Blog posts

Abstract secures funding to attend symposium

Congratulations to Mr Edward St John, Clinical Research Fellow supervised by Prof Ara Darzi, Prof Zoltan Takats and Mr Dan Leff, who has won a prestigious American Association for Cancer Research Scholar-in-Training Award after his abstract was highly rated.

The prize money will go towards Mr St John attending the 2015 Breast Cancer Symposium, in San Antonio, Texas this December where he will present his abstract: Rapid evaporative ionisation mass spectrometry towards real time intraoperative oncological margin status determination in breast conserving surgery

 

Clinical Applications of Solid Phase Micro Extraction (SPME)

The Division of Computational and Systems Medicine is delighted to present:
Professor Janusz Pawliszyn, Professor of Analytical Chemistry, University of Waterloo, Canada

CSM Guest Seminar_Sept 2015 Prof Pawliszyn 15092015v2“Clinical Applications of Solid Phase Micro Extraction (SPME)”
Tuesday 29 September 2015 at 10 – 11am
Lecture Theatre 311, Huxley Building, South Kensington

Chaired By: Professor Zoltan Takats
For more information contact:
Professor Zoltan Takats, Dr Phyllis Quinn 

Event details

Fellowship to fund research on type-2 diabetes resolution following bariatric surgery

indexCongratulations to Nicholas Penney, a clinical research fellow supervised by Prof Elaine Holmes, Prof Ara Darzi and Mr Sanjay Purkayastha who has recently been awarded the Sutherland-Earl Clinical Research Fellowship 2015 by the Diabetes Research and Wellness Foundation.

The value of the award is £209,164 and will fund research toward his clinical study which is looking at the mechanisms and prognostication of type-2 diabetes resolution following bariatric surgery.

GAP year students work with Digestive Diseases PROLIFICA project in Gambia

Three future medical students starting this year, spent their gap year in Gambia working with the PROIFICA team which is part of the Digestive Diseases division.

PROIFICA (Prevention Of Liver Fibrosis & Cancer in Africa) is an EC funded project investigating liver cancer, which arises because of cirrhosis of the liver, a chronic condition that can stop the liver from functioning.

 

Prof Alun Davies becomes Distinguished Fellow Member

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Congratulations to Prof Alun Davies who has just been appointed a Distinguished Fellow Member of the American Venous Forum. The AVF is dedicated to improving the health of patients suffering from disorders of the venous and lymphatic systems.

Distinguished Fellows are AVF Members who have enhanced AVF through volunteering for committees, volunteering as meeting Faculty, provided educational enhancement for trainees, and/or advanced venous disease by research or education.

Prof Davies has been invited to attend the 28th AVF Annual meeting in Florida next year for his award to be formally recognised in front of fellow AVF members.

Prize winners at the International Union of Phlebology

Congratulations to three of the Vascular team who won prizes at the recent UIP conference in Seoul, Korea last month. The conference provided an opportunity to exchange ideas and explore strategies to address issues in the field of Phlebology.
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Francine Heatley being awarded the 2015 Union Internationale de Phlébologie Award ‘In recognition of an exceptionally outstanding presentation at Seoul UIP 2015’ for the abstract entitled: EVRA (Early Venous Reflux Ablation) ulcer trial: A randomised clinical trial to compare early versus delayed endovenous treatment of superficial venous reflux in patients with chronic venous ulceration.
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Roshan Bootun receiving the 4th Union Internationale de Phlébologie Research Fellowship/Kreussler Young Scientist’s Sclerotherapy Award 2015 from Dr Angelo Scuderi (President of UIP) and Dr Christian Freyberg (Chemische Fabrik Kreussler & Co. GmbH) for the project entitled: Randomised Controlled Trial of Compression Therapy following Foam Sclerotherapy.
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Joseph Shalhoub receiving the 2015 Union Internationale de Phlébologie / Servier Research Fellowship from Dr Angelo Scuderi, the President of the UIP, and Dr Françoise Pitsch, Servier, for a project entitled: Metabonomic profiling for the identification of novel biomarkers in deep vein thrombosis.

Operating theatre teams should review use of background music, study suggests

SurgeryThe study, published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing, suggests that communication within the theatre team can be impaired when music is playing. For instance, requests from a surgeon to a nurse for instruments or supplies were often repeated and there was qualitative evidence of frustration or tension within some of the teams

Sharon-Marie Weldon, (Senior Research Officer working in Surgery) a lead author on the study said:  “Music can be helpful to staff working in operating theatres where there is often a lot of background noise, as well as other distractions – it can improve concentration. That said, we’d like to see a more considered approach, with much more discussion or negotiation over whether music is played, the type of music, and volume, within the operating teams.”

Read more

Scientists solve mystery behind earthworm digestion

wormScientists have discovered how earthworms can digest plant material, such as fallen leaves, that would defeat most other herbivores.

Earthworms are responsible for returning the carbon locked inside dead plant material back into the ground. They drag fallen leaves and other plant material down from the surface and eat them, enriching the soil, and they do this in spite of toxic chemicals produced by plants to deter herbivores.

The scientists, led by Dr Jake Bundy (Computational Systems Medicine) and Dr Manuel Liebeke, have identified molecules in the earthworm gut that counteract the plant’s natural defences and enable digestion. Their work is published today (4 August 2015) in Nature Communications and includes support from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, the University of Oxford, and Cardiff University.

Full story

 

Young Scientist Success

WEFEach year, the World Economic Forum selects 40 extraordinary scientists under the age of 40 to participate alongside business and political leaders in the Annual Meeting of the New Champions in China. These scientists are selected from all regions of the world and from a wide range of disciplines to bring value to the Meeting by contributing their scientific perspective and delivering the most up-to-date trends from various fields of science.

Huge congratulations go to Jia Li and Kirill Veselkov who have both been selected to join the Young Scientist programme in China this year and will attend the Annual Meeting of the New Champions, taking place on 9-11 September in Dalian, People’s Republic of China.

Lord Darzi appointed Non-Executive Director of NHS Improvement

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Professor the Lord Ara Darzi has been appointed as Non-Executive Director of the new merger between Monitor and NHS TDA, now known as NHS Improvement.

Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt announced the merge in a recent King’s Fund speech. He has appointed NHS England’s Deputy Chair Ed Smith as new Chair of the body and Lord Darzi as Non-Executive Director. A Chief Executive is yet to be appointed.

Read full story here.

ESSO Course on Diagnosis and Management of Pancreatic NeroEndocrine Tumours

The European Society of Surgical Oncology is currently running a course on diagnosis and treatment of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumours.

The programme aims to give participants an overview on diagnosis and treatment of this condition to young and more senior surgeons who want to develop a specific knowledge on this topic. Adequate evidence-based information will be provided and few controversial topics will be discussed.

 

More information on the programme can be found here.

 

DNA discovery confirms new clinical biomarker in predicting breast cancer risk

CancerDr James Flanagan – Senior Lecturer in the Division of Cancer has been involved in research looking into identifying a new biomarker in the blood that could help identify more women at a high risk of breast cancer.

In a prospective study, researchers from Imperial College London and the Human Genetics Foundation (HuGeF) in Torino, Italy, have concluded that DNA methylation levels in blood cells are associated with breast cancer risk, and could be used to identify women at high risk of developing the disease.

Full article