Category: Master’s Students

Vaccine Chronicles: Experiences from Imperial’s Vaccine Student Research Network Seminar

On January 15th, we had the pleasure of hosting the Vaccine Bioscience Seminar, part of the Winter Seminar Series. This was the first event we organised—a kick-off for the Vaccine Student Research Network. Our aim was to provide an interdisciplinary perspective on vaccine research for postgraduate students and offer a first glimpse into the breadth of science taking place at Imperial.

While the COVID-19 pandemic now seems to be behind us, this seminar helped us to reflect on these years and the crucial role of vaccine technology. Throughout the afternoon, we discussed public health and pandemic management through various lenses.

The event drew big name speakers, each of whom contributed a significant piece of a big-picture discussion.

Non-academic Careers Event for MRes students

I’m on the MRes in Biomedical research course and many, if not all, of the career talks, resources and email adverts are all veering towards academia. Not to say this isn’t a good thing, many of us want to go down the academic route. However, my fellow reps and I have identified that there is a sizeable proportion of our course who do not want an academic career or are yet to be successful in securing one.

With that in mind, we planned a careers event and an informal reception not catered to academia. We scouted and contacted people from our course and allied courses who are in industry, public health, or alternate careers such as consulting.

The SynBIC goes to the Isle of Wight

By Javier Cabello Garcia, PhD Student, Department of Bioengineering

After a really tough year, the members of the SynBIC decided to organize a trip to bring back together PhD and Master’s students. This way, we could give a proper welcome to the new arrivals in the team! After thinking about what the best place for our meet and greet would be, we reached the logical conclusion that there is no better place than a garlic farm! So, we headed to the Isle of Wight to visit its garlic farm and the island surroundings.

The day trip to the Isle of Wight took place on Friday 2nd of July, 2021.

The PG Leap Year Ball

On Saturday 29th February 2020, the Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) held its second annual Graduate Students’ ball, an event which aims to bring together postgraduate students from across each campus, each department and either research or taught Masters’ or PhD courses for a night of fun, and relaxed socialising. The Leap Year Ball was held at the Under the Bridge venue in Fulham and was a roaring success for both the GSU organising committee and attendees alike.

The first of these GSU Postgraduate Balls’ ran last year and was well-received, with just under three-hundred students attending. This year, the GSU team were more ambitious.

4Cs Science Communication Writing Competition – People’s Choice Award

by Clavance Lim, MSc Student in the Department of Computing

Translating words to numbers

As humans, one way in which we are unique is our ability to communicate with complex language (arguably, science students possess this skill too). In contrast, computers ‘think’ not in language, but in binary numbers. Instead of the decimal system we count with, which uses the ten unique digits ‘0’ to ‘9’, computers ‘think’ only in ‘0’s and ‘1’s. This is because their hardware is controlled by tiny switches, which turn electrical current on or off. As it is difficult to control electrical current at such a microscopic level (switches can be as small as only 10x the size of an atom!),

4Cs Science Communication Writing Competition – 1st Place

by Michelle Lin, MRes Student in the Department of Life Sciences

Cryptococcosis: The Silent Killer

The young patient presented to the hospital with a fever, headache, seizures, and both eyes bulging out of their sockets. Suspecting an infection, doctors first treated the boy with a common antibiotic, Penicillin, presumably to knock out whatever bacterial agent they believed was causing his symptoms.¹

With the boy’s condition failing to improve, doctors kept the boy hospitalized as they searched for a diagnosis and administered various antibiotic and antiviral medications.

As his hospital stay dragged on, the boys condition continued to deteriorate until, after 52 days of ineffective treatments in the hospital, the boy succumbed to his illness.