Blog posts

George Osborne trials the iKnife

Osbourne iKnife

George Osborne last week attended the opening of the new Waters lab facility in Wilmslow, which will now be home to the largest site globally committed to the support and development of mass spectrometry systems.

Walters Corporation secured a deal with Imperial in July to acquire the technology behind the surgical “iKnife” developed within Surgery and Cancers CSM and this new site in Wilmslow will play host to the continued development of the iKnife and its future applications more.

Academic Promotions 2014

We are pleased to announce the 2014 academic promotions and wish to congratulate all the successful staff who have been listed below with their new titles:

Charlotte Bevan – Professor of Cancer Biology
Gina Brown –  Honorary Professor of Gastrointestinal Cancer Imaging
Long Jiao – Professor of Surgery
Nick Sevdalis – Reader in Patient Safety
Zoltan Takats – Professor of Analytical Chemistry
Julian Teare – Honorary Professor of Gastroenterology
Elizabeth Want – Senior Lecturer

Adjunct titles:

Dr Caroline Alexander – Adjunct Reader
Dr TG Teoh – Adjunct Professor

Xenon gas protects the brain after head injury

Xenon

 

Dr Robert Dickinson (lecturer in Anaesthetics for the Division of Surgery), led the study which looked at how treatment with xenon gas after a head injury reduces the extent of brain damage, according to a study in mice.

“After a blow to the head, most of the damage to the brain doesn’t occur immediately but in the hours and days afterwards. At present we have no specific drugs to limit the spread of the secondary injury, but we think that is the key to successful treatment.” more

 

Social networking can help people lose weight

Social mediaHealth policy researcher and Clinical Lecturer in general surgery Dr Hutan Ashrafian, was the lead author of a study released today looking at whether social networking programmes, designed to help people lose weight could play a role in the global fight against obesity. 

The researchers compiled data from 12 studies spread across the US, Europe, east Asia and Australia which trialled social networking services for weight loss, involving 1,884 participants in total. The amalgamated results showed that people who used these services achieved a collective decrease in body mass index by a value of 0.64, which the authors describe as modest but significant. More

Dr Euan Stronach speaks about his work with Ovarian Cancer Action Research Centre

EuanStronachLong

Senior cancer research fellow Dr Euan Stronach, was recently interviewed about his work at the Ovarian Cancer Action Research Centre, which works in partnership with Imperial.

What keeps you motivated on a hard day?
“We have a fantastic tribute wall at the Ovarian Cancer Action Research Centre that bears the names of loved ones who have or had ovarian cancer, and messages and memories from their families. It does not take long looking at the wall to remind yourself why we do what we do.”

What do you dream of achieving?
“I want us to work together as a global research community to really pick apart ovarian cancer and learn all its secrets so we can develop an arsenal of weapons to treat it. I want ovarian cancer to become something people genuinely feel they can beat rather than be beaten by.”

Find out more about Dr Stronach’s work at the Ovarian Cancer Action Research Centre.

CSM starts its linguistic Movie Nights

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You are all cordially invited to the CSM Movie Night!

The entry fee is £10, which will provide you with a seat and a complimentary supply of wine and beer, plus a French/Spanish themed selection of snacks!

The CSM movie nights will commence on Thursday, 7th August with a screening of ‘Pans Labyrinth’ (Spanish),  and will be hosted in 660 SAF building.

Please see attached CSM Movie Night program line up for the next few months.

All of the proceeds will be donated to EducAid, a non-profit educational charity organisation which operates in the heart of post-war Sierra Leone. Please see link below for further information.

http://www.educaid.org.uk/about-us/

 

 

New College Parents Network page launched

Parents networkImperial have now launched a new Parents Network website, which aims to provide a one stop shop for all relevant policies and information related to being a parent at Imperial as well as things like staff perks, items for sale and buddy schemes.

The pages include information to support expectant parents and parents with children of any age to obtain a good work life balance, achieving success at work whilst enjoying being a parent at home.

ABLE General Meeting

Able@Imperial is the College’s staff forum open to all disabled staff, staff who support disabled dependents, and staff who have an interest in disability in the workplace. This is the newest staff group established in August 2013.

AbleThe next ABLE general meeting will be held on Thursday 11th September at South Kensington:

  • If there are any particular topics you want to talk about or have more information on please get in contact with Sarah Shemilt.
  • The Faculty of Medicine HQ are happy to provide financial support for taxis to allow individuals or groups in the FoM from other campuses to attend meetings at South Kensington. If you are interested in this please get in touch with Sarah Shemilt.
  • HR have said that if anyone in any area of the College is having problems getting time off to attend the meeting they can provide assistance to allow you to attend. Again, if you need this please get in touch with Sarah Shemilt.

The Surgery and Cancer contact is Rachael Waddington, so please get in touch for any local help or guidance.

Support women with ovarian cancer

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Ovarian Cancer Action is the UK’s leading ovarian cancer charity and we raise money to fund the Ovarian Cancer Action Research Centre.

Where do we get the money? We don’t – our supporters raise money by jumping out of airplanes, running marathons, cycling around India or selling cakes at summer fetes.

By funding the world-class research that goes on at the Ovarian Cancer Action Research Centre in partnership with Imperial College London, we are offering women and their loved ones hope for the future.

A cervical smear doesn’t test for ovarian cancer and only 44% of women will survive beyond five years of an ovarian cancer diagnosis. We want women with ovarian cancer to have a better chance of survival and to receive treatment that improves their quality of life.

We raise awareness of the symptoms visiting womens’ groups across the UK, attending conferences and creating easy to understand information that’s printed or on our website www.ovarian.org.uk.

We campaign for all women with non-mucinous ovarian cancer to be genetically tested for the BRCA gene mutation at point of diagnosis.

We are in awe of the pioneering work that the scientists carry out at the Ovarian Cancer Action Research Centre, and we want everyone to know about it.

Dr Euan Stronach, a senior cancer research fellow at our Ovarian Cancer Action Research Centre, said: “It does not take long looking at the wall to remind yourself why we do what we do. I want ovarian cancer to become something people genuinely feel they can beat rather than be beaten by.”

If you would like to get involved with fundraising for Ovarian Cancer Action and backing the scientists’ brilliant work, please email Amelia@ovarian.org.uk or go to www.ovarian.org.uk/fundraising.

Thank you!