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Eleven Year 12 pupils headed for Imperial College London for the Environmental Design Challenge – a competition that encourages young people to work collaboratively to design eco-friendly human settlements.

Joining the international challenge for the first time, the QE sixth-formers worked with some 70 pupils from other schools to produce ideas for “a sustainable transformation of Milton Keynes” on a trip organised by QE’s Physics and Geography departments.

One member of the group, Tanush Madadi, won an individual award for Best Leadership in a non-leadership position.

The Environmental Design Challenge (EDC) is organised by the Space Science and Engineering Foundation, organisers of a series of competitions connected with outer space, including the UK Space Design Competition (SDC), in which QE has a long and successful record.

Head of Physics Jonathan Brooke said: “The EDC takes the structure of the UK SDC and broadens its appeal to include Year 12 students with a breadth of interests linked to sustainability and public policy. It coincides with several of the priorities of our Boundless School Plan – especially nurturing pupils so that they become ‘sustainability literate’.”

“Working to a tight deadline, the boys had to cope with the stress of working under pressure,” said Mr Brooke, “It was a great opportunity for them to develop project work skills they will need at university and in employment, to get them out of their comfort zone, and to collaborate with people they were meeting for the first time.”

All three ‘companies’ formed on the day comprised pupils from several schools, with the QE contingent split between two of them. These two companies called themselves Milton Greens and Keen for Keynes.

The three companies worked on a presentation to find solutions to three tasks related to MK’s “sustainable transformation”:

• Reimagining Milton Keynes’ transportation
• Developing a strategy for sustainable growth
• Designing a climate-resilient development.

Keen for Keynes (pictured here on stage celebrating their win) won the competition on the day.

Geography teacher Elin Hopley said the boys drew on their knowledge from the GCSE and A-level courses, as well as from research done on the day: “I was hugely impressed by the significant amount of work all the participants had put into their presentations. The room was buzzing with excitement as groups prepared to present and answer the judging panel’s questions.”

Tanush, who won his award for his contribution to Milton Greens, said: “Pitching our socio-economic strategy to industry judges at Imperial College London was a fantastic, rewarding learning experience.”

Other QE participants equally reflected on a rewarding trip. Aarnav Mahajan enjoyed applying his interest in mathematics and science to some real-world challenges. Adithya Ananthakrishnan found it inspiring to work with “so many other like-minded young people”, while acknowledging that presenting to a large audience forced him out of his “comfort zone, which was extremely valuable”. And Danyal Rahim, who aspires to work in sustainability-related fields, said: “One of the highlights was collaborating with other schools in large teams, with never-ending pizzas sustaining us throughout the day!”

Head of Chemistry Amy Irvine was picked from among hundreds of teachers at competing schools to win the only award of its kind in a global competition.

Dr Irvine picked up the sole Teacher Award for Most Final Round Participants from the organisers of the International Chemistry Competition, which attracted schools from 190 countries.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “We are very proud of Dr Irvine’s success – a just reward for all that she does to encourage enriching co-curricular activities and to promote a love of her subject.”

The award honours teachers who have shown outstanding dedication in supporting their students and in fostering a strong engagement with Chemistry and Science.

Fifty QE pupils from across the year groups took part, with 36 passing the final round. They included silver medal-winner Raihan Ahmed, who has just entered Year 13, as well as 20 boys who took bronze.

Pupils had to read challenging research papers and then combine their knowledge with problem-solving skills to answer the questions.

News of the International Chemistry Competition results came after a year of Chemistry competition participation.

This has included:

• Sixty-eight sixth-formers competing in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s (RSC) UK Chemistry Olympiad winning a silver (46) or gold (22) medal, putting them in the top 8.5% of more than 17,000 competitors nationally. The paper involved tackling questions on henna tattoos, urine and chlorine in swimming pools, and malodorous isocyanide chemicals. The gold winners are listed below;
• Thirty Year 12 (now Year 13) students taking on the role of crime-busting analytical chemists helping the police in the RSC’s Schools Analyst Competition. First place in the QE round was awarded to Team Chemystery Club (Ishan Nakadi, Tuhin Mitra, Rahul Wimalendran). They were tasked with investigating a mysterious illness that had struck a person working in a local pharmacy. This involved completing challenging practical analytical techniques such as gravimetric analysis, titrations, and thin-layer chromatography;
• Fifty-two Year 12 pupils winning an award in the Cambridge C3L6 competition, with 31 of them gaining a gold award. Alex Kronabetter, Nayan Santheepan and Param Patel achieved very high scores, putting them near the top of the 15,000-plus pupils who took part nationally. The questions tested their knowledge of topics such as rates and isomerism that went far beyond their classroom syllabus.

“I am very proud of every student who has taken part in chemistry competitions and enrichment activities in the department in the past few months. They are fantastic role models who show a love of learning beyond the taught school curriculum!” said Dr Irvine.

UK Chemistry Olympiad gold medal-winners:

Year 12 (now Year 13 – pictured here)

Ashaj Vyas, Shashank Pothuganti, Adib Asfi, Mohith Sigirisetti, Ishan Nakadi, Wilson Xu, Ayaan Amin, Ishaan Mishra, Vihaan Salunke, Tuhin Mitra and Siddhant Pochalwar.

Year 13 (this summer’s leavers)

Shreyas Chandrasekar, Pranay Chawla, Ram Chockalingam, Ayan Hirani, Rohan Iranganti, Krithin Jaichandran, Hisham Khan, Robert Kotwinski, Ranajay Mehta, Timothy Mok and Zayn Phoplankar.

QE’s young chemists scored a double victory in a prestigious competition, with two teams taking joint first place.

The eight boys – four in each team – beat off the challenge from some 50 other school teams to take the trophy in the Chilterns and Middlesex final in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Top of the Bench contest.

Five of the eight QE teams who entered finished in the top ten places, further setting the seal on the School’s enviable record of Top of the Bench success in recent years.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “I congratulate both the winning teams on this spectacular success. Providing our pupils with ‘stretch and support’ beyond the curriculum through competitions such as this is a great way to explore their Boundless potential and encourage a genuine love of learning.”

Speaking on International Day of Women and Girls in Science, Mr Enright added: “It seems especially apt today to be able to pass on my thanks to our Head of Chemistry, Amy Irvine, for all that she and her colleagues did to make such an outcome possible.”

The two winning teams comprised boys from Years 9–11. They scored 41 points out of a possible 47, a clear two points ahead of the two teams in joint second place.

Dr Irvine said: “The Top of the Bench competition is a fantastic way for students to apply their knowledge to fun and challenging problems.

“It is great to see students from different year groups working together and supporting each other to think through the difficult questions which often go beyond the school curriculum.”

The winners’ prize included an exclusive, behind-the-scenes tour of Imperial College White City’s chemistry labs – a privilege many undergraduates do not receive until their fourth year at university. The tour was led by Dr Lisa Haigh, Head of Technical Operations, who is also a qualified assessor for the Royal Society of Chemistry.

QE pupils saw how chemists use high-precision mass spectrometers to analyse samples from human lungs. Their tour included an investigation of why cheddar from different areas of the country tastes different, assisted by mass spectrometry of volatile compounds.

Pupils also saw inside an inorganic research lab, where chemists have to work in glove boxes filled with nitrogen to stop their samples exploding.

And they observed a ‘clean lab’, where chemists have to wear full body suits to work on solar panels.

Their tour finished in the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) facility, where they learned about superconducting electromagnets that are cooled using liquid nitrogen and helium.

One of the winning team members, Vihaan Pal, of Year 10, said: “The competition was really fun, as we had to answer difficult chemistry questions together and solve problems such as how you could find out what a mystery black powder is.

“It was really intriguing to tour the campus and look at students doing projects in the chemistry labs. There was also lots of new equipment and compounds that I have not come across before. My favourite part of the trip was seeing the NMR machines, which have a very strong magnetic field!”

In addition to the tour and the trophy, the boys’ prize included £30 Amazon vouchers.

The two winning teams were:

• Team 9: Noble Laturia and Sachin Saddi, of Year 9; Niketh Putta, of Year 10; and Kelvin Chen, of Year 11;
• Team 13: Aydin Mazumdar and Ash Raghav, of Year 9; Vihaan Pal, of Year 10; and Avi Goel, of Year 11.

Community collaboration came to the fore in two special events involving youngsters from local schools working with QE staff and pupils.

QE’s youngest boys were joined by Year 7 pupils from The Totteridge Academy, Barnet, for a fun challenge in the laboratories – the Chemystery Conundrum.

Year 5 children from six primary schools also came to The Queen’s Library for an event that focused on creative writing and encouraging reading for pleasure.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “QE is deeply rooted in the community as a Barnet school, and we value our local partnerships. It was good to welcome some younger students from other schools and to host these two very different events!”

The Chemystery Conundrum, overseen by the Chemistry department, took place in the S11 and S12 laboratories.

Some 60 pupils from the two schools looked at modern drug design, with teams challenged to find solutions to get a medicine to dissolve in the stomach in 20 seconds.

They were given guidance on how to design an experiment to respond to the challenge. To present their findings, they were asked to produce a poster with diagrams and minimal text. Each member of the team was required to speak.

QE’s Head of Chemistry, Amy Irvine, said: “This was designed as a collaborative, hands-on, experimental work. The pupils from the two schools worked really well together, coming up with a range of good solutions, with support from some of our A-level chemists.”

The event for the Year 5 children was aimed at encouraging them to read more. It began with quiz questions centred on how to choose a book, covering areas such as cover designs, ‘blurbs’ and genres.

Sixth Form students Aarav Agarwal and Simi Bloom then led a creative writing session.

They used word-association and word-chain games, as well as showing the children objects intended to inspire and kickstart stories. Year 12’s Aarav and Simi looked at character and setting, generally encouraging the children to let their imagination run free.

• Click thumbnails to view images: the Chemystery Conundrum first, followed by photos from the event in the library.

Queen Elizabeth’s School extended its proud record in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Top of the Bench competition with victory in the regional final.

One team, pictured top, took first place – and thus qualified for the national finals in the spring – with a score of 40 out of 43. Another QE team was only one point behind, beating Harrow and Watford Grammar School for Boys into joint third place.

QE has frequently achieved success in the competition throughout its 20-year history.

Head of Chemistry Amy Irvine said: “It was a splendid performance by our winning team, who beat more than 50 other teams to take first place – and in the UK’s national Chemistry Week, too! Furthermore, all five of our teams came in the top ten, so we demonstrated real strength in depth.”

Congratulating all the QE entrants, Myles Worsley, an RSC Chilterns and Middlesex Section committee member, commented on the “excellent” scores of the winners and runners-up. “They showed an impressive knowledge and understanding of Chemistry,” he said.

Top of the Bench is open to every secondary school in the UK. Teams must comprise: two students from Year 9; one from Year 10, and one from Year 11.

This year’s regional finals, conducted over Zoom, featured six rounds. The early stages of these tested entrants’ general Chemistry knowledge, covering topics such as atoms and compounds.

Other rounds included:

• Examining practical knowledge: competitors had to identify different compounds from the results of different analytical tests;
• Asking different questions to each year group. (The Year 11 question, which was about equilibria, was particularly tricky, Dr Irvine said.);
• Testing knowledge of the atmosphere and gases, with, for example, entrants having to identify carbon monoxide as a ‘silent killer’;

The final round involved further testing of general Chemistry knowledge. Competitors had to identify the main compound in smelling salts.

“This caused me much amusement, as some of the boys were discussing what the difference was between baths salts and smelling salts!” Dr Irvine said.

The winning team, Team 35, comprised: Aaditya Pimple and Varenya Pangaluri, of Year 9; Arhaan Yadav, of Year 10; and Yash Mehta, of Year 11.

They win Amazon vouchers, as well as the honour of representing the School in the national finals, to be held at a university: this year’s venue has yet to be named.

The QE teams’ scores and positions were:

Team 35:  40/43 – first

Team 36:  37.5/43 – fourth

Team 37:  39/43 – second

Team 38:  31/43 – ninth

Team 39:  33.5/43 – seventh

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.