Faculty of Life Sciences
Science for Life The newsletter for alumni and friends of the Faculty of Life Sciences Issue 4, 2014
In this issue
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
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MAKING A DIFFERENCE
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Primates evolved monogamy RE S TAL EA EN ITY Page 5 I M RCH NM BIL PA O A
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Focus on... Social Responsibility Page 8
Teamwork Challenge Page 10
Introduction Connect with the Faculty of Life Sciences If you are interested in helping our current or prospective students by sharing your expertise and experiences, we have lots of ways for you to get involved.
Online Write a graduate profile Your profile will be used to inspire and inform applicants and current students, highlighting the range of careers FLS graduates have gone into. It may be displayed online or used in a Faculty newsletter.
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When did you graduate and which degree did you do? How has your career progressed since graduation? What attracted you to your current career? How do you think the knowledge and skills you gained as part of your degree helped you in securing this job? What does the job entail in a typical day or a typical week? What do you enjoy the most/find the most interesting about your job? Any advice for anyone wanting to follow in your footsteps?
To submit your profile, please complete this survey: www.surveymonkey.com/s/7D5KYGC Undertake a web chat with current or prospective students Sign up for an hour’s online chat with our prospective applicants and current students discussing your job and/or giving advice on how to get into your field. We have easy to use chat via the university website and there is a staff moderator online to answer any questions that weren’t relevant to you.
Message from the Dean — Martin Humphries
At the University Join a networking or panel event to talk to current students Email our employability intern (alumni.lifesciences@manchester. ac.uk) if you are interested in attending our next Alumni Careers Panel or Alumni Speed Networking Event. For further details on the events see: http://www.ls.manchester.ac.uk/schoolsandcommunity/alumni/ We also run events working with schools, opportunities are available to get involved with our work experience week or Discover Days. Attend a University Open Day and talk to applicants You could help staff a Life Sciences Careers stand and/ or give a brief talk on your career. Our Open Days are held on 28th June, and in September and October, confirmed dates can be found on the main University website.
In your workplace Offer work placements to current students Please see full details on this website: http://www.ls.manchester.ac.uk/business/placementscheme/ Offer internships to recent graduates Please see full details on this website: http://www.careers.manchester.ac.uk/recruit/internships/ graduateinternshipprogramme/
To contact us
Tel: +44 (0)161 275 1531 Email: alumni.lifesciences@manchester.ac.uk www.ls.manchester.ac.uk/schoolsandcommunity/alumni Royal Charter Number RC000797, Exempt Charity Number XR82062
Stay connected with us - update your personal or contact details at: www.surveymonkey.com/s/alumniuom-update Front cover image ‘Golgi nucleus and microtubules in a human cell’ by Professor Martin Lowe, Faculty of Life Sciences
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Want An In sight into The University of Manches ter
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g Looking for Somethin to? different to listen Try The Life Sciences Po dcast!
lifesciencespodcast.com podcast@manchester.ac.uk
@LifeSciencesPod
Research Ian Roberts’ (Associate Dean for Research) top priority has been generating an optimal submission to the Research Excellence Framework 2014, the Government’s national research assessment exercise that drives a big chunk of money to universities. In the last such exercise, in 2008, we were ranked 2nd on research power (quality x volume) in the UK, lying between Cambridge and Oxford. In 2014, cases of research ‘impact’ will be assessed for the first time, and this has made the outcome quite unpredictable. The emphasis on impact does nevertheless chime with the overall vision of the business development function in FLS, which is to secure a position as the partner of choice for companies seeking partnerships with academia, and to have an unequalled reputation for promoting and supporting the exploitation and commercialisation of life science research. Turning to other research issues, grant applications and awards have grown very significantly. Maintaining this upwards trend and hitting our stretching targets for income is a priority, which we plan to facilitate by greater differentiation of staff roles and investing in collaborative enterprises. A personal priority for me has been to improve the number and effectiveness of cross-Faculty interactions.
Write an article for our upcoming blog We are currently setting up a blog, you could write a one off article or be paid to be a regular blogger for the year (minimum six articles per year). We are interested in science-based articles or articles about your career which could be useful to our current and prospective students. You would just need to submit your article in an email along with any relevant images and, if you don’t mind, a photo of yourself.
Faculty of Life Sciences (Alumni Relations) Room G.483, Stopford Building The University of Manchester Oxford Road Manchester M13 9PL
Welcome to this latest issue of the Faculty of Life Sciences (FLS) magazine for alumni and friends. The magazine contains a range of articles that span our two main areas of endeavour, namely to generate new knowledge through research and to pass knowledge on to students (in particular) and society (in general) through education. In this introduction, I outline some of the progress the Faculty has made in these two areas and give a brief snapshot of next year’s priorities.
In the last few years, we have focused primarily on the Faculty of Medical & Human Sciences, with considerable success, not only in recruitment and educational quality, but also in building research in the strategically important area of Regenerative Medicine. A current priority is our links with the Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences, which is being led through the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology and its Director, Nigel Scrutton. MIB is a pioneer in the development of team-based grant applications, and it is well placed to deliver major advances in the area of Industrial Biotechnology (which involves the use of biological systems to generate chemicals, pharmaceuticals and fuels).
Teaching and Learning Progress in this area, led by Cathy McCrohan and Liz Sheffield (successive Associate Deans for Teaching, Learning & Student Experience), is arguably our greatest
success this year. Student recruitment for 2013 has been excellent with targets being exceeded and applications for 2014 entry are up again (and higher than rises in competitor universities). The attractiveness of FLS courses will hopefully be increased further by the recent accreditation from the Society of Biology of all our 4-year programmes. We are delighted with our 2013 National Student Survey results. The overall satisfaction of FLS students has risen a point to 94%. Every degree programme scored above 90%, which was the stretching target I set last year. Our most recent data for positive graduate destinations are fairly static, but students graduating from our 4-year degree programmes are approximately 50% more likely to be in a positive graduate destination six months after graduation than those from the 3-year programmes, which is a testament to the value of this training experience. Our focus on employability continues, with rollout of CV and interview tutorials to all second year students in the coming year.
Other areas of focus are introduction of a more robust peer review system to enable better understanding of teaching strengths and weaknesses, mobile learning, and international recruitment targeted at specific markets, led by three agreements with Chinese Universities. Thus, despite the difficult financial climate, which makes strategic investment challenging, I am confident that FLS is doing well. I hope you will find the articles in this magazine interesting and, if there is a specific area of activity that interests you and you would like to hear more about, please do get in touch. We are very keen to hear from our alumni and involve you in Faculty events.
Martin Humphries Vice-President and Dean
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Research news Primates evolved monogamy to reduce the risk of infanticide
Digital reconstruction of giant dinosaur steps Faculty scientists have helped digitally reconstruct one of the world’s largest dinosaurs, allowing it to take its first steps for over 94 million years. The team, working alongside scientists in Argentina, began by scanning a 40-metre skeleton of the Cretaceous Argentinosaurus dinosaur. They then used advanced computer modelling techniques to recreate its walking and running movements and test its locomotion ability for the very first time.
Purified fish oils could help treat rare disease affecting new-born babies
The study provides the first ever virtual trackway of the dinosaur. Dr Bill Sellers, lead researcher on the project, said: “If you want to work out how dinosaurs walked, the best approach is computer simulation. This is the only way of bringing together every strand of information we have on this dinosaur, so we can reconstruct how it once moved. These animals are not like anything alive today, so we can’t just copy a modern animal. Our machine learning system works purely from the information we have on the dinosaur and predicts the best possible movement patterns.” Argentinosaurus weighed 80 tonnes and the simulation shows that it would have moved
A reconstructed skeleton of the giant dinosaur Argentinosaurus at the Carmen Funes museum in Plaza Huincul, Argentina
at around 5 mph – barely above a human’s walking speed. The research does more than simply tell us about the movement of this particular dinosaur, though. It also increases understanding of musculoskeletal systems and will help the development of robots. Dr Sellers added: “All vertebrates share the same basic muscles, bones and joints. To understand how these function we can compare how they’re used in different animals. The most interesting are often those at extremes. Argentinosaurus is the
biggest animal that ever walked on the surface of the earth and understanding how it did this will tell us a lot about the maximum performance of the vertebrate musculoskeletal system. We need to know more about this to help understand how it functions in humans. Similarly, if we want to build better legged robots then we need to know more about the mechanics of legs in a whole range of animals. Nothing has bigger, more powerful legs than Argentinosaurus.”
New research links body clocks to osteoarthritis Scheduled exercise, regular meals and the periodic warming and cooling of joints could be used to relieve the symptoms of osteoarthritis, find Faculty researchers.
Academics from the Universities of Manchester, Oxford, Auckland, and University College London have revealed a new understanding of why primates live in monogamous pairs. According to their study, the key drive factor that led to the evolution of monogamy in many primates is the threat of infants being killed by unrelated males. The team also found that males became more likely to care for their offspring following the emergence of monogamy, as they began protecting infants and sharing the burden of childcare.
A research team from the Faculty of Life Sciences has shown that cartilage cells have a functioning ‘clock’ that affects genes controlling tissue function, switching them on and off. The rhythm of the cartilage clock may explain why osteoarthritis sufferers find the symptoms of the disease worse at certain times of the day. Team leader Dr Qing-Jun Meng studied cartilage tissue in mice and found that the tissue’s body clock was 40% weaker in older mice. This suggested that clock deterioration could contribute to the increased risk of developing osteoarthritis in later life. The researchers then looked at cartilage cells affected by damage similar to osteoarthritis and found that components of the body clock are altered during the early stages of the disease. To see if there was a causal link between these changes, the team imposed an artificial rhythm on mouse and human cartilage cells, mimicking daily changes of body temperature. After three cycles of temperature changes, the body clock in the cells had been reset and was more
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efficient. This change lasted up to seven days after the temperature cycles were removed and may continue for longer. Dr Meng says: “By imposing a rhythm to boost the internal rhythm in cartilage, our data suggests the aged cartilage clock might be re-tuned. This could be done by scheduled exercise, restricted meal times or by targeting the joint itself with scheduled warming and cooling. Imposing a rhythm could have a significant impact on the future management of joint diseases and could help relieve sufferers’ symptoms. Taking drug treatments for joint diseases according to the
cartilage clock time could increase their effectiveness, which would allow a lower dosage and consequently reduce side effects.” Dr Meng and his team have now been awarded an MRC grant of £500,000 to establish the causal relationship between clock disruptions and the onset and severity of osteoarthritis as well as identifying novel therapeutic targets. This will include the targeting of clocks by imposing an artificial rhythm as well as the timed delivery of drugs.
Infants are most vulnerable when fully dependent on their mother because females delay further conception while nursing. This leads to threats from unrelated males, who hope to bring the next conception forward by killing the infant. When raising the young is a shared process, the dependency period is shortened, and females reproduce sooner. Sharing the burden of care also allows for more intelligent infants. Growing a ‘big’ brain is expensive and requires offspring to mature slowly. Caring fathers help to alleviate the burden of looking after the young, allowing for longer childhoods, which may explain the evolution of large brains in the human lineage.
To uncover this evolutionary pathway, the team gathered data across 230 primate species, plotting them on a family tree of the species’ relationships. They then used computers to ‘rerun’ evolution millions of times to see whether different behaviours appeared at similar points in evolutionary time, and if so, which behaviour evolved first. They found that male infanticide tended to cause the switch from a multi-male mating system to monogamy, while other suggested causes, such as biparental care and solitary ranging by females, were the result of monogamy rather than a cause. Faculty researcher Dr Susanne Shultz said: “What makes this study so exciting is that it allows us to peer back into our evolutionary past to understand the factors that were important in making us human. Once fathers decide to stick around and care for their young, mothers can then change their reproductive decisions and have more, brainier offspring.”
Faculty research has shown that a rare and potentially lethal disease affecting new-born babies may be treatable with fish oils. The disease, known as congenital hyperinsulinism, is a rare disorder which affects roughly 1 in 50,000 children in the UK. A danger to babies whose bodies make too much insulin, it can starve their brain of blood sugar, leading to possible brain damage or long-term disability. Giving these infants purified fish oils similar to those used to treat heart attack patients can improve their blood sugar levels, which could prevent the worst effects of the disease. Faculty researcher Dr Karen Cosgrove says: “Although we didn’t see enormous changes in our patients during the research, the effects were small but positive. It is important for all babies with congenital hyperinsulinism because it is a condition which is so difficult to treat.” The research was conducted alongside consultants from Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital. The hospital is the base for The Northern Congenital Hyperinsulinism Service (NorCHI), a highly specialised facility set up to treat this rare disease. Dr Indi Banerjee, clinical lead for NORCHI, says: “The current medical treatment for children with congenital hyperinsulinism has been quite limited. The addition of this fish oil supplement may be a simple but effective way of treating low blood sugars in many children with this difficult condition.”
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Faculty news Outstanding Alumni award to Jackie Caine
World’s largest history of science meeting Last summer, over 1750 researchers gathered at the University for the 24th International Congress of History of Science, Technology and Medicine. The Congress series has been running since 1929 and attracts contributors from around the world, with recent meetings in Beijing and Budapest. The week-long Manchester meeting was the biggest ever, and the organisers were keen to showcase two of the city’s key strengths: our rich scientific and industrial heritage, and our ability to entertain. Alongside an academic programme of around 1400 research papers, the Congress featured numerous public events. Ooppera Skaala’s Opera Turing Machine told the story of the iconic computer theorist Alan Turing through music, dance and innovative graphics, while a ‘Victorian Science Spectacular’ dazzled and shocked audiences with authentic re-recreations of electrical experiments and magic lanterns. The Congress also colonised the Jabez Clegg pub for events including Bright Club (which blended academic research with stand-up comedy) and a Congress Beer Festival featuring such appropriate brews as Ein Stein and Darwin’s Origin. The national group organising the Congress was led by members of the University’s Centre for the History
of Science, Technology and Medicine (CHSTM). Part of the Faculty of Life Sciences, CHSTM delivers research and teaching on the history of all disciplines in the field, and many events were inspired by our staff and students’ work. Ian Burney’s research on the detective-fiction roots of professional crime scene investigation provided a media highlight, while James Sumner, Co-Chair of the Local Organising Committee, presented a packed audience at the Jabez with a worryingly graphic practical demonstration of his findings on nineteenth-century beer adulteration. Jeff Hughes, Chair of the Committee, said: “iCHSTM has been an incredible experience! The presentations covered the entire chronological, geographical and thematic range of our field. Our social media team blogged, tweeted and streamed iCHSTM to audiences worldwide. And adding an opera première, comedy nights and a HSTMthemed beer festival has wowed the delegates!” You can find videos, images, blogs and the full Congress programme at www.ichstm2013.com. For more about research and teaching at CHSTM, please visit www.manchester.ac.uk/ chstm
PhD Programme with A*STAR Institutes, Singapore Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice Chancellor, visited Singapore recently, accompanying David Willetts, Minister of State for Universities and Science, during a visit to promote UK Higher Education in Australia, Indonesia, and Singapore. The Ministerial visit included meetings with a wide range of government offices and institutions in Singapore, many of which Dame Nancy visited during a personal trip in January 2013. Meetings were held with the National Research Foundation, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Trade and Industry, and key partner institutions such as The National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University. A highlight of the programme was the signing of an agreement between our university and the A*STAR Graduate Academy for joint agreement engagement in A*STAR’s Research Attachment Programme (ARAP). The University-wide agreement will extend
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the current engagement that the Faculty already has established (15 students registered to date). Students are registered in the Faculty and spend two years in Manchester and two years in a Singapore Research Institute. The Faculty funds their time in Manchester, and their time in Singapore is funded by A*STAR. Projects are identified by encouraging supervisors from Manchester and Singapore to collaborate and develop projects that create added value through two-centre research activities which advance joint research interests. Professor Martin Humphries, Dean and Vice-President of the Faculty, said: “The University of Manchester is fortunate to have multiple levels of partnership in Singapore. I’m delighted that we were able to extend this through joint engagement with A*STAR’s ARAP programme which will support improved collaboration between researchers in Manchester and Singapore.”
This year’s outstanding alumni award for the Faculty of Life Sciences was presented to Jackie Caine at the July graduation ceremonies. Jackie Caine graduated only in 2006, but in those few years she has made a remarkable impact. Jackie was the first in her family to attend university and her career shows how graduates can have a series of exciting and fulfilling jobs if they are flexible and seize their opportunities. After graduating with a 1st Class honours degree in Zoology, Jackie took on temporary jobs in order to fund a trip to Kenya where she worked with The Colobus Trust, a charity that conserves wild colobus monkeys and local primate populations along the Diani coastline. On her return from Africa, Jackie worked for the Society for Education and Exploration, and for Chester Zoo and eventually found a job with the Bat Conservation Trust in London. She realised that she needed to develop her academic skills, and was awarded a grant to study for a Masters in Conservation at University College London. During her masters, Jackie was an intern for Wildlife and Countryside Link – an umbrella group of UK wildlife organisations – which gave her experience of environmental lobbying and policy work. Jackie is now a Senior Science Policy Officer at the Society of Biology, and has given evidence on forestry research to a joint meeting of the parliamentary Science and Technology Committees. She currently works on providing an evidence base for policy developments across the Biological
Sciences, such as skills development, research funding and equality and diversity issues. More recently, Jackie has helped set up ‘Groho’ – a non-profit limited company that will make urban greening solutions more accessible to urban communities, from large companies to small community projects. The projects will be centred around Soho square in the centre of London, bringing together landscape
designers, architects, garden designers, artists and scientists to make the capital a showcase for urban ecological design and sustainability. In seven short years following graduation, Jackie has done an amazing amount. This year’s students can take her career as an inspiration – the world is full of opportunities.
Commercial Innovator of the Year Dr Curtis Dobson has won the Commercial Innovator of the Year award at the BBSRC’s Fostering Innovation Awards 2014. The awards were presented in London, in front of a prestigious audience featuring leading figures from the worlds of investment, industry, government, charity, and academia. He scooped the £15,000 award in recognition of two successful healthcare companies that are based on his research, Ai2 and Microsensor.
Dr Curtis Dobson said:
Ai2 Ltd has developed anti-infective peptide technology for use in ophthalmics and medical devices. This technology helps to reduce infections caused by contact lenses, catheters, wound dressings, and orthopaedic devices. Microsensor Ltd is developing a new approach to the early detection of medical device infection and environmental monitoring. The technology is simple, inexpensive, and robust, providing a clear indication of clinically or industrially relevant levels of infection on a surface.
Professor Ian Kimber, Faculty Associate Dean for Business Development, said:
“Being recognised by this BBSRC award is a privilege and an honour, and further validates our efforts to tackle resistant infection, which impacts so many people throughout the UK and beyond. The additional funds will help us accelerate commercialisation of our latest technologies, ultimately delivering benefits to patients sooner.”
“This is a remarkable achievement and is a testament to the industry and innovation of Curtis and his co-workers. It is a reflection also of the emphasis we place on ensuring that the fruits of our substantial investment in research deliver valuable products and opportunities.”
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Focus on... Social Responsibility
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The launch event marked the finale of a two-month long awareness-raising campaign that highlighted how staff, students and alumni are contributing the University’s social responsibility agenda through the ‘Make a Difference’ campaign. The campaign featured over 50 students, staff and alumni and shared their stories on the Make a Difference Tumblr blog. Below you can see examples of how alumni and staff from the Faculty of Life Sciences are contributing to the University’s social responsibility agenda and making a difference.
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The University formally launched its social responsibility strategy at the end of November with an event for staff, students and alumni, as well as colleagues from local organisations and the wider social responsibility community.
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Social responsibility describes the way we are making a difference to the social and economic well-being of our communities through our teaching, research and public events and activities. Uniquely in the UK, social responsibility is one of the University’s three core strategic goals in our Manchester 2020 strategy, sitting equally alongside our commitments to world-class research and outstanding learning and student experience.
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Giving a home to 13,000 bees, encouraging alumni and staff to become school governors and sourcing food from local producers are just three ways the University of Manchester is making the goal of social responsibility a reality.
I’m making science fun for children in less advantaged communities
I am helping to improve anticancer drugs
I was lucky to combine modules on ‘Science and the Public’ with my BSc in Biomedical Sciences, which I graduated from in 2003. Being the first in my family to go to university, I needed practical experience of the type of careers I could do after graduating to show me what to aim for.
I am a Professor in Life Sciences at Manchester and a Cancer Research UK Senior Fellow. I lead a research team exploring the fundamental molecular mechanisms that are compromised during the development of cancer. We know that accurate chromosome segregation is critical for the survival and wellbeing of both individual cells and whole organisms. Whereas normal cells go to great lengths to ensure accuracy every cell division, cancer cells frequently make mistakes.
Taking part in Fuse FM, MAP mentoring, and a communications project with the Manchester Museum all set me on the road for my future career. I trained as a science journalist, and following six years in the BBC and four years in science communication in Auckland, I am now a science communication researcher at the University of the West of England. My work aims to make science fun, showing that everyone can take part in and understand aspects of science. We work with deprived pupils and communities to help them experience scientific projects which are relevant to their lives. Alongside this I also promote and run choirs for people with communication difficulties through brain diseases like stroke and Parkinson’s disease. We aim to raise awareness of disorders like aphasia, where people can sing but not speak, so that more can be done to help people recover their language. I love my work and I credit the experiences and opportunities I had in Manchester! Laura Fogg Rogers
In my lab we study how human cells maintain the fidelity of chromosome segregation, and why it goes wrong during tumour growth. My research has taken me from Manchester to Oxford to Harvard and back to Manchester again. I am passionate in my pursuit of and hope that by exploiting the differences between tumour and normal cells we can identify new strategies to effectively combat cancer. Professor Stephen Taylor
The University has committed to pursuing change across five social responsibility priorities:
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Research with Impact Socially-Responsible Graduates Engaging our Communities Responsible Processes Environmental Sustainability
For more information about Social Responsibility see: www.socialresponsibility.manchester.ac.uk
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Graduate Profiles
What do you enjoy the most/find the most interesting about your job?
University of Manchester alumni who graduated from the Faculty of Life Sciences and its predecessors represent a wealth of knowledge and expertise all over the UK and beyond. Our alumni all have different experiences and memories of their time at Manchester and have chosen a variety of career paths. Our reputation for research excellence attracts individuals who aspire to a career in life sciences research, however, around 50% of our graduates choose careers in alternative subjects. We are always interested to hear from our graduates.
I am currently spending the first rotation of my PhD in a lab working on lymphomagenesis, so one of the things that I really enjoy about this job is knowing that the research I do will have some significant real-world applications. I love the challenge and problem-solving required in primary research. It’s interesting to see the story unfold as you collect more data and begin to understand the unknowns of what you’re looking at.
The following are case studies from two of our recent alumni:
When did you graduate and which degree did you do?
Michael Harris
BSc Biology with Industrial Experience 2005
When did you graduate and which degree did you do? I graduated in 2012 with a joint honours degree in Genetics with a modern language (Japanese). How has your career progressed since graduation? After graduating I moved to the USA where I worked for a year as a research assistant in the University of Colorado, Denver’s regenerative medicine division. As of September though I returned to the UK and began a four year Wellcome Trust PhD student in Immunity & Infection at the University of Cambridge. What attracted you to your current career? I enjoy the primary research and problem solving that comes with doing a PhD. Everything that you work on as a PhD student is helping expand human knowledge. I would say that one of the most important aspects of my degree was probably the placement year that I spent in Japan. This gave me the confidence and independence necessary to do research in an advanced degree.
Lydia White
How has your career progressed since graduation? I am currently in senior position at Kew Publishing, the publishing house at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. I have worked in this area for over six years now but progressed through different roles over the years, from a publishing assistant to my current position as sales and marketing manager. My sandwich year was spent at Kew in the labs and I returned to work back in the labs after graduation, and then following a year employment moved to the publishing team. What attracted you to your current career?
me possibilities I would not have had without work experience. But essentially it allowed me to get a foot in the door, get noticed and network to take up career opportunities. In my day to day job I am still using the skills I developed as part of my degree - analytical thinking, research, communication, biological understanding, planning. What does the job entail in a typical day or a typical week? I am responsible for the marketing and sales of our front and back list titles. We publish 20-30 titles per year, with a backlist of over 550 titles. I am promoting these titles, by writing marketing copy, developing new titles along with my colleagues, selling our new and back list titles. I am dealing with customers and partners on an international scale, on everything from negotiating sales orders, analysing and producing sales reports, to planning a new book publicity plan. What do you enjoy the most/find the most interesting about your job? The great thing in publishing is that you always get a physical end product from a project. I enjoy being part of and seeing the transition from project initiation through peer review, design layout, to achieving great sales and publicity. It’s a very creative process but also has research and development throughout. It’s a real team effort and producing a beautiful or highly informative end product makes it very satisfying.
I wanted to use my scientific knowledge and skills but didn’t want to do a PhD, and I figured that the publishing industry was an attractive option, particularly scientific publishing. My placement year was integral to my career, because it afforded
What does the job entail in a typical day or a typical week? A typical day for me involves reading papers and journal articles before going to the lab.
Lydia W
hite
What do you enjoy the most/find the most interesting about your job? Setting up and running experiments, doing lots of tissue culture, and running data analysis. As well as this, I also edit for a biotech review, so I typically spend my evenings looking over submissions and preparing articles for publication.
arris
lH Michae
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Alumni news It has been a fantastic year for alumni involvement within the Faculty of Life Sciences and this trend is set to continue and grow. There are 20,747 FLS alumni in total with a wealth of expertise and experience to share with both prospective and existing students. We now have over 2000 volunteers across the University with many more alumni expressing an interest in taking advantage of the various volunteering opportunities available at future events. Here we take a look at how our alumni have supported the Faculty of Life Sciences either through financial donations or through volunteering their time.
benign climate and landscape in some Arctic countries, at the same time as dwindling resources and increasing populations in countries to the south, could lead to future geopolitical tensions. He outlined consequences, for example, how the Northern Sea Route is already open and has been used by over 50 cargo ships recently. This route reduces costs of shipping to South East Asia by more than half because of shorter distance and the economy of using larger ships currently restricted in size by the Suez Canal. Current hubs such as Singapore and Hong Kong could see shipping trade shifting to Yokohama, Japan.
Global Impact Awards
Genetics Guest Lecture A very engaging lecture entitled “The ‘Genetic MOT’ for Disease Free Babies” was delivered by Professor Darren Griffin, a professor of genetics at The University of Kent to around 80 Undergraduate genetics students in September. The lecture was organised with Doctor Ray O’Keefe, Programme Director for the Genetics Degree, and formed part of his welcome event. Professor Darren Griffin commented after that he was impressed by our students’ knowledge.
Guest Lecture with Nobel Prize Winner Professor Terry Callaghan Nobel Peace Prize recipient Professor Callaghan, awarded for his work on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), gave a guest lecture in October titled ‘The rapidly changing Arctic: what it means to you’. Over 100 students attended including students on the Manchester Access Programme.
Each year, the Alumni Association offers Travel Awards of £250 to help current students bring practical or social benefits to an international community. The awards are made by the Alumni Advisory Board and to qualify, the students must be travelling overseas to undertake voluntary work of sustainable benefit to the community, which is beyond the main focus of their subject of study. Rhiannon Heslop, second year Biomedical Sciences with Industrial Experience student, used her Global Impact Award to volunteer with a Belarusian Children’s Summer Camp to look after disabled children, giving the children a holiday and carers a break and she coordinated the activities of the charity’s young first time volunteers. Following her trip, Rhiannon said, “The language barrier between me and the Belarusian volunteers and children was a huge challenge, but I feel like we managed to overcome it by using a lot of miming and with a lot of help from bilingual volunteers. Learning to look after severely disabled children was a much more terrifying challenge, but I had such a great sense of achievement when I learnt how to accomplish tasks such as showering one of the children by myself with no problems.”
In his lecture, Professor Callaghan explained that thawing permafrost will impact on the ecology and infrastructure of the Arctic. Increasing access to vast natural resources in the Arctic and an increasingly
Team Work Challenge 20 second year undergraduate students took part in the ‘FLS Team Work Challenge’ which ran over two days in reading week in October. The event was organized by the Careers Service in collaboration with the Faculty of Life Sciences and the Alumni Office. The students formed teams to work on several business challenges, such as launching a new cake company and creating a marketing and PR campaign for a pizza company. Students worked in small teams on one of several business challenges. On the first day, as well as working together in their teams, the students heard presentations by the Careers Service and had the opportunity to discuss their business plans with Marketing, Finance and Income Generation experts. On the second day, the groups worked on ‘pitches’ to present to an expert panel. The panel, consisting of a locally-based CEO, Managing Directors, a Marketing expert and a Research Business Manager, watched the ten minute pitches from the four teams and asked some challenging questions relating to the pitches. Cash prizes, sponsored by Qiagen, were awarded to the best team and there was also a prize for outstanding contribution from an individual. Eleanor Bill from the winning ‘Discover Manchester’ team commented: “It was interesting to look more in depth into the planning that has to go on
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behind putting on and marketing an event. It also definitely helped improve my public speaking and teamwork skills.”
Philanthropy; alive and well at Manchester A recent drinks reception in London was extremely well attended by some of our growing number of generous donors. Key-note speaker on the night was Biochemistry graduate and businessman, Steve Richards, a supporter of the Manchester Access Programme which provides financial assistance to students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Steve’s kind words summed up the feelings of many of our donors to the Access Programme “I view my three years at University as the most important of my life. In the 1970’s there was a clear route to university for students from disadvantaged backgrounds – without it how many of my classmates would have missed out and how much would society have lost from this waste of talent? Today it is much harder for those in most need of advancement to rise up. We’ve had the benefits and now it is time to put something back. I am thrilled to be giving some students the same opportunity I had, it’s one of the most important activities I am involved with today”.
Introducing….. Moyin Kwok – Marketing and Recruitment Co-ordinator for the Faculty of Life Sciences
To find out more about how your donations could have a profound impact on research and students here at the University, contact paul.winter@manchester.ac.uk or call 0161 2757785.
School Governors Thanks to the contribution of our alumni, the University of Manchester is the largest recruiter of School Governors in England. Manchester is the first university to formally partner with the national charity School Governors One-Stop Shop (SGOSS) whose aim is to help fill 30,000 current vacancies for state school governors across England. School governors form the country’s largest group of educational volunteers and on average each governor influences the education of around 550 children. Since August, 172 alumni have been recruited by the Alumni Relations Office to become school governors. Catherine Wright, a manager at Ernst and Young and alumna of the University is a partnership governor at Northmead Junior School in Guilford. “I really wanted to do something in the community, something that I could actually help with and, because of my work skills and my family’s involvement in teaching, this seemed like a good match.”
What’s new with you Stay connected with us - keep us up to date with any interesting news by emailing: alumni@manchester.ac.uk
Laura Pickup, winner of the outstanding contribution prize said: “The teamwork challenge has helped tune my employability skills, such as leadership and public speaking, as well as building my confidence in those skills. I’m very glad I took the chance to take part in the event as I’m now considering careers I wouldn’t have even looked at before!”
The panel: Wiesia Woodyatt (Christie Hospital), Kate Armitage (Christie Hospital),Bernard Fanning (Network Rail), David Allcock (Biofocus), Patrick Hackett (University of Manchester). Not pictured Matimba Swana (Stem Cell Technologies)
Alumni Careers Panel and Speed Networking Alumni with expertise in a diverse range of sectors, including drug discovery, clinical trial management, medical sales, infrastructure, and web development, have returned to campus over the past year to share their knowledge and expertise with students. In November, the Faculty’s annual speed networking event gave students the opportunity to chat in small groups with alumni. For one student, the evening presented ‘a chance to meet enthusiastic people in many different career fields. Alumni volunteering has helped to calm my nerves about the ocean of jobs available.’
In February, 60 students attended our career panel event, hearing presentations from six alumni both within and outside of the life sciences sector. Both events have proved popular with students and alumni - and provide crucial careers advice for students: alumna Sue Carney of Ethos Forensics joined the speed networking session, commenting that ‘these are the next generation of experts in our industry and as such, preparing them for their future careers as early as possible is of benefit to industry as well as to individual students.’
“Hello! This is Moyin and I am a new member of the Faculty of Life Sciences team. My role is to enhance current recruitment for the Faculty, with a focus on international students. Only two years ago, I was an international student at Manchester. I was overwhelmingly impressed by the many inspiring figures at the University. I am now so proud to be joining the professional staff team, and be able to call Manchester my home. I hope you also had some great experiences and memorable moments too. I enjoy travelling and meeting new people. Guess what, this is my job role at FLS! Working closely with the University’s Development and Alumni Relations team, I am finding new ways to enrich student experience, especially for our international students. So here I am, travelling across the world to collect inspiring stories from you, passing them on to our next generation of life scientists! They cannot wait to hear about you. In the next few months I will be in Singapore and Malaysia (August/ September), Canada (September) and…. more! So watch this space and I will write to you before I visit your country. Don’t hesitate to drop me a line at moyin.kwok@manchester.ac.uk. You can also update your details by logging on to our alumni system Your Manchester Online (www.manchester.ac.uk/alumni). We at FLS are always keen to hear from you!”
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News in Brief Professor John Pickstone (1944-2014) We are sad to announce the death of Professor John Pickstone, aged 69, following a short illness. Professor Pickstone was one of the nation’s most important historians of science, technology and medicine, and tireless champion of Manchester’s heritage. He was the founding Director of the Centre of History of Science, Technology and Medicine (CHSTM) at the University of Manchester and was founder of the Manchester Histories Festival, the UK’s leading event of its kind. Born and raised in Burnley, Lancashire, his education took him to Cambridge, London, Ontario and Minnesota. He returned to the north west when he was appointed to the Department of History of Science and Technology, at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) to work on the history of hospitals in the Manchester region. In 1985, he moved to the Victoria University of Manchester and established CHSTM, which
he directed until 2002 when he became a Research Professor. His most recent work was on the history of modern medicine and medical technology, especially the recent history of the NHS. He also had a long-standing interest in the regional history of science and medicine. He established the Manchester Histories Festival in 2009, which was a huge success and has become a regular celebration of Manchester’s heritage. This year’s event was held on the 21st March. Current Director of CHSTM, Professor Michael Worboys, said: “We are devastated that John, our good friend and colleague, and a world renowned historian of science, technology and medicine, has died. “He was a great champion of the heritage of the University, the City and the north west, working tirelessly to inform the public and the academic world that we can learn from what has happened in the past. “Our thoughts are with his family and many friends.”
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Community Open Day
Saturday 28th June 2014 11am – 3pm The Michael Smith Building Free event Free parking
Build molecules from medicine Live animals and insects Play with DNA Face Painting
No need to book just drop in
Lab Tours
Suitable for all ages
Recruiting PhD Talent: Professional Internships for PhD Students Would you like to host a talented PhD student for a 3-month long, non-salaried internship? Students on the prestigious BBSRC-funded ‘Doctoral Training Partnership’ programme are required to complete an internship in an area unrelated to their PhD project. The internship is a mutually beneficial scheme which provides the student with the opportunity to broaden their horizons and gain transferable skills, and for the organisation to gain a valuable extra resource and develop links with a world-class institution. We are currently recruiting organisations in all sectors to be part of this prestigious programme. If you would like to learn more about this exciting opportunity, please visit our website or get in touch. Vanessa Haves, Postgraduate Placement Coordinator Tel: 0161 275 6770 Email: vanessa.haves@manchester.ac.uk www.dtpstudentships.manchester.ac.uk/aboutthedtp/ pipsforcompanies/
Editor’s Note: If you have any comments or contributions for future editions of the Alumni Newsletter, please contact: Natalie Liddle Faculty Communications Officer Room 5.016, Carys Bannister Building Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PT Tel: 0161 275 5765 Email: natalie.liddle@manchester.ac.uk Professor Matthew Cobb Associate Dean for Social Responsibility Tel: 0161 275 5419 Email: cobb@manchester.ac.uk
Bringing Science to Life! www.manchester.ac.uk/lifesciences/openday
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