QMStudentJan2011

Jan 2011

Queen Mary Student

Principal’s Open Meetings for Queen Mary students *Booking essential* Don’t miss out on the Principal’s first Open Meetings specifically for Queen Mary students. This is your opportunity to find out more about the College’s current position, and plans for the future direction of Queen Mary. The Principal will also answer your questions at the end of the meeting. Space and catering is limited, so book your place now by emailing Kate Ashenden, k.ashenden@qmul.ac.uk.

There will be two meetings - one at Whitechapel and one at Mile End. Students can choose to go to one of the meetings:

Mile End Date:

Monday 31 January 2011

Lunch:

12.30pm - 1pm (served in the reception area of the Laws building).

Meeting: 1pm - 2pm Venue:

Laws: 2.10

Whitechapel Date:

Thursday 3 February 2011

Lunch:

12.30pm - 1pm (served in the foyer area outside the Lecture Theatre).

Meeting: 1pm - 2pm Venue:

Perrin Lecture Theatre, Blizard Building

Information available on Student Portal http://my.qmul.ac.uk/ If you require a campus map, go to: www.qmul.ac.uk/about/howtofindus

Queen Mary Student: a newsletter for you

News (cont)

Re-opening of the refurbished ground floor of the Mile End Library Many thanks go to all of our users who have made the opening of the refurbished ground floor at Mile End Library a success. We have many comments coming back via our online feedback form and twitter feed telling us that you really like the whole look and feel of the space, the technology and in particular, the group study rooms.

You have also told us you want more PCs available in the Learning Lounge and I am pleased to tell you that working jointly with IT Services, we will be installing more during this term.

This is only the start of the journey, and we wish to continue working closely with students in finding best ways forward to support your learning and research. Thanks again.

Top-up your Library account and pay fines online It is now possible top up your Library i-Pay account and pay Library fines online, using a credit or debit card. Your Library i-Pay account is the account used to pay for photocopying and Library fines.

The site also enables visitors to pay Library fines remotely, especially useful if you need to renew your loans remotely but are unable to because you have reached your ÂŁ12.00 fine limit.

Queen Mary Student: a newsletter for you

News (cont)

Some 1,100 students graduated in the Winter 2010 ceremonies which were held on Tuesday 7 and Wednesday 8 December in the Great Hall. They were joined by 1,600 guests, some of whom had travelled long distances from destinations around the world.

Over 160 members of academic staff processed in a colourful rainbow of gowns.

A number of graduate profiles appeared in the souvenir programme. Michelle Mansfield and Sarah Taylor, who both graduated with MAs in Twentieth-Century British History, spoke about their experience of postgraduate study here. Both students were sponsored by Hewlett Packard and part of their sponsorship required them to undertake work experience organising the Mile End Group’s programme of events. This included high profile speakers and venues such as Professor Keith Jeffery on the 100th Anniversary of MI6 in the Locarno Suite at the Foreign Office, and Baroness Eliza ManninghamBuller, former Director-General of MI5, at the House of Lords.

Michelle Mansfield (History, 2008; MA Twentieth-Century British History, 2010) said: “The rigorous intellectual workout this past academic year has been enjoyable, challenging, and mentally refreshing after a year of working for a commercial PR company. It has broadened my horizons and allowed me to be stimulated by spheres of historical thought completely new to me.

The academic element has been coupled with assisting the Mile End Group, which has allowed me to learn a new set of skills by engaging with a wide range of people and groups and handling technology far from the comfort zone of your average history student, adding further depth and value to this past year.”

Sarah Taylor (History and Politics, 2009; MA TwentiethCentury British History, 2010) said: “I was lucky enough to be one of three students who obtained a scholarship through the Mile End Group, which has provided me with unique access to journalists, civil servants, and business. I became the Events Co-ordinator where I developed firsthand experience of organising various events, including book launches for high profile academics and events that were held in the House of Lords and the Institute of Government. I have enjoyed this experience immensely and it has not only given me practical skills but it has also inspired me to go on to pursue a career in the public sector.”

Winter Graduation Ceremonies

Queen Mary Student: a newsletter for you

News

Queen Mary students awarded national science prize A team of students from Queen Mary have been honoured in a major business competition designed for bioscience postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers.

The team, who named themselves Aternus, were awarded the prize for ‘best consideration of financial planning strategy’, as part of the 2010 Biotechnology Young Entrepreneurs Scheme (YES) competition. The team members included Adrian Churchman, Karen Sapienza, Maria MonterubbioAcebes and Michael Allen.

The teams were asked to develop a hypothetical company and imaginary product and pitch their ideas in front of a panel of judges. Aeternus developed a novel delivery system that penetrates the cornified layer of skin to deliver a range of novel peptides to living cells.

Biotechnology YES is an annual business plan competition run by the Biotechnology and Biological

Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the University of Nottingham Institute for Enterprise and Innovation (UNIEI).

Minister for Universities and Science David Willetts said: “I would like to congratulate the winners on their success. The UK is world leading in bioscience research and we need scientists to become equipped to exploit the results of their excellent work and so help the economy to grow. The participants in Biotechnology YES have had a brilliant opportunity to develop their entrepreneurial skills early in their careers, putting them in an excellent position to translate discoveries into social and economic benefits for the UK.”

Careers events The Careers Department at Queen Mary has a website full of events that may be of interest to you.

These include events attended by industry experts, so that you can gain an insight into a particular career, and there are a range of workshops to help you hone your employability skills. More information can be found at www.careers.qmul.ac.uk/events

Queen Mary Student: a newsletter for you

Research Brief Groundbreaking findings from your top research-led university…

FReD can help explain how a bee sees Bees can see colours but they perceive the world differently to us, including variations in hue that we cannot ourselves distinguish. Researchers at Queen Mary and Imperial College London have developed FReD – the Floral Reflectance Database – which holds data on what colours flowers appear to be, to bees.

Bees have evolved completely different colour detection mechanisms to humans, and can see colours outside our own capabilities in the ultra-violet range. Professor Lars Chittka from Queen Mary’s School of Biological and Chemical Sciences said: “This research highlights that the world we see is not the physical or the ‘real’ world – different animals have very different senses, depending on the environment the animals operate in.”

Professor Peter McOwan, a computer scientist who helped in developing the technical side of the project, commented: "This combination of biology and computer science, allowing scientist to collaboratively access important data in new ways shows the power of combining these two scientific disciplines."

Study confirms long-lasting benefit of radiotherapy for localised breast cancer A study led by Professor Jack Cuzick from Cancer Research UK and Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, has confirmed the longlasting benefit of radiotherapy for localised breast cancer, and highlighted the importance of tamoxifen for reducing recurrence.

Women with the most common type of non-invasive breast cancer known as ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) are significantly less likely to develop invasive disease if they are given radiotherapy after surgery, and the effect is long lasting, according to the long-term results of the UK, Australia, and New Zealand (UK/ANZ) DCIS trial.

Moreover, treatment with tamoxifen significantly reduces the likelihood of local cancer returning after surgery.

DCIS refers to cancer in the milk ducts of the breast, and now represents around 20–25 per cent of screen detected breast cancers. The introduction of the UK National Health Service Breast Screening Programme has led to a substantial increase in the diagnosis of DCIS over the past two decades. Standard treatments after breast-conserving surgery include radiotherapy and hormone therapy.

Survival following treatment is about 98 per cent, but the risk of local recurrence and a new cancer in the opposite breast is high.

The UK/ANZ DCIS trial was designed to establish whether additional treatment with tamoxifen, or radiotherapy, or both tamoxifen and radiotherapy could reduce the likelihood of cancer returning after surgery to completely remove DCIS.

Queen Mary Student: a newsletter for you

Research Brief Groundbreaking findings from your top research-led university…

Earliest Holocaust films discovered in Russian Archive A Russian cinema expert at Queen Mary has rediscovered a collection of WWII films, documenting Nazi atrocities towards Soviet Jews, hidden for more than 60 years in Russia’s State Archives.

Dr Jeremy Hicks, of the School of Languages, Linguistics and Film, found over 100 hours of previously unreleased footage, mostly out-takes originally recorded for Soviet newsreels, while researching his new book, Cinema's Black Book: Soviet Film and the Holocaust, 1938-1946 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012).

In the shorthand of history, explained Hicks, we tend to conceive of the Holocaust in terms of the death camps in Poland, but often represent it through images of concentration camps in Germany, liberated in 1945

by Allied troops, and captured on film by British and American newsreel cameramen.

“But the mass murder started earlier and it started in the Soviet Union, with the mass killings of up to two million Soviet Jews, shot or starved by German troops during the war. Their plight has not had its place in cinematography.”

In a recent lecture at Queen Mary, Dr Hicks argued that these images, dating back to 1941 when the Germans invaded Russia, should be designated the first cinematic representations of the Holocaust.

He is currently examining why Soviet coverage of the Second World War, particularly events in the East received, and continue to receive, so little attention in the West. Hicks suggested an analysis of Soviet footage forces a reassessment of our understanding of the depiction of the Holocaust on film.

Yearly mammogram screening for women with a family history of breast cancer could save lives

Elusive spintronics success could lead to single chip for processing and memory

Giving women younger than 50 years who have a family history of breast cancer a mammogram every year will detect more cancers and could save lives.

Researchers from Queen Mary and the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) have shown that a magnetically polarised current can be manipulated by electric fields.

Women with several relatives with breast cancer, or with relatives who had breast cancer diagnosed early in life, can be more than three times as likely to get the disease. It has been suggested that these women might benefit from more frequent mammogram screening or from starting screening at an earlier age than recommended by the UK National Health Service Breast Screening Programme, which currently offers 3-yearly mammography to all women aged 50–70 years.

This important discovery opens up the prospect of simultaneously processing and storing data on electrons held in the molecular structure of computer chips - combining computer memory and processing power on the same chip.

The Family History 01 (FH01) study led by Stephen Duffy, Professor of Cancer Screening at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, was designed to assess the effect of yearly mammography screening on disease stage at presentation, and likelihood of death of women younger than 50 years with a significant family history of breast cancer.

"This is especially exciting, as this discovery has been made with flexible organic semiconductors, which are set to be the new generation of displays for mobile devices, TVs and computer monitors, and could offer a step-change in power efficiency and reduced weight of these devices," said Dr Alan Drew, from Queen Mary's School of Physics, who led the research. 'Spintronics' spin transport electronics - has rapidly become the universally used technology for computer hard disks.

Queen Mary Student: a newsletter for you

International Students

i-graduate Survey Thank you to those students who completed i-graduate survey last semester. The winner of the i-pad has been contacted and will be announced in the next issue of the newsletter. The results of the survey will be announced in February and the next wave will be in April. Thank you for your valuable feedback, which helps us to improve the student experience for international students at Queen Mary.

Student events at Queen Mary Queen Mary provides you with an opportunity to meet new people, try new experiences and visit interesting sights in and around London and the UK. A healthy work/ life balance is essential for maintaining your wellbeing, so make sure you visit the student events website regularly to help you make the most of your student life!

So far this year trips have been offered to Oxford, Stonehenge, Salisbury, Bath, the Cotswolds and Canterbury, and coming up this term are trips to Scotland, Wales, the New Forest National Park, Brighton and the Isle of Wight.

International Futures – Get your career sorted!

International Futures is a one day event for international students at all University of London colleges.

It covers all that you need to know about working in the UK, from immigration rules to making successful job applications. You will have a choice of seminars covering the practical aspects of applying for work as well as the chance to hear from other overseas students who are now working in the UK. Don't miss it!

Queen Mary international student Each month we will be profiling one of our international students. This issue it is:

For more Careers Advise please go to the following web pages www.careers.qmul.ac.uk

Ashley Steed MA Theatre and Performance USA

Queen Mary Careers is part of The Careers Group, University of London www.thecareersgroup.co.uk

“As a former study abroad student at Queen Mary, I was eager to re-join the well respected and top rated Drama department. Having lived here before, I was able to quickly jump in without much of a culture shock. My MA programme is small and

For more details please go to the following website: http://www.studentevents.qmul.ac.uk/

thankfully we all get on really well. When we had our first course meeting, I was so excited to meet others with similar interests and yet such divergent backgrounds. My classes are rigorous and challenging which have really expanded, stretched and encouraged me to grow as both a practitioner and scholar. The support on campus is also fantastic; anytime I’ve had problems, someone has always helped me out – from the International Office to the Advice and Counselling Office to Admissions and Fees.

As an arts student, London really is a fantastic city to live. I see anywhere from two to three shows, performances, galleries and/or installations a week (I would see more if time permitted). There is always something going on. Queen Mary’s campus is tightly knit and easy to navigate and I also really love living in the East End. I’ve found that the east offers an eclectic range of shops, restaurants, architecture and history. It’s so easy to get around here via tube, bus or (what I prefer) walking. Added bonus, it’s not overrun with tourists like central London.”

If you would like to fill out your student profile to be on the website and in publications at Queen Mary please email d.r.gonsalves@qmul.ac.uk