An exhibitor at the EU Contest for Young Scientists has devised a new way to produce one of the world's most frequently prescribed anti-depressant drugs. Her new method avoids the use of toxic chemicals and also produces higher yields of the drug Prozac.
Charlotte Strandkvist (18) spent several months developing the new process in school labs at the Technical College in Svendborg, Denmark. She is one of more than 100 students from across Europe taking part in the 16th EU contest, this year being held for the first time in Dublin.
The event at University College Dublin ends tomorrow, with an awards ceremony at Dublin Castle, where the top nine prize-winners will be announced.
"What I have done is simplify the method as well as substituting less hazardous chemicals that are safe," she explained.
Prozac is in widespread use around the world and her new process pushes up the drug yield by 2.4 per cent. She has not approached any company currently synthesising the drug, N-methyl fluoxetine, however.
Her work was based on public information about how the drug used to be synthesised. "I haven't contacted them because they might have improved their processes already," she said.
"It wasn't my intention to patent it. When I started this project I never thought I would be able to bring it to this level."
She is taking a gap year before starting university and she is still considering what to study. "It will probably be something pharmaceutical or in chemistry, but I don't really know yet."
Nikoláy Atanásov Hadzhiév (18), representing Bulgaria, prepared a challenging study of how charged particles arrange themselves when forced to cover a spherical surface. The apparently exotic research actually has many applications and may become a key element of the next generation of nanotechnology-based computers.
Nikoláy studied imaginary structures made up entirely of electrons dotting a sphere. The challenge was to find stable structures that achieved the lowest possible energy level. He devised a mathematical formula which could calculate structure and energy content and he used it to find new shapes akin to those seen in 60 carbon atom "fulerenes".
"I found a more stable structure that is less symmetrical than a fulerene," he said. He believed that somewhere between structures involving six and 60 particles laid a structure that would form the basis of the next generation of computer memory. It could allow retrievable memory to reside in something as small as an atom.
He is in his final year at the National High School of Mathematics and Science in Sofia.