Today proved a particularly special day for me. I had the honour of hearing from and working with Dr Alice Pyne: a physicist and engineer turned biological researcher. Her work focuses on understanding the complex nature of the DNA structure from the most fundamental level, and holds future impacts for antibiotic and cancer treatments.
Dr Pyne began her lecture with the DNA double helix structure, to which she explicitly stated was never to be called the “Watson-Crick model”. She made sure to highlight Photo 51 and Rosalind Franklin’s work, which was the focus of my LIYSF presentation and a large part of the reason that I am here today.
Seeing the accurate citation at the bottom of her slides definitely brought a smile to my face. It felt unreal to hear from such a brilliant woman in science, and to see how her combined efforts in physics, chemistry, and biology are working toward a brighter future.
The theme of impressive female scientists continued this evening with Dr Anna Ploszajski. She gave an exciting lecture on smart materials, looking at how they will shape our future. I was pleased to recognize a lot of the material physics that she went over from PHYS 455 which I took this winter. Hopefully Jeff will be pleased too!
Isabelle St-Martin
July 31 2019