Thursday, January 16, 2014

Radicals in Chemistry and Biology: IBDP Guest Lectures in Chemistry — A Rendezvous with World-renowned Scientists


A Student Reflection

On January 3, 2014, the biology and chemistry students of the IBDP segment attended a lecture on “Radicals in Chemistry and Biology” by Dr. Hendrik Zipse, a world-renowned theoretical chemist, who is currently a professor of organic chemistry at the University of Munich, Germany.

Dr. Hendrik, who is known for his interactive teaching style, delivered an interesting and engaging talk that introduced all the students to radicals in a comprehensive manner. The talk opened with an introduction to what radicals are, and how the reactivity of a radical is directly linked to the strength of the chemical bond broken to create the radical, and then covered how radicals can be harmful to human cells and how certain compounds can counteract this negative effect. He then answered questions from the audience which gave an insight into the computational aspect of chemistry.

The entire class was fully focused in the talk as we were able to connect with Dr. Hendrik’s engaging approach and we took away a new wealth of knowledge back to the class. It was a wonderful learning opportunity and experience that every student truly appreciated.

By

Nitya Raju IBDP XI

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