Month: January 2017

Young Investigators Prize

Congratulations to Jack Leese (UG student BSc Surgery and Anaesthesia) who has been awarded the Young Investigator Prize at the Winter Meeting of the Anatomical Society for his presentation of the research conducted as part of his BSc Surgery and Anaesthesia project (supervised by Professor Ceri Davies).

The prize is awarded for research conducted as an undergraduate or a PhD student and must be presented within 1 year of graduation.  His talk was entitled An Investigation of the anatomy of the Infrapatellar Fat Pad: a cadaveric study.

New Opportunity to Influence Big Data Initiative

Congratulations to Dr Catherine Van Der Straeten (Senior Clinical Scientist in Translational Musculoskeletal Science and Technology) who has become the new Deputy Chair of the METADAC Big Data Initiative. The METADAC is a multi-agency multi-study, designed to establish an independent mechanism for the efficient and effective governance of access to biosamples and health-related data from several leading UK cohort studies. Launched in June 2015, the METADAC also seeks to provide a scalable mechanism to enable additional cohorts to be included in the future, thus relieving the need for each to produce structures, policies and guidelines at considerable additional expense.

The Deputy Chair of the METADAC is a voting member of the Committee, with additional responsibilities.  Dr Van Der Straeten will bring bio-medical expertise to complement the current Chair’s social scientific background and has a strong history in the field of genetic and medical research in longitudinal studies. As part of her former job, Dr Van Der Straeten was the Medical Director of the Biobank at Ghent University Hospital, and has an extensive track record in clinical research.

Dr Van Der Straeten has also been appointed as the Surgery Subspecialty (Orthopaedics) Lead for Northwest London as part of the NIHR CRN. Thorough both positions she aims to use her influence and expertise to make a difference and help create new opportunities for the Department.

Outstanding Award for Excellent Achievement

Congratulations to Professor Daqing Ma (Professor of Anaesthesia), who received an Outstanding Award from the Chinese Society of Anaesthesiology and Chinese Journal of Anesthesiology, Beijing, China, in December 2016, for his special contribution to the development and excellent achievement in Anesthesiology.

Professor Ma was also invited to deliver a talk entitled “Distant organ cross-talk at times of injury” in a Joint basic science in transplant meeting of the American Society of Transplant and European Society for Organ Transplantation held in Fort Lauderdale, America last November.