Dr Robert Dickinson (lecturer in Anaesthetics for the Division of Surgery), led the study which looked at how treatment with xenon gas after a head injury reduces the extent of brain damage, according to a study in mice.
“After a blow to the head, most of the damage to the brain doesn’t occur immediately but in the hours and days afterwards. At present we have no specific drugs to limit the spread of the secondary injury, but we think that is the key to successful treatment.” more
Health policy researcher and Clinical Lecturer in general surgery Dr Hutan Ashrafian, was the lead author of a study released today looking at whether social networking programmes, designed to help people lose weight could play a role in the global fight against obesity.
The researchers compiled data from 12 studies spread across the US, Europe, east Asia and Australia which trialled social networking services for weight loss, involving 1,884 participants in total. The amalgamated results showed that people who used these services achieved a collective decrease in body mass index by a value of 0.64, which the authors describe as modest but significant. More
Senior cancer research fellow Dr Euan Stronach, was recently interviewed about his work at the Ovarian Cancer Action Research Centre, which works in partnership with Imperial.
What keeps you motivated on a hard day?
“We have a fantastic tribute wall at the Ovarian Cancer Action Research Centre that bears the names of loved ones who have or had ovarian cancer, and messages and memories from their families. It does not take long looking at the wall to remind yourself why we do what we do.”
What do you dream of achieving?
“I want us to work together as a global research community to really pick apart ovarian cancer and learn all its secrets so we can develop an arsenal of weapons to treat it. I want ovarian cancer to become something people genuinely feel they can beat rather than be beaten by.”
Find out more about Dr Stronach’s work at the Ovarian Cancer Action Research Centre.
Congratulations to Dr Ed Park, Consultant in Clinical Oncology at the ICHT, who is a winner of the NHS Teaching Excellence Award, for the outstanding, enthusiastic and dedicated work he has done in restructuring and delivering the Oncology Course in Year 5 of the Medicine Course.
Congratulations to Prof Alun Davies who has received the prestigious title of Doctor of Science from Oxford University. This title is awarded in recognition of a substantial and sustained contribution to scientific knowledge.
The iKnife this week featured in the Sunday Telegraph article entitled: iKnife: A Surgical Revolution: sniffing out cancer.
The piece gives an update of the iKnife’s future and endless possibilities for things like detecting horse meat in a burger, melamine in milk, beer manufacturing, sewage analysis or water quality testing.
![NIHR training camp Max J and team 2014[1]](https://blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk/surgeryandcancer/files/2014/08/NIHR-training-camp-Max-J-and-team-20141.jpg)
Congratulations to the research team led by Dr Maximilian Johnston from the Department of Surgery, who recently won a prestigious NIHR (National Institute for Health Research) prize for ‘Best Group Health Research Funding Application’ at the NIHR Research Training Camp.
Professor Nagy Habib, from the Division of Surgery at Hammersmith was the Principal Investigator of a study looking at a stroke therapy using stem cells extracted from patients’ bone marrow, which has shown promising results in the first trial of its kind in humans.
Click here to check out the full story on the Imperial news site.
Dr Toby Athersuch from the Division of CSM has been awarded a RSC Research Mobility Fellowship, supporting up to three months collaborative work with Waters Corporation (Manchester) with Dr Mike Morris. The fellowship comes with substantial additional laboratory support from Waters.
A new Imperial College AHSC Bulletin has been launched, to provide an opportunity for staff and stakeholders to catch up on the latest news and events at the Academic Health Science Centre.
The latest edition features an article on Stratified and Systems Medicine, so to see this and everything else that’s going on check out the bulletin.
You are all cordially invited to the CSM Movie Night!
The entry fee is £10, which will provide you with a seat and a complimentary supply of wine and beer, plus a French/Spanish themed selection of snacks!
The CSM movie nights will commence on Thursday, 7th August with a screening of ‘Pans Labyrinth’ (Spanish), and will be hosted in 660 SAF building.
Please see attached CSM Movie Night program line up for the next few months.
All of the proceeds will be donated to EducAid, a non-profit educational charity organisation which operates in the heart of post-war Sierra Leone. Please see link below for further information.
http://www.educaid.org.uk/about-us/
Imperial have now launched a new Parents Network website, which aims to provide a one stop shop for all relevant policies and information related to being a parent at Imperial as well as things like staff perks, items for sale and buddy schemes.
The pages include information to support expectant parents and parents with children of any age to obtain a good work life balance, achieving success at work whilst enjoying being a parent at home.
Able@Imperial is the College’s staff forum open to all disabled staff, staff who support disabled dependents, and staff who have an interest in disability in the workplace. This is the newest staff group established in August 2013.
The next ABLE general meeting will be held on Thursday 11th September at South Kensington:
The Surgery and Cancer contact is Rachael Waddington, so please get in touch for any local help or guidance.
Ovarian Cancer Action is the UK’s leading ovarian cancer charity and we raise money to fund the Ovarian Cancer Action Research Centre.
Where do we get the money? We don’t – our supporters raise money by jumping out of airplanes, running marathons, cycling around India or selling cakes at summer fetes.
By funding the world-class research that goes on at the Ovarian Cancer Action Research Centre in partnership with Imperial College London, we are offering women and their loved ones hope for the future.
A cervical smear doesn’t test for ovarian cancer and only 44% of women will survive beyond five years of an ovarian cancer diagnosis. We want women with ovarian cancer to have a better chance of survival and to receive treatment that improves their quality of life.
We raise awareness of the symptoms visiting womens’ groups across the UK, attending conferences and creating easy to understand information that’s printed or on our website www.ovarian.org.uk.
We campaign for all women with non-mucinous ovarian cancer to be genetically tested for the BRCA gene mutation at point of diagnosis.
We are in awe of the pioneering work that the scientists carry out at the Ovarian Cancer Action Research Centre, and we want everyone to know about it.
Dr Euan Stronach, a senior cancer research fellow at our Ovarian Cancer Action Research Centre, said: “It does not take long looking at the wall to remind yourself why we do what we do. I want ovarian cancer to become something people genuinely feel they can beat rather than be beaten by.”
If you would like to get involved with fundraising for Ovarian Cancer Action and backing the scientists’ brilliant work, please email Amelia@ovarian.org.uk or go to www.ovarian.org.uk/fundraising.
Thank you!
The Department of Medicine this month held a panel discussion on combining academic and family life, the first of it’s kind to take place at Imperial. The panel, chaired by Prof Jenny Higham – Vice Dean (Education and Institutional Affairs) along with the Provost Prof James Stirling and five other academics, all shared their experiences of combining academic and family life, followed by an open discussion on the topic.
The Provost highlighted issues relating to identifying and sharing good practice, engaging and developing the post doc community and establishing a competent career advice and coaching scheme.
This panel discussion forms part of the Athena SWAN initiative, which aims to recognise and celebrate good practice on recruiting, retaining, and promoting women in STEMM (science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine) careers and create a level playing field so all staff can flourish in progressing their careers.
Surgery and Cancer submitted their Bronze Athena SWAN application and action plan in April this year and will find out if they were successful later in the year. Currently the action plan is being put into practice, a new Lifestyles webpage will be launched and a Surgery & Cancer Departmental meeting will take place on Wednesday the 1st of October, so watch this space for more details.
Prof Alison McGregor and Dr Daqing Ma travelled to China with Prof Anthony Bull (Centre for Blast Injury Studies) to attend the Chinese Western Anaesthetic Forum on the 21st July, where Prof McGregor and Dr Ma both gave lectures.
They then met with the 3rd Military Hospital in Chongqing for the Perioperative Management Symposium of Traumatic Injury, where discussions took place to explore potential collaborations around trauma injury, particularly blast injury in conjunction with Imperial’s College Blast Centre.