Both QE teams have qualified for the final, global round of the World Economics Cup – with ‘Team 2’ coming first and  ‘Team 1’ second in Europe.

Their success in the continental round and, before that, at the national round, comes in the first year that QE boys have entered the competition.

The boys, now in Year 13, found the opportunity themselves and entered on their own initiative, with the School then supporting them by negotiating down the cost of entry, given QE’s status as a state school.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “The results, announced recently, reveal the quite remarkable success of our young economists: this is a huge achievement. I offer my congratulations to both teams. They should be especially commended on their dedication: with their continental round taking place during the summer holidays, the boys had to collaborate digitally, and that involved lots of Zoom calls, one reportedly going on until 2am!”

“We wish them all the best for the final round, which takes place in a few days’ time.”

The boys’ successful ‘cup run’ began last term when the two teams both won gold awards in the UK round. In fact all 12 boys achieved ‘highest distinction’ individual awards, while four team members, Avi Juneja, Saim Khan, Rohan Varia and Uday Dash, were also national ‘top 10 scorers’.

In each round of the competition, entrants have to tackle three modules, entitled Fundamentals, Deep Comprehension and Thinking & Innovation. Teams from 47 countries competed in this year’s World Economics Cup. There were five continental rounds, including the European one.

Modules 1 and 2 each have around 100 questions that every person on the team has to answer. The team score was the aggregated average – which meant there could be no ‘weak links’ among the six-strong teams.

The deep comprehension round also introduces case studies, alongside data and university-style lectures, to test how participants understand, interpret and analyse new information.

Team 2’s Saim Khan said: “The deep-thinking segment gave me a new appreciation for the depth of consideration that must be given from all angles when it comes to economic policy-making and implementing.”

Module 3 is fully collaborative and involves delivering a 15-minute video presentation, identifying problems and solutions based upon a brief. The brief is the same for all teams, but only released the day before the submission deadline – so competitors have no more than 24 hours to respond. In the continental round, the module revolved around a healthcare company that planned to introduce AI and robots into the workforce.

For Andreas Angelopoulos, of Team 2, this was a highlight: “I particularly enjoyed collaborating with my teammates on our solution to the Thinking & Innovation portion of the European round, in which we proposed a framework that ‘MediTech Innovations’ could use to implement AI into the workforce ecosystem.”

For his part, Team 1 member Ishtarth Katageri relished the sheer challenge of this module: “Collaborating with my team mates when we had a day to respond was difficult, especially with some team members in different countries at the time.”

Team 2’s Uday Dash reflected on the event so far: “Being able to refine my problem-solving skills in the context of an international economics competition is a unique thrill that I am incredibly appreciative of!”

And Uday’s teammate, Zaki Mustafa, expressed a similar view: “The competition has been a great opportunity to apply our economics knowledge practically, in areas such as ‘fintech’ and cryptocurrency mining. I’m really proud to have reached the finals with a great team.”

Tejas Bansal added: “Participating in the World Economics Cup has been an amazing experience for us – coming first in the European round was a huge achievement, and I found the presentation part especially rewarding. We look forward to the final round!”

Team 1
Kush Mandan
Avi Juneja
Shrey Tater
Hari Kumarappan
Shreyaas Sandeep
Ishtarth Katageri

Team 2
Saim Khan
Rohan Varia
Uday Dash
Zaki Mustafa
Andreas Angelopoulos
Tejas Bansal

• Most of the QE competitors are pictured above, with members of both teams at the top, then Team 2, then Team 1.

Ninety-five Year 10 boys headed off to Aberdovey for a long weekend of outdoor activities and team-building on the Welsh coast.

After the successful inaugural trip last year, the 2024 cohort again enjoyed activities that required them to learn new skills and, in many cases, to pluck up a little courage. This year, alongside the canoeing, climbing, hiking and shimmying along a rope above water, they could also practise abseiling and making a fire.

A further change from 2023’s dual trips was that the whole group went together, making the long coach journey on the same weekend.

QE Flourish tutor Celia Wallace, who led the boys and a team of eight staff, said: “It was a great weekend: the boys returned tired but exhilarated, with fresh skills learned, a few fears faced and overcome, new friendships forged, and with existing friendships deepened.”

“Through the Flourish programme, we are committed to offering our students a wide range of extra-curricular opportunities,” Dr Wallace added. “Trips such as this develop the boys not only as individuals, but in their capacity for helping one another and working as a team.”

After a journey broken by a 30-minute stop at services, the boys eventually arrived at the Outward Bound centre in Aberdovey (Aberdyfi) in Snowdonia National Park, where they were to sleep in dormitories.

Several of the participants spoke about their experience after it was all over. Krish Deebak and Parth Jain both welcomed being taken out of their ‘comfort zone’ through activities such as rock-climbing and gorge-scrambling. Tanush Madadi said: “The fact that we managed to do such a range of activities in such a short span of time was really an amazing thing.”

It was, said several, fun to try out new activities, with Namish Thakur commenting that “it was also a great way to learn new things about myself, like the fact that I’m somehow pretty good at dragging myself across a rope”.

Many of the boys readily appreciated that the benefits extended well beyond the acquisition of new physical skills. Henry Greene learned “important life lessons”, such as skills in “communication and leadership”; Alex Wang found that the trip “helped build up my confidence and leadership,”; Sriram Muthukumaran said: “It was a great opportunity to get to know others in our year that we may not be so familiar with.”

They also enjoyed the chance to do it all in a picturesque location. Danyal Rahim said: “I think my highlight of the trip would be any time we went to the beach, as it was such a beautiful landscape.”

Aryan Afghan reflected widely on the weekend. He liked the “really nice” food; the clean dormitories with “ample room” and the “great attitude” of the instructors. He thanked Dr Wallace and her team, even endorsing their decision to remove boys’ phones for the weekend. “A great idea – many of us felt a lot happier and more awake without them, and some of us didn’t want to use them on the way back because we learnt from Aberdovey that we, in fact, don’t need to be stuck to a screen all the time to have fun and enjoy ourselves.”

This was, as Suhaan Panjwani said, a time for “making many memories”, or, as Aaryav Sharma commented, summing it all up: “It was incredible.”

• To view the images below, click on the thumbnails.

Year 13 Geography and English Literature students joined forces on a trip to see John Steinbeck’s Depression-era novel, The Grapes of Wrath, at the National Theatre.

The 1939 novel tells the story of a tenant-farmer family from Oklahoma who struggle to survive during the Dust Bowl, a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged agriculture in the American prairies during the 1930s.

The book is a set text for the English A-level students, while for the geographers, the story illustrates the inter-relational nature of phenomena such as drought & desertification, mass migration and food security.

Head of English Robert Hyland said: “The Grapes of Wrath is, among other things, an environmental and ecological novel. Teaming up with the Geography department to run this trip was a great way of highlighting how seemingly disparate subjects like English and Geography can shed light on the climate crisis which affects us all.”

He added that it is helpful for English Literature students to see a performance of a novel at the start of their study of it, since it helps them understand the characters and narrative.

Deputy Head (Academic) and Geography teacher Anne Macdonald said: “The novel addresses significant geographical themes linked to people’s relationship with the environment, mass migration caused by climate change and environmental degradation, and the shattered dream of a better life experienced by migrants searching for a new home. While set in 1930s America, its themes are relevant to the current world on the brink of mass migration caused by climate change.”

The Grapes of Wrath recounts the Joad family’s journey west to California in a dilapidated lorry as they pursue a better life. It ends with the story’s protagonist, Tom Joad, going into hiding after killing a policeman who murdered his friend for organising a strike, and with the family’s eldest daughter, Rose of Sharon, breastfeeding a starving man to save his life.

On its publication, it caused considerable controversy because of its negative depiction of the USA of the time.

Epic in its scope, the story was retold in a three-hour performance at the National Theatre, produced by Carrie Cracknell, which followed Frank Galati’s 1998 play, based closely on the novel.

Some of the pupils gave their reactions afterwards:

• Geography student Andreas Angelopolous said: “I found the portrayal of the Dust Bowl migration powerful. The depiction of the Joads’ struggle against poverty and discrimination was compelling and mirrors challenges faced by many migrants today.”
• His fellow geographer, Saim Khan, said: “It brought to life just how deeply influential the topics we learn in the classroom – like drought – are in shaping the lives of people around the world. There are few forms of media more able to capture sense of place than theatre.”
• English Literature student Vaibhav Gaddi said that the story “demonstrated the resilience of the human spirit when encountered with intense hardship. The Joad family endures death, miscarriage and losing family members, and yet are still unbowed at the play’s shocking end.”

Mrs Macdonald and Assistant Head of English Victoria Maule accompanied the boys on the trip to the South Bank.

Three Old Elizabethan entrepreneurs in San Francisco have linked up and are now connecting with other alumni working in the world’s leading centre for technology companies.

Pavir Patel sent Headmaster Neil Enright the above photo of himself, Akshat Sharma and Richard Ou together in San Francisco. The three only discovered that they had the same alma mater through chance conversations, but, since then, they have created a group chat and have been expanding it to include more OEs in and around the Bay Area.

Mr Enright said: “Our alumni network has been growing rapidly in recent years, with leavers supporting each other, sharing professional opportunities and socialising together. Especially for alumni far from home, like Richard, Akshat and Pavir, it can be good to spend time with others who share a similar background. As a School, we are doing all we can to support such connections through our QE Connect social and business network.”

Richard (OE 2010–2015) said: “All three of us are founders looking to build billion-dollar companies in Silicon Valley. Quite a few QE boys that I’ve met in the US have been entrepreneurs, too, all having raised not so insignificant amounts of capital. It feels like we’re following in the footsteps of Demis Hassabis and Mustafa Suleyman, maybe a few years or a decade behind.” (Demis [OE 1988–1990] and Mustafa [1995–2002] were among the three co-founders of leading AI company DeepMind, formed in 2010.)

“What I am really excited about is more people from QE coming to the US. I think this is the place to be,” Richard added.

Pavir (OE 2003–2010) and Akshat (2012–2019) are part of the long-established international Entrepreneur First accelerator, which runs one of its four programmes in San Francisco. “However, they’d not met until after Pavir’s encounter with me,” says Richard. “I met Pavir at a FinTech AI hackathon hosted at the Digital Garage office in San Francisco. The conversation went something like this:”

Richard: “Where in the UK are you from?”

Pavir: “London, what about you?”

Richard: “I’m from London as well. Whereabouts?”

Pavir: “Stratford, and you?”

Richard: “Highgate”

Pavir: “I used to go to school up north of Highgate!”

Richard: “Really, where?”

Pavir: “QE Boys”

Richard: “Holy sh*t, I went to QE as well!”

Richard later met Akshat at the Entrepreneur First office.

As for Pavir and Akshat, they knew each other through being in the same accelerator, but did not realise the full extent of their connection until a conversation in a Waymo (self-driving car) turned to their backgrounds. “It was surreal,” said Akshat. “We were mates already and were speaking about our homes in the UK and school experiences…and there was a moment of realisation of ‘Wait a second – that sounds very familiar’ when we realised we both went to QE!”

Richard said he realised even before going to university where he needed to be to pursue his goal of founding and growing a startup. “I knew that if I wanted to do it, the only place I could was the US. The problem was that education in the US was so expensive – four years of a degree course can easily be $250,000.”

The solution he arrived at was to go to King’s College London, majoring in Physics (“my passion”) for his first degree and then come to the US for a Master’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania – “only two years!” He worked out some further ways to reduce the financial burden, including becoming a Resident Advisor (RA) – a peer mentor for other students – which comes with the major plus that free housing and food are provided.

The idea for his business came about when he graduated from ‘Penn.’ last year and was looking for a graduation photographer. “I realised it was really hard – there is not really any infrastructure for freelancing.”

With time on his hands, he worked out a plan for a business to put that right, checking that he had a Minimum Viable Business (MVB). He shared the plan with the photographer he had eventually found, Jerry Cai. “As soon as I pitched it to him, he said: ‘I want in.’”

The two became co-founders of Agorum, described on its website as “a freelancer marketplace connecting clients with skilled creatives”. They have started initially by focusing on freelancers who require a physical presence for their work – photographers, DJs and private chefs.

The process has not always been easy. “Funding was difficult at first. We tried raising funds last year when the economy was not doing very well.”

Since then, however, they have been scaling rapidly, and Richard is focused on taking the business global. Agorum was recently valued at $10m.

“I think what changed things was moving to the Bay area: I don’t think there is an eco-system like the Bay’s that exists anywhere else in the world.”

He acknowledged the help provided by his accelerator – VIP-X (different from Pavir’s and Akshat’s). VIP-X is run by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton business school and caters primarily for people associated with Penn. and Wharton. It takes no equity and offers what are essentially grants, not loans.

“I think one of the hardest parts of doing a startup is the loneliness and distance that comes with it,” said Richard. “Few people can relate.” In particular, he has found the constant need for absolute discretion about his plans for the business hard.  “As the CEO, there is only so much you can ever say.”

“As my role has changed from managing a team of 1.5 people to now a team of ten, the problems are constantly evolving.”

“The thing is persistence,” Richard said, stressing the importance of listening to clients, who sometimes provide the only clue as to a way forward.  “There is something about this gut instinct – and it usually comes from your customer. It becomes your driving force.”

Richard has no doubt as to the source of his strength. “When I look back at my time at QE, it was hard. A lot of homework and pressure. Retrospectively, that is what helped, giving me the resilience I am drawing on now. A lot of people have shared that with me, too. Things were always hard, but that raised your tolerance for a lot of things.”

For his part, Akshat is currently building a company called Orbit. The sad truth about the current digital age is that “we have never been historically unhappier,” he said. “Orbit will empower people by making mental health as transparent and actionable as physical health through a non-invasive brain wearable. Orbit is unlocking cognition by building the first foundation model of the brain!”

In addition to his work with Entrepreneur First, Akshat is part of the first cohort of Founders – the University of Cambridge’s own accelerator programme. He graduated from Cambridge in Biomedical Engineering last year, launching Orbit at the start of 2024.

“At the Neuro Optics Lab [in Cambridge], I developed the first, and only, brain computer interface using HD DOT, a novel imaging approach to track human brain function at comparable resolutions to an fMRI. This modality, being cheap, portable and high resolution, is uniquely positioned to create the foundation model of our brains!”

Akshat has won multiple awards at international conferences and is writing a first-author paper on the subject.

By leveraging the novel wearable technology, Orbit is focussing on making brain-tracking as simple and accessible as Fitbit made fitness-tracking – “all in the comfort of your favourite baseball cap or beanie!” as he put it.

“With each version, Orbit builds the largest, real-world brain data-sets to unlock new secrets about the way we perceive the world around us – our cognition. It starts by understanding mental workload and aims to progress to complex mental states, including anxiety, stress and depression. Each version helps us regain control of a new emotion, at each step regaining happiness through giving us a deeper understanding and control of our brain.”

Finally, Pavir Patel’s business is Outerop. Like Akshat’s start-up, it launched at the beginning of this year. Outerop helps grow businesses online using AI, making it easier for them to build high-quality, reliable Large Language Model (LLM) products and to start creating self-optimising LLM pipelines (a series of steps where the output of one is the input of the other). Its slogan is: “Build GenAI products your customers love.”

Since reading Economics at Nottingham, Pavir has, he said, “done all sorts – from incubating J P Morgan’s first AI startup doing NLP; setting up their FinTech team in Asia (Hong Kong was awesome!) and scaling Europe’s leading broker/crypto exchange, Bitpanda Pro, to spinning off a company with a Series A raise [a company’s first significant round of venture-capital financing] to launching an e-commerce business with my wife”.

The School’s new pupil-run Biology journal has now been published as a stand-alone publication for the first time.

Featuring articles by six of QE’s senior biologists, Bioquest looks in detail at medical topics, from the effects of ingesting microplastics to HIV immunity, while also examining ethical issues.

The first edition of the magazine was published last academic year within the pages of the Econobethan, the School’s established pupil-run Economics and Politics publication, but the 17-page second issue now stands on its own, published within the Biology section of the eQE portal.

Biology teacher Hinesh Shah said: “My congratulations go to all the contributors: Bioquest is a colourful, interesting read on some fascinating topics. This is an excellent example of free-thinking scholarship, with these six students digging deep into their own areas of academic interest.”

The magazine includes the following articles:

• How are microplastics impacting our digestive pathways? by Shivam Vyas
• Potential autoantibody biomarker to MS, by Hadi Al-Esia
• Cancer-causing viruses, by Seyed Jalili
• HIV immunity and how it has arisen, by Aaron Rodrigo
• How effective and ethically acceptable will immunotherapy be in the future for treating various diseases, by Advik Balaji
• CRISPR and conscience: Shaping immunity, shaping ethics, by Dharm Gajjar.

Dharm is in Year 12. All the other authors are in Year 13.

In their writing, the pupils seek to set out the results of research on their respective topics and to update readers on the latest thinking. In his piece, for example, Seyed begins by saying that although viruses were once seen as the sole cause of human cancers, this has now been “widely disproven”. He charts the development of this understanding, while also including a case study of one virus that is, in fact, carcinogenic, namely hepatitis B.

In the magazine’s final two articles, Advik and Dharm both look at ethical issues arising from gene-editing and immunotherapy, with Advik specifying the changes he believes are necessary in the NHS “to ensure procedures occur ethically”. Dharm reports on the recently developed technique of CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) and its use to treat people with underlying conditions deriving from genetic mutations, such as cystic fibrosis or polydactyly. While acknowledging its importance, Dharm also highlights the risks: “Ensuring safety throughout the procedure is a must, as a small mistake may have a devastating impact on the individual.”

The boys’ articles all include a bibliography, while several also feature a glossary and  ‘synoptic links’ (showing how the material covered relates to the GCSE and A-level syllabuses).

For the next edition, pupils are being invited to submit cover designs in a new competition. The editorial team, comprising this edition’s authors, write: “We invite our readers to share their creativity and scientific knowledge by designing posters that encapsulate the essence of biological science.”

• Bioquest, edition II, may be read here by anyone with access to eQE.

When Deputy Head Anne Macdonald was watching the BBC’s Our Changing Planet, she was so impressed with the work of the Coral Spawning Laboratory shown in the Restoring Our Reefs episode that she wrote asking for a visit.

The result was a summer trip by 25 senior pupils, who learned about the ground-breaking research at the University of Derby laboratory that aims to save the world’s coral reefs from extinction.

The day-long visit featured two workshops, before ending with the boys playing what Mrs Macdonald described as “perhaps the most complicated board game in history”, through which they learned about how to build a healthy, resilient reef.

“Coral reefs occupy less than 1% of the marine environment, but are home to 25% of all marine life.  They are crucial to marine biodiversity,” said Mrs Macdonald. “They also support a way of life and the livelihoods of millions of people around the world, especially in low-income countries (and so have socio-cultural, economic, and environmental significance).

“The scientists at the Coral Spawning Laboratory are engaged in ground-breaking research with the aim of saving reefs from extinction, specifically in relation to the threats of ocean acidification and warming caused by human-induced changes to the carbon cycle and global warming.

“The aims of this trip included: discovering more about these fascinating ecosystems; seeing first-hand how scientific research is undertaken in a laboratory setting and the positive impacts that uncertain, but ground-breaking, science can yield; supporting boys’ studies for their Biology and Geography A-levels; and providing an opportunity to explore the world of conservation biology, molecular ecology, and marine biology, for those considering taking a degree relevant to these fields. Experiences such as these are invaluable to those aspiring to study science at university.”

The 25 participating students were drawn mainly from the current Year 13, but also from Years 11 and 12. They were accompanied by Mrs Macdonald, a Geography teacher in addition to her role as Deputy Head (Academic), and by Gillian Ridge, who is Head of Biology.

Their visit was hosted by Professor Michael Sweet, professor in molecular ecology and co-founder of the Coral Spawning Laboratory, which is at the Environmental Sustainability Research Centre, part of the university’s College of Science and Engineering.

Scientists fear for the survival of coral reefs; their extinction is considered a real and imminent threat.  The work of scientists at the Coral Spawning Laboratory and at universities globally is helping to buy time in the hope that the reefs can be kept in existence while climate mitigation progresses.

As the laboratory’s name suggests, the scientists there are pioneering techniques to maximise coral spawning (including ‘Coral IVF’) and undertaking research to discover the ideal environmental conditions for successful coral fertilisation and growth.

The boys enjoyed a tour of the laboratory, during which they had the opportunity to see the coral-spawning tanks and the new seagrass facility, where scientists recently succeeded in getting seagrass to flower and seed in laboratory conditions.

One workshop focussed on coral biology and threats to corals, specifically coral-bleaching caused by rising ocean temperatures. It included the chance to look at coral through a microscope, identifying the cellular differences between healthy and bleached coral.

The second workshop looked at climate change – at how scientists working collaboratively and with commercial partners can help accelerate the pace of climate-change mitigation and adaptation.

“The boys who attended were very appreciative of this opportunity, with one, for example, expressing interest in the commercial aspects of the team’s work and another enjoying hearing about scientists from different universities working together,” Mrs Macdonald concluded.

Queen Elizabeth’s School is entering a partnership with educational business Global Education (GEDU), who will be establishing three new schools overseas under the Queen Elizabeth’s School banner.

The new schools will bear the QE branding and name. Whilst delivering a curriculum appropriate to their location, the QE international schools will draw upon the QE Barnet approach and aspire to its excellent record of achievement.

Opening affiliated schools overseas is an established model for leading UK independent schools but it is believed that this is the first time that a UK state school has followed this path.

The revenue received from this enterprise over time will be invested into significant capital expenditure projects, including new and improved facilities at the QE Barnet campus.

There are initial plans for three schools, two in India and one in the United Arab Emirates. In India one school is planned in GIFT City (a new financial and technology hub in Gujarat province) and the other in Gurugram (a satellite city near Delhi). Dubai is the likely location of the UAE school. The schools will be run as separate entities and each will have their own headteacher, senior leadership team and dedicated teaching staff.

Unlike QE Barnet, the QE international schools will be co-educational, and some will be through-schools accepting children from kindergarten to Sixth Form. Also, unlike QE Barnet, the international QE schools will be fee-paying and not state funded.

The international schools will be managed by GEDU, who will work with each school’s dedicated leadership and staff teams on the ground. The timeline for the launch of the new schools will be finalised in the coming months.

Global Education (GEDU) is a UK registered and UK based education business with a strong track record of establishing, operating, and growing successful education brands in both the UK and overseas. There are currently 60,000 students in GEDU educational establishments across the world.

GEDU are providing all of the investment for this project and will run the international schools.