Rising Scientist Day is an event hosted by the Faculty of Medicine, celebrating the innovative research and achievements of postgraduate students. It provides a valuable platform for students to present their work, exchange ideas, and foster interdisciplinary collaboration across the scientific community.
The following post summarises key highlights and reflections from the day.
Yuan Wang, PhD Student
I was honoured to present my poster on how the gut microbiome modulates metabolic diseases through its metabolites. My research focuses on integrating metagenomic and metabolomic data to better understand host–microbiome interactions. It was an exciting opportunity to share my findings with peers and faculty, and I’m grateful to have received a prize for my work. As science continues to move toward interdisciplinary approaches, I was especially inspired by conversations with researchers from different backgrounds who also study the gut microbiome. Many thanks to the organizers, judges, and everyone involved — I truly enjoyed the experience.
Aya Elemeligy, PhD Student
I am grateful to have attended the Rising Scientist Day event and participate in the poster presentation session; it was inspiring to see an incredible range of work beyond my usual area of study. My own poster focused on “Regulation of Haematopoietic Stem Cells in aging and stress haematopoiesis”, it was great to be given the opportunity to discuss my research with others. I am also appreciative of receiving a prize for my poster and having my work recognised amongst so many impressive projects.
Daniel Sin, PhD Student
I had a great time on Rising Scientist Day! It felt really rewarding to present my PhD work to the rest of the department and share Science that I felt passionate about, and it was great to hear other’s feedback on my project. The feedback was useful for my own considerations on what I should prioritize for future directions. It was also really cool to learn about what other types of projects other PhD students were working on. Looking forward to the next one!
Kavita Gulati, PhD Student
My name is Kavita Gulati, and I am a 2nd Year PhD Student, working within the Department of Immunology and Inflammation. I am grateful to have been awarded a prize for my poster “Novel Therapeutic Targets in Glomerulonephritis and Renal Vasculitis”. This was a much-needed confidence boost, as I had recently returned following a year-long maternity leave.
I felt this day was a great opportunity to interact with other students both within and outside of my department. I particularly enjoyed the thought-provoking discussion that came from presenting my poster. I found presenting my work to an audience outside of my speciality helped gain a refreshing perspective.
I also really enjoyed the aspirational 3-minute thesis competition, and I loved seeing the breadth of research that is currently being undertaken in the faculty. It was particularly useful to see the different presentation styles and approaches to summarising years of work. I look forward to hopefully presenting next year when I am also a final year student.
Samuel Channon-Wells, PhD Student
I thought Rising Scientist Day 2025 was a highly rewarding event, definitely exceeding my expectations. Presentations across the board were high quality, and the three-minute-thesis presentations were a particular highlight. I enjoyed the array of work on display, as well as the diverse presentation style.
As a PhD student the day was especially useful. It provided great insights from colleagues into effective research communication, as well as potential new approaches I could use in the future. It was also really enjoyable to see other students condense their years of work into concise, interesting, and often funny presentations. I also found preparing for my own three-minute-thesis presentation an incredibly valuable opportunity. Having to focus on clarity and effective scientific story telling over technical complexity was a challenging but useful experience.
The event was also great for meeting other researchers across a range of disciplines, although I think the ambition should be for even greater participation and engagement from within the various departments! It was a fantastic day and I think lots of colleagues and peers would benefit from attending!
Sorcha O’Conner, PhD Student
I’m a final-year PhD student at the Centre for Psychedelic Research in Brain Sciences. During the Rising Scientist Day, I presented my poster on PsilOCD, a clinical trial exploring low-to-moderate doses of psilocybin for OCD. Our data showed a significant drop in symptoms that held up for two weeks after dosing, compared with placebo – an effect that wasn’t seen in participants’ co-occurring depression symptoms. It was nice to be able to converse with the other PhD students and refreshing to see posters on proteomics for Alzheimer’s and gene-editing approaches in neurodevelopment when I’m usually surrounded by clinical psychiatric research.
The judges moved among the poster sessions, offering practical feedback that helped me refine my methods description and clarify statistical details. Their comments will definitely improve how I present my findings in future conferences.
We wrapped up with drinks and snacks, and the best moments were the informal conversations—sharing challenges, milestones and our next steps. I left feeling energised and ready to apply the new ideas I picked up.
Luke Hanna, PhD Student
I’m currently researching perianal fistulising Crohn’s disease (pfCD) — a particularly challenging form of inflammatory bowel disease. In pfCD, patients develop abnormal tunnels (fistulae) between the anorectum and the skin near the anus, which are often resistant to standard medical treatments for Crohn’s disease.
To better understand the immunopathophysiology of pfCD, I’ve been working with single-cell RNA sequencing of immune cells (CD45+) isolated directly from fistula tissue. Our data reveal strong evidence for upregulation of JAK-STAT signalling, alongside increased activity of JAK-dependent cytokines such as interferon-gamma and interleukin-22.
Importantly, our gene set enrichment analysis shows that these inflammatory pathways can be downregulated in vitro using upadacitinib, a JAK-1 inhibitor — highlighting its potential therapeutic relevance in pfCD.
It was a privilege presenting this work at the Rising Scientist Day and I want to thank my amazing team: my supervisors Prof Powell, Prof Hart, and Mr Tozer, as well as Dr Laura Constable and Dr Domenico Cozzetto, whose expertise in sequencing analysis has been key to this work.
Michael Wang, PhD Student
It’s always a pleasure to connect with fellow PhD students in the cohort. During Rising Scientist Day, I was able to present my work to members of the Faculty and get valuable feedback, while keeping myself up to date on the latest research performed by my follow batchmates and fostering potential collaborations on future research projects.
It’s heartening to see students of the Faculty come together to exchanging ideas and insight and really strengthening our ties as a research community. I look forward to participating in similar events in the future.
Muteb Alatawi, PhD Student
Rising Scientist Day gave me the opportunity to present my research entitled “multi-omic characterization of T cells Dynamics in Lung Transplant Patients-Associated Aspergillosis”. The event featured various activities that made it truly valuable for research students.
The poster sessions allowed me to showcase my work and receive feedback from colleagues and judges. Additionally, meeting and networking with other students and learning about the fascinating work being conducted across different departments was incredibly enriching. These interactions sparked new ideas for my own research and opened doors for potential collaborations that could strengthen my project.
The 3-minute thesis competition was particularly engaging – watching colleagues distil complex research into concise presentations demonstrated an impressive skill in highlighting their work’s significance without technical overload, which was both educational and inspiring. The alumni talk was valuable and offered insights into academic career paths, giving me perspective as I approached my final year.
Overall, Rising Scientist Day offered excellent practice in communicating research to diverse audiences – essential for my development as a scientist.
By Muteb Alatawi | Armstrong-James Lab, Department of Infectious Disease, Faculty of Medicine.
Ravi Mehta, PhD Student
At this year’s Rising Scientist Day “3-minute thesis” competition, I presented my PhD research tackling one of the major challenges in infectious diseases: slow viral diagnostics. My work centres on ddhC, a host-derived small molecule produced in response to many viral infections. Rather than relying on PCR to detect the virus itself, detection of the body’s immune response offers a faster alternative. Using human challenge models, we’ve shown that ddhC levels rise and fall during the acute phase of viral infection. ddhC can identify viral infections across a wide range of settings – including in children, in patients from tropical regions, in spinal fluid from meningitis cases, and even in urine, raising the exciting possibility of a needle-free test.
Until now, ddhC has only been detected using costly and complex mass spectrometry. To overcome this, I’m developing aptamer-based assays. Aptamers – DNA strands that fold into specific shapes to bind their targets – have been engineered to detect ddhC and produce a fluorescent signal. This system is now being trialled in patient samples and adapted into a lateral flow format. Ultimately, this work positions ddhC as a pan-viral biomarker across different populations and biofluids, paving the way for rapid, accessible diagnostics that could help curb antibiotic misuse and support faster responses to future pandemics.
My experience of Rising Scientist Day was excellent overall. It really showcased the sheer diversity of research happening across Imperial – from fundamental science to applied clinical work – and it was inspiring to see so many different presenting styles and some truly exciting results. The event was also a great opportunity to connect with others, and develop new collaborations.