Her discovery definitely changed some lives and our way of life. Astatine can cure cancer while not affecting other nearby glands. Astatine may be rare and there should be further studies to be done, but this brings out our curiosity to this certain element, its other effects and how can we get this because as of now, the astatine that is used for experiments are extracted from uranium ore.
Her discovery and her teaching career really inspired me because this just tells me that I, too, can do it. Most physicists are male and this just simply show that women can do it as well. Also, with her discovery of Astatine as a cancer cell killer, this has opened my mind to different possibilities into which this element can help other people.
In 1940, Astatine was first synthesized by Dale R. Corson, Kenneth Ross Mackenzie and Emilio Segre at the University of California, Berkley. Astatine is characterized as highly radioactive, is rare for its tiny quantities and the least chemically reactive of the halogens and exhibits the most metallic properties of the halogen group. 3 years later, Berta Karlik, together with Traude Bernert, discovered that the natural occurrence of isotopes of Astatine with atomic number 85 as an intermediate in radioactive decay chains. They found out that the main use of Astatine in radiotherapy is to kill cancer cells. Because of this discovery, she was awarded the Haitlinger-Preis for Chemistry from the Austrian Academy of Sciences in 1947.
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