Congratulations to Computation and Systems Medicine PhD student Liza Selly who won the 2016 Max Perutz Science Writing Prize (run by MRC). From over 120 entries Liza won the prize for her piece on the negative effects of brake dust emissions on human health and the economy. To read more on Liza’s work please see the MRC blog post on Braking perceptions of traffic pollution.
Prof Anthony Gordon was invited to give a plenary talk entitled “Levosimendan for the Prevention of Acute Organ Dysfunction in Sepsis” in the “Hot Topics” session at the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine annual conference in Milan on October 5th 2016. The presentation was accompanied by a simultaneous publication in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Congratulations to Helen Laycock and Harriet Kemp, two Clinical Research Fellows working in Pain Research, who together have won best poster prize in the clinical science category at the World Congress on Pain which took place last month in Yokohama Japan. The winning poster was selected as one of three prize winners from over 2000 posters submitted.
Read an Interview with Professor Naomi Chayen, head of the Crystallization Group in Computational and Systems Medicine, winner of prestigious awards, including Innovator of the Year, and nicknamed the ‘Crystallization Guru’.
Huge congratulations go to Professor Paul Abel (Prof of Urology) who has won the Associate Dean’s Award, a newly created prize to celebrate individuals who have dedicated themselves to teaching.
Prof Abel was recognised for his many years of teaching at the School of Medicine and overall dedication to students, many of which spoke extremely highly of his teaching and recognised him as an inspiratory educator.
The Associate Dean’s award will be presented at the School of Medicine’s Teaching Excellence ceremony in November and comes with a prize of £250.
Congratulations to two of our HPB Surgeons at Hammersmith Hospital, Mr Duncan Spalding and Mr Madhava Pai who have come top in student feedback for Year 6 Senior Surgery at Imperial for the last academic year. The overall score for the Hammersmith Hospital and teacher scores are top amongst 9 hospitals to which Imperial Year 6 senior surgery students are posted.
Professor Zoltan Takats is now a member of the British Mass Spectrometry Society Executive Committee, with his four-year term beginning on the 1st October 2016.
Dr Harry Antoniades – Reader and Consultant Hepatologist working in Digestive Diseases, has received substantial funding with Imperial College sponsoring the study to run a 3-year multi centre clinical trial called R-RID. The trial will be looking at the use of selective intestinal decontamination to reduce infections in patients with liver failure.
Due to start on October the trial will be run in conjunction with The Royal Liverpool University Hospitals, University Hospitals Birmingham, Chelsea & Westminster Hospital and Firmly Health NHS Trusts. The two big collaborating liver centres are Birmingham Liver Unit and Liverpool.
Professor Daqing Ma delivered his keynote lecture entitled “Anaesthesia can Influence Cancer Patients’ Surgical Outcomes” at the Summer Symposium of the Royal College of Anaesthetists (RCoA) on “Improving Patient Outcomes in Anaesthesia and Perioperative Medicine,” held in Brighton from 7 – 8 June, 2016.
The Symposium was assembled from a group of renowned national and international experts who presented on a wide range of subjects with a common theme of improving outcomes. Prof Ma’s lecture focused on his group’s “pioneering” work of the potential impact of anaesthetics/techniques in promoting cancer recurrence following surgery. The lecture was very well received from an audience of over 500 consultant and trainee anaesthetists at the conference. Prof Ma also participated in the judging of trainee’s oral and poster presentation prizes during the conference.
Prof Ma’s area of research, which has the potential to change clinical practice for cancer patients, has been supported by his BOC Chair grant. He is also collaborating nationally (Royal Marsden Hospital and Institute of Cancer Research) and internationally (Ireland, Sweden and China) to further the understanding of this hugely important topic, mechanistically and clinically.
Congratulations to all our successful Academic Promotions staff, all listed below with their new titles:
The Althea-Imperial programme, which supports innovative and entrepreneurial female students, is recruiting ambassadors to help promote the scheme across all departments and faculties.
There will be a briefing session (lunch provided) on Tuesday 2nd August at 12.30pm in the Faculty Building, Boardroom, Level 4 to inform staff ambassadors on how they can help recruit and advise female students. Staff wishing to attend or find out more should email althea-programme@imperial.ac.uk.
Congratulations to Dr David Pinato, NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer in Medical Oncology, who has been awarded the National Royal Society of Medicine Sylvia Lawler Prize for his research at Imperial and in addition, received an American Society of Clinical Oncology Merit Award.
In the last week of June, many members of Computational and Systems Medicine (CSM) hopped over to Dublin to attend the Metabolomics 2016 conference, the annual conference organised by the Metabolomics society. It was held in the new and beautiful Convention Centre of Dublin located right by the River Liffey. This year saw the biggest conference held ever, with over 800 delegates from all over the world.
Professor Jeremy Nicholson, Head of Department of Surgery and Cancer, gave a fascinating opening plenary for the conference on metabolic profiling in systems medicine. Many of the rest of us either gave speeches or presented posters. We made new friends, learnt new methods and techniques and gained much insight into the latest development in the field of metabolomics around the world. Next year’s meeting will be held on 26th-29th June 2017 in Brisbane, Australia.
By Abellona U
Professor Roger Kneebone’s new series of podcasts has just launched on iTunes. Every fortnight he’ll be releasing a 30-45 min conversation with someone whose career has been unusual or inspiring, and whose interests cross traditional boundaries. The first two are available now.
Countercurrent: conversations with Professor Roger Kneebone.
Congratulations to Dr Chris Mullington, anaesthetic registrar currently undertaking a PhD in collaboration between the Department of Anaesthetics and the MSk Lab who won the best caesarean section poster prize at the recent Obstetric Anaesthetists’ Association in Manchester.
His poster was entitled: “Is mean body temperature a cause of shivering during elective caesarean section under spinal anaesthesia? A pilot study”, which summarised the work investigating the mechanism underlying this common side effect of regional anaesthesia in obstetric patients.
Congratulations to Kirsty Flower, who formed part of the Hammersmith team who won the first Postdoc Development Centre Team Award, given to a group of individuals for their outstanding contribution to postdoc life. As a thank you, they received a £100 voucher to put towards a team celebration.
A huge thank you to Kirsty for all your hard work in supporting our postdoc community!