We believe there’s a superhero in each of us. True Superheroes celebrates people who’ve overcome adversity, made amazing contributions to society, and inspired others to do the same. Each week we nominate people in different fields. This week we focus on chemistry.
Frances Arnold
Frances Arnold was always a rebel: she was hitchhiking to Vietnam War protests by the age of 13, and by the time she was 18 she was driving taxis in Pittsburgh. She took that rebellious streak into the laboratory, going against the consensus by using evolution as the seed to engineer revolutionary new enzymes. She was derided for her unconventional methods, but they have since enabled discoveries ranging from renewable fuel sources to environmentally safe pesticides.
Without power, Iron Man is just a man in a heavy metal suit. Similarly, without a power source many of the devices we rely on in daily life are useless, and John Goodenough is the man we have to thank for breathing life into them. He overcame his dyslexia and learned how to manipulate lithium ions to store energy more efficiently, with greater density and for longer periods, becoming the real life Tony Stark in the process.
SPYSCAPE'S NEWEST PODCAST Major Hollywood storytellers and top international spies break down what we see on screen, to separate the fact from the fiction and shine a light on extraordinary characters and skills. Hosted by Rory Bremner.
When her father died, the 11 year old Ada Yonath had to work not just to support her family, but also pay for her own tuition fees. That work paid off when she became a biochemist, but not before her research was dismissed and she was mocked as a fool and a dreamer. Her research on ribosomes has now led to the development of new antibiotics and a better understanding of antibiotic resistance, giving hope of a solution to one of the biggest challenges facing medical science in the 21st century.
