Blog posts

In response to the College Maternity Survey from the FoM Ambassador for Women

As we are all aware, there is a serious problem in retention and career progression for women in science – leading to the current situation where only 15% of Imperial professorial staff are female. This “leaky pipeline” of female staff represents an enormous loss of talent and creativity and there is a strong business case for the College to take effective measures to retain and support the best talent, of whatever gender.

One of the main time-periods where female researchers  are lost to academia is when they start a family. This often happens during the postdoctoral period or first academic post for pure scientists, and during the PhD period for medically-qualified staff. These are key career transition points for women and support at this time is critical for retention and progression.

In order to try to address this particular part of the “leaky pipeline” and to ensure that expectant mothers and new parents are provided with the optimal conditions in which to flourish, the College is exploring how to provide better support to staff members at this time.

Her own recent experience of returning to work after maternity leave, led Su Nandy (Deputy Head of Faculty Operations, Engineering) to start thinking about what could be done to support staff members who are expecting, or new parents. In October 2012, Su devised a questionnaire to explore this and invited all staff members who had taken maternity leave in the previous four years and were still employed in the College to take part. An article was published in BMJ Careers, “Supporting mothers to become clinician scientists” by Victoria Salem (Clinical Research Fellow, Department of Medicine), Su Nandy, Stephen Bloom.

At a meeting today (21 March 2013), Su presented the results of her work. The first surprise was that of the 553 women who had taken maternity leave between July 2008 and July 2012, nearly 60% had since left the College. Currently, exit data is not collected in a way that allows analysis of the factors operating here (how many were had been on fixed-term contracts, for example), highlighting the need to collect data in this area.

There was a magnificent response to Su’s survey – of the 226 eligible staff, 192 (85%) responded. Of these, 78% described experiencing difficulties in balancing work and home responsibilities, 70% reported exhaustion and 50% were suffering from sleep deprivation. These data might be useful in training line managers dealing with new parents.

Recommended measures:

As a result of the detailed responses to the survey (Maternity Survey Presentation), Su has proposed 10 measures the College could take to support expectant women and new parents:

1. Staff education

  • Pre/Post maternity leave courses dealing with transition
  • Paternity courses  to support new fathers
  • Line management/academic supervisor guidance/ training

2. Support through visible/approachable female role models

  • Maternity buddy scheme set up last year- recommendation to extend to include pre-maternity leave. 42% requested this
  • Mentoring/career coaching programmes to be offered more proactively on return from maternity leave. 31% requested this

3. Widely publicised designated room for expressing milk/place for pregnant staff members to rest in each campus

4. Provision of a dedicated parents webpage/ forum

5. Baby changing facilities in each large building across all College campuses and sign posted/ publicised.

6.  Increase maternity pay to match or better other Russell Group universities.

7. Provision of affordable childcare with flexible / longer nursery hours to encompass the scientific working day (8am-6pm)

8. One – off emergency child care provisions for parents to access.

9. Dedicated member of HR/Equalities to cover maternity/family friendly/gender issues.

10. College to sponsor further study in relation to women taking maternity leave who are funded on research grants

These recommendations were presented and discussion was invited from the audience.  The proposals were warmly welcomed and we were pleased to hear that full consideration was being given to them by the College’s Management Board. Some of the proposals are relatively easy to implement and cost-free or very inexpensive, while others may require more resource or planning. We look forward to hearing the Management Boards views.

A number of additional issues were raised including nursery hours, eligibility employment periods for both maternity and paternity leave and the excellent Elsie Widdowson Scheme, which provides funding for replacement teaching, admin, research staff or consumables to support women returning from maternity leave. The money is provided centrally by HR, so Departments and individuals can only gain from the scheme.

At the moment Elsie Widdowson funding is being offered to all eligible staff, so if you are pregnant or just back from maternity leave, don’t lose out!

It is really commendable that Su and the College senior HR team are engaged in this initiative and that there are plans to build on the information gained – the maternity survey will be repeated in 3 years time to see whether there have been any improvements and a paternity survey is planned for later this year. The HR team would welcome any ideas, comments or suggestions that you might have on these issues. If you would like to contribute to the discussion please contact: Su Nandy – Ext 41628 s.nandy@imperial.ac.uk

Dr Alexandra Blakemore
Faculty of Medicine Ambassador for Women

London Gold Medal 2012

For the second year running (and at a time when Gold Medals in London are all the rage!), we are very proud and delighted to announce that an Imperial graduate has won the London Gold MedLondon Gold Medal winner 2012 - Dr Alasdair Scottal.  This year Dr Alasdair Scott won against very strong competition.

Alasdair joined the MBBS/BSc course at Imperial in October 2003.  In 2007, awarded with a 1st in his BSc, Medical Sciences with Surgery and Anaesthesia, he took a 3 year interruption to undertake a PhD.  He returned to the clinical course in 2010 and continued to excel.  He was awarded distinctions in General Practice, Paediatrics, Psychiatry, Pathology and PACES; and a merit in Obstetrics and Gynaecology for his Year 5 examinations.  Then in June 2012, Alasdair sat and passed his finals and was awarded distinctions in Clinical Science, Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Medical Sciences, Medicine, Surgery and hence was nominated for the London Gold Medal.

This is an outstanding achievement as the academic quality of candidates is extremely high.  All London medical schools (George’s, KCL, QMUL, UCL and Imperial) are invited to nominate a small number of newly graduated students to compete for the Gold Medal annually.  The nominated candidates are selected by each School from those who obtained the highest number of Merits and Distinctions and have passed every examination at the first attempt.

This confirms once again what a fantastic group of students and teachers we have at this medical school.  We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the staff who support our students, in whatever capacity.

We are sure you would wish to join us in sending warmest congratulations to Dr Alasdair Scott.

>> Read more about Imperial winners at last year’s competition

Sixth The Union Europe Region Conference on TB and Lung Diseases – event report

Lord Boateng encourages The Union Europe Region to unite in partnerships in its response to the challenges of TB and public health

Load Boateng speaking at The Union Europe Conference
Load Boateng speaking at The Union Europe Conference

The European Region was energised by Lord Boateng, former Chief Secretary to the UK Treasury and High Commissioner to South Africa, who spoke of the best practices in working with governments to harness political will and resources to respond to the challenges of TB and Public Health at The Union Europe Conference held at Imperial College in London on 4-6 July 2012. Lord Boateng said about The Union in his speech “your mission is a great one. You bring huge knowledge, experience and wisdom to the fight”. He encouraged The Union to “go back to its origins” and continue to “develop a response based on the principle of partnership” and engage locally to reach “the movers and shakers on the ground” to achieve successful health interventions.

Lord Boateng was joined by an exceptional panel of plenary speakers in Professors Ajit Lalvani from Imperial College, Christopher Dye from World Health Organisation and Dr David Heymann from the Health Protection Agency and more than 40 speakers from across Europe and beyond.  Nearly 450 delegates from sixty-one countries participated in a productive 3 day conference in London, which was host to almost one hundred attendees from Eastern Europe.

Subjects for symposia included TB in big cities, TB and Migration, Drug resistant TB, TB in the elderly and in Children, TB immunology and vaccines, Latent TB infection, HIV and mycobacterial diseases, Tobacco control, nursing, advocacy and civil society, New drug development in TB, hot topics in lower respiratory tract infection, COPD in Europe and tackling TB in poorly resourced but high burden settings. Poster sessions which were held on two of the three days added to the sharing of experiences and provided an avenue for informative discussion and debate, as well as post-graduate sessions held on the first day.

Group discussing issues during poster session
Group discussing issues during poster session

Professor Peter Davies, the newly serving President of The Union Europe Region was extremely pleased with the outcomes of the conference. Professor Davies commented “all symposia and post-graduate sessions were excellent and stimulated many questions and healthy debate from the highly participatory audience. We hope participants will be able to build upon new ideas, partnerships and networks formed from their attendance”.  The conference was supported by a number of sponsors and exhibitors without whom the conference would not have taken place, especially the host joint-organisers Health Protection Agency and The Union Europe Office.

A feature of the conference was the simultaneous translation offered in Russian in the main conference hall, which allowed further engagement and interaction by a large delegation from countries including Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

The Organising Committee hope that all who attended felt it was a highly successful conference and looks forward to continuing to advance partnerships across the European region and beyond.

Prepared by the Organising Committee of The Union Europe Conference

Microscopy videos appear in film “Into Paradiso”

Into ParadisoDr Graeme Birdsey, a Research Fellow in the Vascular Science Group at National Heart & Lung Institute, recently had work used in a Italian film ‘Into Paradiso’. Graeme explains how this collaboration came about and the work he and his team undertake within the Faculty of Medicine.

“I work within the laboratory of Dr Anna Randi (Reader in Cardiovascular Medicine) in the NHLI Vascular Science section. One of the focuses of our work is on the role of the transcription factor Erg in regulating gene expression in the endothelial cells that form the lining of blood vessels. We have previously shown that Erg plays a key role in directing the formation of new blood vessels, in a process called angiogenesis. We found that Erg was important in allowing endothelial cells to communicate with one another by promoting cell-cell contacts and that disruption of these contacts resulted in cell death. More recently, our work has focused on a role for Erg in regulating one of the key steps during angiogenesis – namely cell migration. In order for new blood vessels to form, specialised endothelial “tip” cells sprout from a pre-existing vessel and lead the outgrowth of the vessel sprout by migrating towards specific chemical cues. I used a number of techniques in the laboratory, including time-lapse video microscopy of endothelial cells grown in culture, to demonstrate that Erg was required for endothelial cell migration. This work was recently published in the journal Blood (Birdsey et al. (2012) Blood 119(3):894-903).

The idea of including the transcription factor Erg and videos of migrating cells in the film “Into Paradiso” came from conversations between Dr Randi and her sister Paola, a film director in Rome. Dr Randi was explaining our work on cells to her sister, in particular the fact that we study how cells communicate (via cell-cell contact pathways) in order to co-ordinate their basic responses, such as survival, proliferation, and migration. She used the analogy between cells and people in society, who also communicate in order to survive and modulate their behaviour. Her sister Paola was struck by this analogy and decided to use it in her film “Into Paradiso”, a comedy on multiculturalism. In the film, a scientist in Naples gets caught in a web of mafia and corrupted politicians, and uses the analogy between cell communication and society to persuade the “bad guys” that they will die (or “apoptose” like cells do) if they pursue their criminal activities. So Paola Randi used the videos of migrating cells, generated by myself in the laboratory, as a background to various scenes in the film and in the running titles.

time-lapse microscopy videos

The reason why the transcription factor Erg got mentioned in the film is because, by pure coincidence, in Italy (where the film is set) “ERG” is a very well known brand of petrol for cars. This is therefore used as an ice-breaker between the main character, the scientist, and his love interest, a Sri Lankan therapist.”

Dept of Medicine Young Scientist Day 2012

The Department of Medicine held its annual Young Scientist Day on 23 April 2012. The event attracted large numbers of research students, postdocs and academic staff who had the unique opportunity to hear and see the range of research being undertaken across the Department.

Over 100 posters were displayed by research students from across the Department. A Departmental panel judged the posters and awarded first, second and third prizes respectively to:

  • 1st Mika Falck-Hansen, Kennedy Institute
  • 2nd M S Cheung, Investigative Medicine
  • 3rd Richard Lawrenson, Infectious Diseases and Immunity
  • 3rd Chris Grice, Microbiology

The event was formally opened at 2pm by Professor Gavin Screaton who welcomed everyone and presented the Department’s annual teaching award to Professor Jackie de Belleroche in recognition of her extensive teaching commitments in both undergraduate and postgraduate Neuroscience.

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The Moonwalk London 2012

Sarah Perkins, far leftSarah Perkins, Head of Research Strategy for the Faculty of Medicine, is taking part in this years Moonwalk on 12 May 2012.

She is fundraising for the Walk the Walk breast cancer charity.

For further information and to sponsor Sarah please visit http://www.walkthewalkfundraising.org/the_swans

  • If you are taking part in any fundraising activities, please let us know by email j.moore@imperial.ac.uk and we’ll include you in the Faculty newsletter

About the Moonwalk:

The MoonWalk is organised by Walk the Walk. This is a unique event as not only do all the participants power walk a marathon (26.2 miles) or half marathon (13.1 miles) depending on which distance they have chosen, but they all wear decorated bras to raise awareness for breast cancer. There are 15,000 walkers (http://www.walkthewalk.org)

New FoM/FoE kick-start initiative supports 11 innovative collaborations

I am pleased to announce that the Faculties of Medicine and Engineering have funded 11 projects under the new ‘kick-start’ initiative.

These awards, and the collaborations they are nurturing, have been borne out of a programme launched back in November with our FoM/FoE networking event.

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Obituary: Anthony E Rippon

Anthony E Rippon, former Academic Laboratory Manager, Dept. of Endocrinology and Metabolic Medicine, died on 22 February 2012. Dr Atul Purohit pays tribute:

“Tony Rippon was born in 1940 and obtained his HNC in Chemistry in 1961 at Sheffield College of Technology. In 1965 he began working at St Mary’s Hospital Medical School with Professor Vivien James as the technical head of the Steroid Research Unit, established by Professor James at that time.

He progressed upwards through the organisation, through times of expansion within the Dept. of Endocrinology and Metabolic Medicine, headed by Prof. Des Johnston. With various mergers and, in particular, the expansion of my own group, his responsibilities increased and he accepted his wider role with enthusiasm and efficiency. Tony retired in 2005. Tony was awarded the Associateship of Imperial College in 2006, in recognition of his achievements and enormous contribution to St Mary’s Hospital Medical School and to Imperial College.

He was someone of the highest integrity, with unquestioned loyalty to the College for more than 40 years”.

COSMOS study

COSMOS is the world’s largest mobile technologies and health research study, and is based in the EBS department here at Imperial College. The study is now open to volunteers and anyone who has not already registered can take part;

Why is this research important? Mobile phones have only been in widespread use for a relatively short time but they have become central to our daily lives. In the short term, there is no clear evidence of adverse health effects from the use of mobile phones.

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Reorganisation of the Joint Research Office

In March 2011 the Faculty of Medicine undertook a review of the operational activities of the Joint Research Office (JRO).  The Project Board established 10 work-streams populated with College and Trust staff with relevant expertise and JRO staff members.

The review consulted widely within the Faculty and NHS to establish the expectations there were of JRO service and ideas for the optimum structure for service-delivery.

A final report was issued towards the end of 2011 and as a result of the recommendations from the Project Board a new structure was implemented in January 2012.

The key recommendations were:

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Virtual learning in medicine

Dave Taylor, Programme Lead, Virtual Worlds and Medical Media, and Robin Winter, 3D Interactive Designer, recently won the “design our avatar” competition.

You both work in the Medical Media and Design Laboratory (MMDL) at St Mary’s, within the Department of Surgery and Cancer. What work goes on within your lab?

The lab provides consultancy and development services, and helps to support the Department’s research in use of virtual worlds for healthcare. Our applications range from hospital and service design planning, to major incident simulations for assessing communication and leadership skills. We work with other researchers in our Department, to make use of the latest research in behavioural science and the provision of information for patients in the NHS. Our most recent work focuses on the ability to walk through and test the design of a clinic and its services before it is even built. And we are beginning to work with specific patient communities, and researching more effective ways to help people lead healthier lives. There is an overview of some of our work in the Imperial Media library: http://www2.imperial.ac.uk/imedia/content/view/2084/new-media-and-healthcare-avatars-virtual-worlds-and-apps and in a BBC programme about our major incident simulations: http://www.rockhopper.tv/programmes/619/

Picture: a photo of the Virtual Imperial Surgical Innovation Centre, based on the Paterson Centre in South Wharf Road on a misty day.

How is Second Life contributing towards student learning?

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Twitter avatar competition winner

The Winning EntryThe Twitter avatar competition, launched back in December 2011, has now closed. The Faculty would like to thank all those who entered.

The entries were judged by Professor Sir Anthony Newman Taylor, Principal of the Faculty of Medicine, and Professor Jenny Higham, Deputy Principal of the Faculty of Medicine.

We are pleased to announce the winning entry (opposite) is from Dave Taylor and Robin Winter, from Medical Media and Design Laboratory (MMDL) in the Department of Surgery and Cancer, who will share the prize.

The avatar is a stylised version of the iconic image of Sir Alexander Fleming’s plate culture of the fungus Penicillium notatum; the design honours this discovery which was made whilst working at St. Mary’s (now one of the constituent medical campuses of the Faculty of Medicine).

The avatar can now be seen adorning our Twitter and Flickr pages.

We received a number of excellent entries from staff and students from around the Faculty which can be seen in the gallery below:

Faculty Fellowship Ceremony 2012

On Wednesday evening (18th of January) the Faculty of Medicine held its annual Fellowship Ceremony. Staff and students from across the Faculty gathered in the Lecture Theatre of the Sir Alexander Fleming Building to see Professor Robert Souhami CBE, Professor Averil Mansfield CBE and Dr Malcolm Skingle CBE receive Fellowships of the Faculty of Medicine – a recognition of their immense contributions to medicine and science.

Professor Souhami gave an excellent lecture entitled “The continuing legacy of the Radium Girls”. He talked about the legacy of girls in the 1920s who painted clock and watch dials with paint containing radium, licking the paintbrushes to get a sharp enough point and unfortunately swallowing the radium as they did so. At the time radium was seen as harmless, even medically beneficial. After a few years the women began to get ill with necrosis of the jaw, anaemia and later osteocarcinoma and cancer of the sinuses. It was some time before it was realised that the radium was responsible.

Their exposure also caused bone marrow failure and bone cancer at distant sites because the young women swallowed the radium paint which was partially absorbed by the gut and deposited like calcium in bones. The lecture provided a fascinating insight into the process of the medical discovery of this mechanism.The women’s exposure to radium and the illnesses they developed eventually changed US labour laws. The lecture was a fitting subject at such an occasion to underline the value of medical scientific discovery to improving people’s lives.

The evening was extremely enjoyable and it was fantastic to have the opportunity to honour three such outstanding individuals.

Dr Lyndsey Houseman
Executive Officer (Governance and Review)

Photos from the event

Photos taken by Neville Miles

L-Block visit

Members from the Faculty of Medicine visited the recently completed L-Block at the Hammersmith campus.

The new building will be a flagship facility for Imperial’s Academic Health Science Centre, integrating patient centred research with translational science activity.

Researchers in the new facilities will carry out clinical trials of new treatments and help to advance understanding of a wide range of health problems, such as heart and circulatory disease – the UKs biggest killer.

The building is due to be occupied in Q1 2012.

Photos from the visit

FoM Education – a look back at 2011

Education is a core area of our mission.  I would like to personally thank all who have contributed to any part of this agenda at either Faculty or College level.  The first of these is development of our action programme for continually improving the Student Experience.  You will have seen the messages from the Rector on this subject, and I would like to thank you for the contributions you have made to developing the Faculty’s approach  – a draft action programme has now gone forward for discussion at College level, and there will be further communication on this ongoing programme in the New Year.

Nationally, discussion is gathering pace among the UK medical schools, and with the GMC, on building stronger curricula for training the nation’s doctors through sharing of knowledge and best practice.  The Medical Schools Council Assessment Alliance [MSC-AA] was set up to look at establishing common elements of assessment practice at a national level – where sharing of knowledge and material amongst the schools is anticipated to drive up clinical quality [not that we have had a personal concern in this regard!].  One example of our input into this agenda is in the area of prescribing – research has highlighted the need for improvement in prescribing skills amongst Foundation trainees, and Imperial experience in developing learning and examination programmes in this area is helping to inform development of a national Prescribing Skills Assessment.  Other MSC-AA developments to which Imperial is contributing include a shared question bank for elements of final exams and new processes for recruitment into Foundation Year training programmes, using Situational Judgement Tests.

In terms of prizes these included, the Rector’s Award for Excellence in Supporting the Student Experience given to Dr Emma Watson, Ms Jo Williams, Ms Julia Cork and Mr Chris Harris and Dr Kevin Murphy and Professor Helen Ward received the Rector’s Award in Excellence for Teaching. This year we introduced new Awards to recognise the vital contributions made by our Personal Tutors.  Nominations were made by the students, and we were delighted to see these inaugural awards go to Dr Samia Girgis from the Department of Medicine, and Miss Elizabeth Owen, Consultant in O&G at the West Middlesex University Hospital.  We were immensely proud of Dr Matko Marlais and Dr Nishma Manek who were awarded the Gold Medal and Betuel Prizes for the best performances in Finals across all the London Medical Schools.

This year sees Dr Nicola J Rogers take up the College post of Director of Student Recruitment and Admissions; many of you will know Nicky from her extensive teaching role, and for her leadership of postgraduate education.  We have been delighted also to retain Mr Chris Harris within the Faculty; he moved from his post within the Department of Medicine to take up the role of Quality and Enhancement Manager within the Faculty Education Office.

Of course, our curricula are designed not just to create great doctors, but also outstanding scientists.  This year has seen successful implementation of the final year of the Pharmacology and Translational Medicine Science BSc. We also successfully piloted the awarding of extra ECTS[1] to pharmacology students for approved extramural activities. A new programme for the BSc in Biomedical Science has also been developed, to be led solely by the Faculty of Medicine. The programme, which was revised and re-sequenced to harness strengths from across the Faculty, has been approved by Senate with effect from 2012.

In postgraduate development – we have made significant progress working with the NWThames Foundation School to continue to develop our academic programme which provides a quality grounding in core clinical competencies, complemented by strengthened focus on academic development.  The programme brings the cohort together as a peer group during their programme and enables them to gain experience in academic activity through project work and research/education skills training.  The ultimate objective is to provide trainees with a strong academic skill-set with which to apply for Academic Clinical Fellowships and other schemes, seeding the clinical academic community of the future.

On the postgraduate research side, I am delighted to welcome Dr Laki Buluwela (Department of Surgery and Cancer) into his new role as Faculty Lead for Doctoral Degrees.  This new role will focus on ensuring a quality postgraduate research environment, maintaining an overview of all FoM doctoral provision.  With the increased focus across Research Councils [RC] on doctoral training in key strategic areas, this will be a key post in ensuring Imperial presents its strong case for continuing to attract RC doctoral funding. Read more about Laki’s ambition for the role in his own blog entry.

Finally, many thanks to all who have given their time to help with the development of the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine in Singapore.  This has been an intensive year and required every ounce of the leadership shown by Prof Martyn Partridge, ably assisted by Dr Naomi Low-Beer.  Senate considered a suite of paperwork setting out the plans for establishment of a joint Imperial/NTU MBBS with effect from August 2013 at its meeting last week, and I am delighted to say this has been approved.  Of course, there is plenty more to do before the first cohort arrives in 2013, but approval from Senate is a major step along the path, and a great way to close the year!  We are now at the stage of recruiting to key posts within the new School, and are pleased to announce that Prof Mike Ferenczi has taken up the post of Assistant Dean and Head of Years 1 & 2, from August 2012.  Also, Dr Katie Wynne is taking over from Dr Tanya Tierney as Head of Graduate Entry Year 1 following Tanya’s appointment as Assistant Dean, Head of Simulated Patients Programme and Communications Training and Head of Welfare.  For those that wish to follow progress there is a newsletter: http://www1.imperial.ac.uk/resources/99C81850-548E-4900-A6D8-1012392B4DEE/theleekongchianschoolofmedicinenewsletterissue4.pdf

Many thanks to all and warm wishes for an enjoyable Christmas break.

Professor Jenny Higham
Deputy Principal, Faculty of Medicine

[1] European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System

Competition: Design the FoMImperial Twitter avatar and win £50 amazon voucher

Our current avatar - the Twitter default

The Faculty of Medicine can now be found on Twitter @FoMImperial – and we want to stand out!

So, we are launching a competition for you to design the ‘avatar‘ for the Faculty. The avatar should be iconic and standout bearing in mind that there are currently around 175million twitter users. The winner will receive a £50 amazon voucher!

The avatar of our Twitter page should be recognisable and representative of the world-leading teaching and research carried out by the Faculty of Medicine here at Imperial College London.

What you need to do:

  • Design a new twitter avatar for the Faculty of Medicine which should:
    • be a maximum of 250 pixels by 250 pixels
    • be a maximum size of 700k
    • be in JPG, GIF, PNG format
    • be iconic and representative
    • stand out
    • be with or without text
    • not include the letters ‘IC’ for Imperial College
    • not be stolen (i.e. taken from another Twitter users’ page)

Examples of other Twitter avatars:

Entry:

Important:

  • You must have copyright for any images used and any proof of ownership should be provided
  • Images obtained via the Digital Image library can be used freely (https://imageslib.cc.ic.ac.uk/BMS/index.cfm)
  • No images depicting graphic medical procedures should be used
  • This avatar will also to be used as the Faculty of Medicine Flickr avatar
  • We have the right to suggest changes, within reason,  and the original files should be provided if you are successful in winning
  • You can only enter once
  • This competition is open to all staff and students from the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London – Any entries outside of the faculty will not be considered.
  • The entries will be judged by representatives from across the Faculty
  • The winner will be contacted by e-mail, and the winning entry will be formally announced via Twitter and the Faculty of Medicine website
  • The Faculty reserves the right to choose an alternative image should no appropriate avatar be identified by the review panel from entries received.

GOOD LUCK!

 

Tips:

  • Save this blank template as a starting point (Right click and choose “Save As…”)
  • You could use Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator to design the avatar
  • Alternatively, you could use free image editing software: Gimp

New FoM Lead for Doctoral Degrees – Dr Laki Buluwela

Laki BuluwelaDr Lakjaya (Laki) Buluwela is a Reader in Cancer Biology in the Department of Surgery and Cancer. He has been appointed to the new role of FoM Lead for Doctoral Degrees.

You’ve recently been appointed FoM Lead for Doctoral Degrees – what will this new role involve?

It is a fascinating and challenging role and I am thrilled to have been given this appointment. One of the main aims associated with the position is to ensure that we provide a quality postgraduate student experience with a particular focus on the postgraduate research environment.

I will also have an overview of all FoM Doctoral provision and act as Faculty representative on various College committees, including Graduate School committees such as the Graduate School Management Committee.

What are some of the key activities you are planning for the coming year?

I start straight away by organising and chairing the selection of prospective PhD students to be supported from the Faculty’s MRC Doctoral Training Award. This is a key event and I will be working hard to recruit more of the exceptional research talent this program has supported over the years.

I also recognise that our postgraduate research students suffer as a community, as they are dispersed over several campuses, and aim to address this by setting up a virtual, web-driven campus to support our students. This is already looking very promising and we aim to beta-test this new resource early in the new year.

What most excites you about the role?

I am really excited about the various challenges this role raises. In particular, I am looking forward to trying out and developing some new ideas to enhance the postgraduate student experience. Luckily, I have been given access to some excellent support, so things are moving rapidly….watch this space !

What is your background, and what do you enjoy most about working at Imperial?

I am a Reader in Cancer Medicine in the Department of Oncology at the Hammersmith Campus, where my research is focused on gene expression in breast and prostate cancer. Over the years I have supervised a considerable number of young research scientists and Clinical Research Fellows as PhD students  and many of these have gone on to pursue successful scientific careers in medicine, academia and industry.

Also, while working at Imperial, I have taken an active role in postgraduate research student matters by serving on several Postgraduate Education Committees and have most recently been Deputy Director of Postgraduate Studies for Surgery & Cancer.

Imperial is clearly a fantastic, World class institution which provides a dynamic and rewarding research and education environment to work in. I am particularly enthused by the exceptional talent of the PhD students we have and hope to help by providing resources that will aid our students to reach even greater heights.

Key facts:

Survey on Professional Web Pages (PWPs)

A review is underway of Professional Web Pages (PWPs), which are used on the College website to offer contact details and information about the activities of staff such as publications and awards. To guide a redesign of PWPs, staff are invited to participate in a survey to help identify the content and features which are particularly important for current and future users of these online profiles. The survey should take about five minutes to complete, and all those who complete the survey will be entered into a draw to win a £100 Amazon voucher.

Visit to the Francis Crick institute

My colleagues and I took a trip to the site of the Francis Crick institute (18 November). Currently it is a very large hole in the ground next to King’s cross station. But, with a bit of imagination – and a trip round the visitor’s centre – you can picture what will be the world-leading biomedical research institute when it opens in 2015. We learnt more about the ambitious project and the innovative community projects associated with the development.

The Institute will be a unique partnership with a unique vision. The College and its partners – the MRC, Cancer Research UK, Wellcome Trust, UCL and King’s College London, will combine knowledge, expertise and resources to further our understanding  of the causes of disease and accelerate discoveries into the clinic. The Institute is an exciting opportunity for the UK; not only providing scientific breakthroughs but also boosting the UK economy.

If you want to take a trip to the site, you can arrange this at http://www2.imperial.ac.uk/announcements/2011/10/28/visits-to-the-francis-crick-institute/

Dr Sarah Perkins
Research Strategy Manager

Professor Jenny Higham wins Mentor of the Year award at Women of the Future Awards 2011

Professor Jenny Higham (Deputy Principal and Director of Education) was awarded the ‘Mentor of the Year’ award at the Women of the Future Awards, held at the London Marriott Grosvenor Square on Wednesday 16 November.

Held in association with Shell, the glittering awards ceremony and dinner were attended by HRH The Princess Royal, HRH Princess Badiya bint El Hassan, Cherie Blair and wife of the Deputy Prime Minister, Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, amongst other well known faces.

REF Mock Exercise: Symplectic Elements

Symplectic Elements – what is it?:

This is the publications and activities database used by Imperial College London which will also be used for generating publication reports for the mock REF exercise.

Accessing:

You can find it at https://www.imperial.ac.uk/symplecticelements/ – you can login with your usual College login information.

This system automatically searches the PubMed and Web Of Science online publications directories based on your unique search settings. The automated searches take place at around 1:00am each morning and you will be automatically emailed once any publications have been found for you.

Your responsibility:

You MUST review any pending publications: decline those that are not yours and approve the ones that are. If you do not do this, the publications WILL NOT be returned in the reports being generated for the REF preparation process.

Finding and amending your Search Settings:

Once logged in, click My Elements – Publications – Search Settings.

You MUST include the exact name variants under which you publish. If you have a common name, you might want to include some address or keyword information. Any changes made to the search settings must be saved for them to take effect during the next automated search (around 1:00am the following day).

Adding Publications via their ID

You can explicitly add the online ID for a publication if it is not returned in automated searches. This can be added through the search settings and choosing which online publication directory the ID relates to. Make sure you click the + icon to add the ID to the list to be searched.

** Important issues to note when changing search settings: **

If you add keywords where there were previously none, the search will become much more restrictive and this may prevent some of your papers being found. If you want to use additional logic terms to control the keyword search (AND, NOT etc), switch to ‘advanced view’ within Search Settings – Keywords. Alternatively, removing keywords and addresses will make your searches a lot more broad resulting in you receiving a large number of publications which may not be yours.

Online user guides:

Full information about using the system, amending search settings, importing, exporting and troubleshooting can be found online at http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/symplectic/userguide (login required).

Enquiries:

Lyndsey Pallant, new Faculty REF Coordinator

The first of a series of blog entries for the ‘Faculty of Medicine blog’ focusing on staff around the Faculty:

You are the new REF Coordinator for the Faculty. What does this role involve?

As the faculty’s REF coordinator I support the faculty’s preparations for the upcoming REF submission. Amongst other things, I lead on data collection, analysis and scenario modelling. I will support the faculty’s REF committee and ultimately manage the processes required to make a successful submission that reflects the strengths and capabilities of the faculty.

What are you enjoying about working at Imperial?

Imperial is a great place to work and the South Kensington campus is surrounded by some of the best museums in the country, so there is no shortage of things to do during lunch or after work. I’ve so far been to visit a few of the other campuses and been warmly welcomed by the staff at each location. I had the opportunity to take part in a very successful REF event for the Department of Medicine over at the Hammersmith campus and got to meet some of the academics I will be working with over the next two years. I’m sure I will undoubtedly get to know most members of the faculty over the next few months, as well as my way around London!

What is your background?

The hustle and bustle of London is a stark difference to North Wales where I lived for the last 10 years. I previously worked for Bangor University until my husband and I relocated to Kent. I’m looking forward to getting to know the area and settling into my position here at Imperial.

Key facts:

Santa run 2011

Alexandra Williams, Dr Shamini Gnani, Dr Adrian Raby and Stephen Platt (all from Department of Primary Care and Public Health) are looking for fellow faculty staff to join their team for the Santa Run on 3 December.

Three of the members recently competed in the Run to the Beat half marathon challenge to raise money for charity; the Teenage Cancer Trust and the NSPCC. So far over £1500 has been raised for the two charities.

Javier Gallego – Portraits

Javier Gallego, School of Public Health, has an exhibition in the Blyth Gallery at the South Kensington Campus.

Javier is a graduate in Film and Photographic Arts and studied Professional Photography Practice at The London College of Printing. His film and video work has been screened at film festivals in Europe, Canada, the USA and across the UK.

His photography has been shown at The National Portrait Gallery as part of the annual Photographic Portrait Award and in publications including The Evening Standard and Time Out.

In his current exhibition Javier uses digital manipulation to explore the aesthetics of the body and identity in portrait photography.

Show Dates

  • Exhibition runs from: 9 – 18 November 2011
  • Open: Mon – Sun 9 am – 9 pm
  • Admission: Free

More information on Javier’s work