Wednesday - solving murder crimes and meeting the swiss ambassador

We started our day with a bus drive to the L’Oréal Young Scientist Centre in the Royal Institution where we could experience an interesting workshop in forensics. After a short introduction we put on our lab coats and gloves and we were ready to start. We were part of a forensics team that had to investigate in a crime scene. A man got murdered by being hit with a shovel and there were five suspects. Two types of DNA were found on the shovel, one was the DNA of the victim and the other DNA was unknown. We received six samples, one with the DNA on the shovel and the other five samples were DNA of all of the five suspects. By means of gel electrophoresis we tried to investigate all of the samples to later decide, who’s DNA was on the shovel and who therefore was the potential murderer. We learned much about forensics and it was very interesting. Also, every group found out who the murderer was, meaning that everybody did a great job.

We then got to enjoy a delicious lunch at the Swiss embassy today before meeting the Swiss ambassador and his colleagues. They presented us their work and provided insights into their life as diplomats. We for example learned about diplomats changing their location every four years and how one becomes a diplomat.

Richard Erwin from Roche UK also joined us at the embassy and told us a bit about Roche in relation to simply science.

Then we got to present our project „Biodive“ at the embassy; a great opportunity! Talking about the science-on-the-move-competition and about the process of developing our idea definitely brought up many good memories. It was an awesome chance to get to present our model today and although there were some technical difficulties during the presentation, we mastered it as a team, as we always do. 

Afterwards we got to talk to the embassy staff with a cup of tea or coffee and also ask them our personal questions.

After an afternoon at the embassy we got to enjoy some free time and explore london on our own for a bit. Some of us wandered reagant street whilst others explored the arab quarter of london or went to visit buckingham palace.

To round off the eventful day we had dinner at a restaurant called „Avocado show“, serving exclusively food containing avocado: A special and very delicious experience!