Chemistry is the Solution

Trackers such as smartwatches are commonly used. Using a similar tracker to monitor blood sugar levels could help in health optimization and in the prevention of diabetes. Understanding how the diet and general lifestyle of a person affect their blood sugar levels in real-time makes it easier to make changes in daily habits to achieve a healthier lifestyle. Specifically, recognising when a meal occurs and extracting all the details of the changes gives valuable insight. This research aims to create an automatic procedure to identify the timing of a meal and the changes that occur.

You’ve heard of solids, liquids, and gases, but have you heard of plasma? Lightning, fire, and neon lights are all examples of plasma. It’s a different state of matter, in many ways like a gas, but with much more energy, which we can use to make chemicals more reactive. Catalysts are chemicals or materials which decrease the amount of energy needed to kickstart a chemical reaction, making the process more sustainable. We can use plasma to overcome this lower energy barrier, with one notable area of current research being the conversion of greenhouse gases to fuels.

Every 5 minutes, 50 people are bitten by a snake worldwide, 4 will be permanently disabled and 1 will die. Snake envenomation is a neglected tropical disease that requires urgent attention. This talk will delve into the complicated relationship between humans and snakes from the garden of Eden to Asclepius to our modern medicine cabinet. We will also explore how we diagnose snake bites and consider if there is a better method to combat this neglected tropical disease.