Blog posts

Department of Primary Care and Public Health update

diamondSAPC Madingley Hall 2017

The GP Teaching team are currently well underway with preparations for one of the highlights of the medical education calendar, the Society for Academic Primary Care’s annual Madingley Hall conference in Cambridge. This year the GP teaching team are very proud to be organising and hosting this conference.

Taking place on 26-27 January 2017, the conference brings together brings together some of the best and brightest minds in medical education and research for a varied and stimulating programme. Our programme includes workshops, prizes and speeches from Harvard’s esteemed Professor David Hirsh, and President of the Royal College of Paediatrics & Child Health Professor Neena Modi.

Our theme for Madingley 2017 is “Primary Care at the Coalface: Mining for Diamonds” – creating shining examples of Primary Care clinicians and academics from the pressures of the NHS and government cutbacks.

Residential and non-residential packages are still available – to register and for more information, please visit http://www.imperial.ac.uk/school-public-health/news-and-events/sapc/

You can also submit an abstract or apply to host a workshop via this Wufoo form: https://imperialmed.wufoo.com/forms/p1aha25n1573e97/

If you have any further queries, please contact Ben at b.broglia@imperial.ac.uk

Faculty Teaching Forum

On 16 November 2016 the GP Teaching Team are organising a celebration of medical education around the theme “Tomorrow’s World: Educating Scientists, Doctors and Leaders of the future” in conjunction with the Faculty of Medicine. This annual event brings together faculty staff, clinicians and researchers for an exciting afternoon of innovative workshops, inspirational speeches, and of course the much-loved NHS Teachers Awards.

This year, we are very proud to welcome Visiting Professor of Surgical Education at the University of Oxford Richard Canter to give the keynote speech on the subject of leadership, and are looking forward to an afternoon panel debate on medical student selection.

Our workshop programme this year focuses on some of the current and future developments in medical education being spearheaded by Imperial College, including the use of Virtual Reality and Digital Learning and longitudinal integrated apprenticeships as seen in our pilot ICA course which launched this year.

For more information, please contact Maya Mistry at m.mistry@imperial.ac.uk

Ben Broglia
Primary Care Education Administrator
Department of Primary Care and Public Health

Apollo Therapeutics launch

The official Imperial launch of the Apollo Therapeutics took place on 6 October.  Apollo Therapeutics is a collaboration between three global pharmaceutical companies (GSK, J&J and AZ) and three Universities – Imperial, Cambridge and UCL.  This is the first time that three global pharmaceutical companies and the tech transfer offices of three world leading universities has come together to form a joint enterprise resulting in a truly innovative venture james-sterling-speaking-2aimed driving forward therapeutic innovation.  It is a £40 million fund to drive therapeutic innovation aims to to significantly improve the speed and potential of university research being translated into novel medicines. Apollo will support translational research, shaping projects at an early stage to optimise discovery and delivery of new breakthrough treatments for onward development. 

The launch event saw more than 75 Imperial academics, industry collaborators and Apollo representatives coming tog ether.  The event was opened by Professor James Stirling and the scheme was introduced by Ian Tomlinson (Apollo Therapeutics Chairman) and Richard Butt (Apollo Therapeutics CEO).  A panel Q&A session with The Apollo Leadership team together with Professor Jonathan Weber and Dr Mene Pangalos (Executive Vice President at AstraZeneca) discussed the opportunities for the College presented by the venture.

A call for biologics proposals is currently open; for more information about the scheme please see: http://apollotherapeutics.com/

Dr Sarah Wagstaffe
Head of Research Strategy
Faculty of Medicine

Postgraduate Connections

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The first PG Connections event for 2016-17 was a great success, and was attended by well over 200 students from MSc, MRes and PhD programmes across the Faculty of Medicine. Newly enrolled postgraduates took advantage of this chance to meet and network with other students at a reception after the main event. The highlight was a provocative talk by Imperial College Professor David Nutt, who was sacked in 2009 from the government’s Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs. Professor Nutt took many questions from the hall during his session, and from a queue of students after it had ended. The title of his talk, ‘Why scientists should also be revolutionaries’, was quite coincidentally echoed by the theme of the Faculty of Medicine summer school, ‘Revolutions in Biomedicine.’ Coordinator Dr Kirsty Flower showed slides from the school, and called for PG students interested in working as Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) during the 2017 programme mini-research project in cell/molecular biology.

The PG Connections Advisory Group was set up in 2016 to enable Faculty of Medicine PG students to contribute to events in the PG Connections series by suggesting themes, formats and speakers. The group was a success, and there will be an information meeting for interested students on 25 October.

For information about PG Connections or Revolutions in Biomedicine, contact: l.stables@imperial.ac.uk

Lottie Stables
Postgraduate Education Administrator
Faculty of Medicine

Wellcome Trust Institute Strategic Support Fund

The College has been awarded £5M from Wellcome for the next five years, continuing the Institute Strategic Support Fund which has been instrumental in supporting wellcome-logo-blackbiomedical research across the College over the past 5 years.  The scheme has previously funded numerous internal funding streams targeting the enhancement of multidisciplinary research, the support of early career researchers, strategic initiatives enhancing support for priority themes and public engagement activities. Through strategic allocation of £7.5M funding since 2011/2012, the scheme has supported more than 380 investigators through 185 awards across the College and in turn leveraged a further £53M in follow-on funding.

In 2016/2017, the ISSF scheme will support Clinical Research Careers through Global Health Fellowships and Clinician Researchers schemes and non-clinical researchers through Faculty Fellowships.  The scheme will also support key initiatives to promote collaboration and will ensure the College is supporting an inclusive research environment. All opportunities for funding will be advertised on the internal funding opportunities webpage.

Dr Sarah Wagstaffe
Head of Research Strategy
Faculty of Medicine

Imperial College Centre for Engagement and Simulation Science (ICCESS) update

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Sir Philip Dilley visit to ICCESS

The Imperial College Centre for Engagement and Simulation Science (ICCESS) recently hosted a visit from Sir Philip Dilley, Chair of Imperial’s governing Council. Sir Philip learned of ICCESS’ work in combining medical simulation with innovative approaches to engagement after meeting Centre Director Prof Roger Kneebone at a reception at South Kensington earlier this year.

Sir Philip graduated from Imperial with a First in Civil Engineering in 1976, and spent much of his engineering career with the Arup Group where he was Executive Chairman from 2009 to 2014. ‘A lot has changed at Imperial College since the late 70’s,’ says Sir Philip, ‘and one of the most impressive changes is the amount of cross-departmental collaboration and research.’ Much of the work of ICCESS brings together diverse teams, in one case even exploring lacemaking techniques to learn how to better manage threads during complex surgery.

As part of the visit, Sir Philip got to try his hand at open abdominal surgery – albeit in simulated form! The experience opened his eyes to how powerful simulation can be. ‘My total immersion and focus on the surgical task at hand meant that I hadn’t noticed any of the other activities going on around me, let alone the wellbeing of the patient. And I’d only been given the ‘surgery-lite’ experience without gowns or blood.’

ICCESS at the North West London Simulation Conference

ICCESS played a major role at the North West London Simulation Conference on 21 September 2016. The conference brought together delegates with an interest in simulation delivery and development from a wide range of professions, including doctors, nurses, scientists and technicians.

Dr Tanika Kelay, Dr Miranda Kronfli and Sharon-Marie Weldon demonstrated some of ICCESS’ simulation equipment and environments including their ‘simbulance’ and catheterisation lab. Sharon and Miranda also delivered two workshops in which they demonstrated ICCESS’ approach to multi-disciplinary simulation through the use of Actor Network Theory with an emphasis on the design process itself, using some of their recent research to highlight how this differs from current practice. Centre Director Prof Roger Kneebone was one of the keynote speakers and explained how ICCESS are reframing simulation as a means of engaging with different audiences to drive innovation in healthcare.

The conference was very well-attended and the team reported that delegates found ICCESS’ work interesting and inspiring. The experience has generated a great deal of interest in the Centre’s ongoing projects with several new contacts who are keen to be involved thus building on ICCESS’s growing network of collaborators.

Simulation Reframed

A recent publication by Prof Kneebone provides further support for simulation as a powerful means of engaging with publics, patients and experts outside medicine. Simulation Reframed has been published in the Advances in Simulation journal and can be read here.

Duncan Boak
Centre Manager
Imperial College Centre for Engagement and Simulation Science

Mr Chris Lattimer wins Phlebosophy award in Venice

Mr Chris Lattimer wins Phlebosophy award in VeniceGala dinner celebrations after the congress. Left to right. Professor Giuseppe Andreozzi (Padova), Dr Evi Kalodiki (Imperial College London), Dr Christopher Lattimer (Imperial College London)Preview Changes & Dr Sergio Gianesini (University of Ferrara).

The three prize winners at the international inaugural Phlebosophy congress 23-24 September 2016 were Dr Roberto Parisi (San Giovanni e Paolo Hospital, Venice), Christopher Lattimer and Sergio Gianesini. Each received a brass paperweight inspired by the ancient Athenian tetradrachm, 5th century BC. The meeting was held at the Centro culturale Don Orione Artigianelli in Venice with Dimitrios Kontothanassis (Istituto Flebologico Italiano, Ferrara) as president who awarded the prizes.

During his lecture, Christopher Lattimer PhD proposed a theory as to why some patients present late in the course of their venous disease. “Patients without pain do not have the signals required to undergo anti-gravitational activities like compression or elevation or to seek help. It is these patients who do not experience pain on dependency which are the ones that progress to venous ulceration.”

Partnership for Child Development update

Partnership for Child Development’s Dr Elisabetta Aurino presented the initial findings of a three-year impact evaluation of Home Grown School Feeding on communities in Ghana as part of the School Health and Nutrition webinar series.

Image courtesy of the Ghana School Feeding programme
Image courtesy of the Ghana School Feeding programme

Home Grown School Feeding programmes are government-led programmes which provide free school meals using food purchased from local smallholder farmers. PCD’s impact evaluation looked into the impact that these programmes have on the health and education of the school children who eat them and on the incomes of the farmers that supply them.  Initial findings have shown that schools that provided school feeding experienced higher enrolment and reduced absenteeism rates and that schools girls in particular benefited from HGSF with improvements observed in literacy and cognition. Analysis of farmers data shows that 1 in 3 households in communities with HGSF programmes increased the value of their agricultural sales. A complete analysis of this data will be completed in the coming months.

The SHN webinar is a monthly webinar supported by Imperial College London, Save the Children, UNESCO, UNICEF, World Bank, GIZ and other leading organisations within the School Health and Nutrition field. To sign up to this webinar visit the webinar home at www.schoolsandhealth.org/Pages/SHN-Webinar-Series.aspx

Francis Peel
Senior Communications Manager
Partnership for Child Development

Volunteers of WEST AFRICAN Descent needed for 3D heart scan

Genetic studies of the heart and circulation (Ethics reference number 09/H0707/69).

african-heartThe Robert Steiner MRI unit, within the MRC Clinical Sciences Centre, is looking for healthy volunteers from west African descent aged 18-80 with no heart-related health problems. The study aims to develop an atlas of the human heart to help scientists to determine the effect of different DNA and genes on heart shape and function.

The study will involve a single appointment at Hammersmith Hospital, and volunteers are compensated for their time and will receive a free CD of their scan.

Staff who wish to participate should email heart@imperial.nhs.uk
For more information visit the study website http://digital-heart.org/

NHLI creates videos for British Lung Foundation #BreatheEasy campaign

NHLI videos

As part of the British Lung Foundation’s campaign to raise awareness of what breathlessness may mean for your wider health, we highlighted the work of Dr Jennifer Quint and her team here at NHLI. We supported the #BreatheEasy campaign by doing a series of short videos where Jenni and her PhD student, Ann Morgan, talk about their BLF funded research.

The series of videos we created on this research is from the Respiratory Epidemiology group, and is using anonymised patient records to look at respiratory disease. By using simple questions on what the research was about, why it is important and its potential impact we hoped to make the research accessible to the wider public. We found the greatest engagement on twitter was with the simplest questions – “What is COPD?” was only beaten into second place by the promoted tweet pinned at the top of our homepage “Can you tell us what your research is about?”.

Watch the videos on YouTube

Helen Johnson
Communications and Website Officer
NHLI

Institute of Global Health Innovation (IGHI) update

IGHI

Jo Seed
Communications Manager
Institute of Global Health Innovation

JRO Research Support Roadshows

In June, the Joint Research Office and its partner teams held Research Support Roadshows at Hammersmith, St Mary’s and South Kensington campuses to outline the range of support services available to staff in the Faculty of Medicine. The sessions were well attended and well received, generating a range of questions and interesting discussions on a number of issues.

The various presentations can be accessed from the JRO website, covering the funding mechanisms and administrative procedures which underpin research grant applications and research-related contracts, including the five-day-submission-rule, online systems, College preferred terms, research governance, and patient and public involvement:

  • JRO Grants (pre-award / post-award / EC)
  • JRO Contracts
  • Joint Research Compliance Office (JRCO)
  • Patient and Public Involvement (PPI)
  • Biomedical Research Centre (BRC)
  • ICHT Divisional Research Management

Damian Cerase
Communications & Projects Coordinator
Joint Research Office

Upcoming events from the Symposium Office

Neonatal update

The Symposium Office will be running 7 short courses and meetings in the Autumn with updates for paediatricians, obstetricians and gynaecologists, GPs, anaesthetists – both consultants and trainees.   Full details can be found on http://symposia.org.uk

Book now for the Neonatal Update 2016: “The Science of Newborn Care” running from 28 November – 2 December. This meeting has developed an international reputation for delivering a novel and fascinating programme of current best practice and the latest research findings – giving you a glimpse of the future of neonatal care.

http://www.symposia.org.uk/neonatal

Looking further ahead, Expert Fetal Medicine on 2 and 3 March 2017 is offering an early bird discount until 15 October 2016.  This meeting presents a unique opportunity to hear about the latest developments in the field of fetal medicine, as well as providing a forum to discuss current controversies and to debate the future developments expected in the next few year.

http://www.symposia.org.uk/ExpertFetalMedicine

Martin Gozdzik
Department of Surgery and Cancer

MSk Lab researchers awarded prestigious fellowships

Gareth Jones has won the prestigious European Knee Society International Knee Arthroplasty Travelling Fellowship.

This September he will spend five weeks in seven European centres of excellence, with the opportunity to present work from the MSk Lab, and hopefully cultivate future collaborations.


Sarah Onida has been awarded a Royal College of Surgeons Research Fellowship.

Matthew Ryan
Research Manager
MSk Lab

Eurohaptics 2016

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Imperial College London was the host of Eurohaptics 2016, the main international European conference for researchers in haptics and touch-enabled computer applications. The conference was held at South Kensington over 4-7 July 2016 and was organised by Imperial College London in partnership with University College London, University of Reading, University of Bristol and University of Birmingham.

Eurohaptics 2016 was a great opportunity for researchers – drawn from disciplines such as neuroscience, psychology and robotics – to meet and present their work with the goal of improving understanding of the sense of touch from a physiological and perceptual perspective, devising new haptic devices and investigating better ways of controlling and interacting with them.

Haptics is a growing field, with awareness amongst the wider public also on the rise thanks to the increasing use of haptic technology in mobile devices. Eurohaptics 2016 included public-focused evening events at the Royal Society and Royal Institution.

Imperial College’s Centre for Engagement and Simulation Science (ICCESS) played a leading role in the conference, with Centre Director Dr Fernando Bello as both Programme co-Chair and local co-Chair, and Dr Alejandro Granados-Martinez showcasing the haptic rectal examination trainer he has developed. His innovative device attracted a great deal of media coverage over the conference period, with articles in the Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail and Vice Magazine, to name a few.

Keynote speakers at Eurohaptics 2016 included Professor Stephen Brewster (University of Glasgow), Dr Henrik Jörntell (Lund University, Sweden) and Professor Blake Hannaford (University of Washington, USA), who acknowledged challenges in the design of haptic devices and how we could improve this by studying brain circuitry during tactile skin sensing and by enhancing the way we interact with them.

Eurohaptics 2016 was attended by nearly 400 delegates from 26 countries and was therefore the largest event in the history of the conference.

Read about the rectal examination trainer on the Daily Telegraph website.

Listen to Guardian Science Weekly podcast on haptics featuring Dr Fernando Bello.

Duncan Boak
Centre Manager
Imperial College Centre for Engagement and Simulation Science

Joint Research Office School Leaver Apprenticeship

The JRO launched a School Leaver Apprenticeship scheme in August 2015.

Our aim was to work with a local school to find a student with appropriate skills who would be motivated to grasp the opportunity of JRO Apprenticeship, with the hope of launching a professional career. We were interested in helping a student who might not otherwise have the chance to develop or seek this kind of professional career trajectory.

We envisaged the post as an entry-level position with a fixed duration of one year, and was aimed at school leavers with an interest in finance. The successful candidate was to be based in the JRO grants team in the Commonwealth Building at Hammersmith.

Burlington Danes Academy, a local school adjacent to the Hammersmith Campus, agreed to work with us on this scheme. The Head of the 6th Form, Laura Stone, was extremely supportive and was instrumental in helping to select the first Apprentice.

Laura said:We were delighted to be approached by Imperial regarding the School Leaver Apprenticeship scheme.  We work hard to try and foster links with employers so that our students can access valuable and relevant work experience; and to receive support from an organisation as renowned as Imperial is just fantastic.  

“What has been the biggest benefit has been the time commitment of a one year paid placement.  This enables the student to fully grasp the wide range of specialist and inter-personal skills required for working in a professional environment and build up real examples that they will be able to use in future job applications.  In a time of increasing cost for university study, it provides students with the opportunity to save up for tuition fees whilst doing something that enriches them.  As a school we feel that being able to provide our students with challenging, relevant and high-quality work experience in our local community is part of our vision, and Imperial have helped us realise that for two very fortunate students. I look forward to working with them for the second year.”

The scheme has been a great success and our first Apprentice, Cherry Thein, has taken her opportunity with both hands. Cherry has been a quick learner, has worked hard and has grown in confidence as the months have progressed. She has not just been a token observer, but has been carrying out important work and her efforts have made a significant impact on the productivity of the grants team.

Cherry said: “I have really enjoyed the scheme and it has been extremely useful, as it has helped ease the transition from a school environment to the workplace. This apprenticeship was a stepping-stone for me and the experience has given me more options for the future, as well as an advantage when looking for a job.

“What surprised me the most about working in the JRO was seeing how the money from charities like the British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research UK is actually being used to fund important research. It really motivated me to work because you’re helping these researchers, at least on a small scale, to find an answer. It is interesting working with several diverse teams and departments to make sure a research project can be carried out smoothly.”

The motivation for setting up the scheme was two-fold. Firstly, it was an opportunity for the College to engage in social responsibility with its local community. Secondly, it allowed us to pick up and run with a project reviewing College apprenticeship, which one of our Grant Manger’s Victor Abah developed on the ‘Impact’ Staff Development Programme. Victor has taken on the role as mentor to the apprentice.

The JRO Apprenticeship scheme could not have worked out better. As a result we are continuing with the scheme and have already signed up another Burlington Danes pupil, who will become the second apprentice in August 2016.

William Mortimer
Operations Director
Joint Research Office

Eurohaptics 2016

Haptic technology is a term that you might not be familiar with, although you probably make use of it on a daily basis. Haptics is the science of using the sense of touch to interact with computer applications, whether this is swiping the screen on your smartphone or using a sophisticated haptic simulator to practice a complex medical procedure.

ICCESS prototype haptic simulator for rectal examinations
ICCESS prototype haptic simulator for rectal examinations

Imperial College London is hosting Eurohaptics 2016, a major international conference on haptic technologies, on 4– 7 July. The conference is a partnership between a number of academic institutions and the Eurohaptics Society.

The Simulation and Modelling in Medicine and Surgery (SiMMS) research group, part of the Imperial College Centre for Engagement and Simulation Science (ICCESS), are participating in Eurohaptics 2016 and helping with its local organisation. Dr Fernando Bello, who leads the SiMMS group and is a joint Director of ICCESS, is Programme Co-chair and Local Co-chair.

One strand of ICCESS’ work is the research and development of pioneering haptic devices for clinical simulations. See https://www.imperial.ac.uk/simms/ for further information.

ICCESS researchers work closely with Eurohaptics sponsor, Generic Robotics (www.genericrobotics.com). The Centre’s collaboration with Generic Robotics is taking research developed at ICCESS through to commercialisation. Projects include a haptically enabled simulator for training surgeons to perform advanced endoscopic surgical procedures and a system for training clinicians to perform unsighted internal examinations.

In addition to showcasing the latest advances in haptics and bringing together world-renowned experts, Eurohaptics includes opportunities for the general public to learn and engage with this emergent technology through events at the Royal Institution and Royal Society.

The Ri Lates event ‘Touch and Go’ takes place on Friday 8 July. Visit the link below for more information and to book tickets.

http://www.rigb.org/whats-on/events-2016/july/lates-touch-and-go

Duncan Boak
Centre Manager
Department of Surgery and Cancer

New ‘Mastering Laboratory Skills’ short course

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The Department of Medicine is pleased to announce the launch of its brand new short course Mastering Laboratory Skills. The course devised by Teaching Fellow Wayne Mitchell and MSc Immunology Course Director Sophie Rutschmann provides a unique opportunity to train and learn essential molecular and cellular biological laboratory techniques in our world class teaching facilities.

The course is aimed at students who are completing or have recently completed an undergraduate or postgraduate degree, at medical staff wishing to undertake scientific research or at those wishing to acquire/strengthen their lab skills. The short course combines a high quality theory-based online element with two weeks of intense laboratory work to execute these essential and current molecular and cellular biology techniques. In addition, data analysis sessions will allow participants to critically examine their results and discuss troubleshooting aspects of the work.

Course Director Wayne Mitchell states “The benefits of attending this course are that it combines both theoretical with practical elements of modern molecular biological techniques. It’s one thing to view a procedure in an online tutorial or be given a protocol but it’s totally different to experience the technique first hand with expert instruction. The beauty of our course is that it combines the theory and practice in an environment that fosters good learning.”

Talking about the overall objectives of the course, Sophie Rutschmann adds: “It doesn’t matter what your current level is, the objective is to ensure that you learn the correct skills to successfully undertake scientific research. We are here to help you reach the next level!”

Applications are being accepted on a rolling basis but will close on 31 July 2016.

The online component of the course will launch 1st August 2016 for enrolled students, with the practical element taking place 5 – 16 September. Students have the option of assessment and those who achieve an overall pass with be awarded 7.5 ECTS.

For more information on the course please visit www.imperial.ac.uk/medicine/masteringlaboratory-skills

Celeste Miles
Course Administrator
Department of Medicine

Institute of Global Health Innovation update

News

IGHI hosted a forum to discuss and disseminate research into diabetes and infection.
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/centres/globalhealth/newssummary/news_13-6-2016-10-22-2 

Leaving the EU poses ‘critical threat’ to NHS.
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_7-6-2016-14-23-2

New Patient Safety programme launching for busy healthcare professionals.
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/centres/globalhealth/newssummary/news_25-4-2016-17-13-20

IGHI launch new Centre to bring together health researchers in Africa .
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/centres/globalhealth/newssummary/news_25-5-2016-10-32-24
  (more…)

WHO Collaborating Centre for Public Health Education and Training update

WHO EURO ‘Consultation of the European Framework for Action on Integrated Health Services Delivery’

 02-04 May 2016 Copenhagen, Denmark

Between the 2 and 4 May, Professor Salman Rawaf, Ms Federica Amati and Dr Sondus Hassounah participated in WHO Regional Office for Europe’s (WHO EURO) ‘Consultation of the European Framework for Action on Integrated Health Services Delivery’ — a high level international meeting and workshop aiming to strengthen people-centred health systems, as set out in Health 2020, that strives to accelerate maximum health gains for the population, reduce health inequalities, guarantee financial protection and ensure an efficient use of societal resources, including through intersectoral actions consistent with whole-of-society and whole-of-government approaches. (more…)

Department of Medicine Teaching Awards

The start of June saw the Department of Medicine hold its annual Teaching Awards Ceremony. Awards were given to over 20 members of academic staff for their outstanding contribution to teaching and supervision, nominated by current students. Those honoured included teaching fellow & Short Course Director Wayne Mitchell for his support on a number of courses including MSc Molecular Medicine and MSc Molecular Biology and Pathology of Viruses and. On nominating Wayne one student noted “Wayne has guided and helped me so much throughout my course. He has certainly gone above and beyond what was expected of him”.

sophie rCourse Director for MSc Immunology Sophie Rutschmann was awarded the Department’s top award for contribution to postgraduate teaching. On nominating Sophie one student noted “I feel she has a genuine, heartfelt interest in the MSc she coordinates, and that gives an extraordinary positive spirit to the course. The time and thought she has invested into us is greatly appreciated. I am very grateful for her dedication and determination to teach us well.”

Course Administrator Fiona Bibby also received a Head of Department award for her support to the MRes Clinical Research programme.

It was a great opportunity to celebrate our teaching staff and for current students to show their appreciation.

Celeste Miles
Course Administrator
Department of Medicine