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2011 WISE Award winners announced
Winners of the 2011 WISE Awards were announced recently at an event at the Institute of Engineering and Technology.
Mechanical project engineer Claire Jones, who works at Sellafield in Cumbria, won £1000 and the WISE Excellence Award, sponsored by Thales UK, for being an inspirational role model for girls and young engineers.
The Warwick School in Redhill and Unlimited Theatre Company in Leeds jointly took the WISE Champion Award, sponsored by The IET, for their inspirational educational work engaging girls into STEM subjects.
Heather Aspinwall, a curriculum leader in applied science and mathematics at Wirral Metropolitan College, won the Advisor Award. The award, sponsored by Intel Ltd, was open to career advisors, teachers, ambassadors, mentors and educators who have motivated and enthused girls and young women to
Jon Spooner and Gail Iles, Unlimited Theatre, with The Princess Royal
pursue STEM related subjects. Marianne Hill, a curriculum leader in science, maths and physics, at City of Sunderland College was also noted as runner up for the Advisor Award.
Jane Butcher, Director of The UKRC, said: “The WISE Awards are an annual celebration of endeavour, inspiration and commitment – and this year more than ever. A record number of entrants of outstanding quality have demonstrated the importance of working
creatively to inspire, advise and enable girls and young women to study and pursue careers in science, engineering and technology.
The Women into Science, Engineering and Construction (WISE) Awards, in association with EADS, the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company, celebrate those who inspire girls and young women into the field of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Engineers pioneer use of 3D printer to create new bones
A 3D printer is being used to create ‘bone-like’ material which researchers claim can be used to repair injuries.
Engineers say that the substance can be added to damaged natural bone where it acts as a scaffold for new cells to grow. It ultimately dissolves with ‘no apparent ill-effects’, the team adds.
The researchers say doctors should be able to use the process to custom-order replacement bone tissue in a few years time.
Prof Susmita Bose helped carry out the work at Washington State University and co-authored a report in the Dental Materials journal. “You can use the bone-like ceramic powder as
a feed material and it can make whatever you draw on the computer,” she says.
Prof Bose’s team have spent four years developing the bone-like substance and Bose hopes the material will be used for orthopaedic and dental work
Their breakthrough came when they discovered a way to double the strength of the main ceramic powder – calcium phosphate – by adding silica and zinc oxide.
To create the scaffold shapes they customised a printer which had originally been designed to make three-dimensional metal objects.
It sprayed a plastic binder over the loose
powder in layers half as thick as the width of a human hair.
The process was repeated layer by layer until completed, at which point the scaffold was dried, cleaned and then baked for two hours at 1250C (2282F).
Tests carried on immature foetal bone cells in the laboratory found that new bone cells started growing over the scaffold within the first week of it being attached.
The team say they have also had promising results from tests involving live rabbits and rats.
Story courtesy of
bbc.co.uk 33
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