Kent Health News and Events

Medway PhD students travel to Lyon to deliver hands-on scientific workshops to secondary school students.

Medway PhD students Filip Kunc and Colin Moore travelled to Lyon from 7 – 11 December to deliver hands-on scientific workshops to secondary school students as part of the British Council competitively-funded ‘Science in Schools’ programme. Both students are studying for PhD’s in the Chemistry and Drug Delivery group under the supervision of Dr Vladimir Gubala and Dr Andrew Hall. Over the course of the week, the team travelled to 9 different schools to deliver 2-3 hour workshops through English.

The team conceptualised and delivered their interactive ‘Atmosphere in a Fishbowl’ workshop aiming to provide a fun, interesting perspective on role the Earth’s atmosphere plays in our daily life. Importantly, the workshops coincided with the historic COP21 climate change meeting in Paris. By performing experiments in fishbowls, the team demonstrated how specific physical, chemical and biological atmospheric are being influenced by the consequences of climate change and pollution.

Speaking about the week, Filip and Colin said: ‘Organising, describing and demonstrating experiments to children that do not speak English as a first language was a big challenge and made us focus on different styles of communication. However, their English levels were actually very good and made our workshops very interactive and fun. We are extremely grateful to the support provided by Carole Hemard and Irene Damour from the British Council. Without their help and organisation this week would not have been a success.’

Thursday 21^st April 2016, University of Kent’s MEDWAY campus

The Kent Academic Primary Care Unit is pleased to be hosting a clinical training session and research seminar on the subject of acute kidney injury (AKI) at our Medway campus on Thursday 21st April 2016 from 2.00pm to 4.45pm.  This event is free and primarily aimed at GPs, although colleagues with an interest in research and management of acute kidney injury will be interested in this exciting afternoon.  Please see our flyer for further details.

A free sandwich lunch and refreshments will be available from 1.30pm to 2.00pm and free parking permits can be sent upon request.

For further information or to book a place, please contact Helen Wooldridge, h.l.wooldridge@kent.ac.uk

The BBC have recently commissioned and just finished filming with Dr Janet Carr, Honorary Senior Researcher, at the Tizard Centre.  Dr Carr has assisted in the making of a film about the history of people with learning disabilities at Normansfield Hospital, due to be shown later this year.  The hospital was founded in 1868 by John Langdon Down, after whom Down syndrome was named.  It was finally shut in 1997 and the building now houses the Down Museum; illustrating a history of the care of people with learning disabilities and the history of the Normansfield Hospital and its residents.

Dr Carr is known for completing a famous longitudinal study of people with Down Syndrome, starting as a young researcher her study looked 54 babies living with their families in a part of south-east England and has continued to follow the families up over a period of 50 years.

On 24 February 2016 Prof Ruth Northway accompanied by her colleagues, Victoria Jones and Lynne Evans gave a very interesting talk at the Tizard research evening seminar.  Prof Northway focused on the how the research was carried out (participatory approach) and the findings resulting from this.  The project looked at what people with learning disabilities understand by abuse and what support they need if they are abused.

The video (slide presentation and audio only) is available to watch on Youtube

The Tizard Centre run a series of research seminars each academic year which are all advertised on our web page   Alternatively you can email us (J.Ruffels@kent.ac.uk) and request to be added to our database of contacts.

The first of our taster sessions is being held on 21 April 2016, 0930-1300 hrs in the Woodlands Annex, Tizard Centre, UoK.  Dr Paraskevi Triantafyllopoulou will be looking at sleep problems in children and adults with intellectual disabilities.  Sleep deprivation can affect the way people behave as well as their cognitive functioning (memory, attention etc…).  During the session the most prevalent sleep problems will be looked at and the effectiveness of sleep interventions will be discussed.

To book a place please email the Centre (J.Ruffels@kent.ac.uk)

Other sessions will be held on 11 May 2016 “people with learning disabilities and the Criminal Justice System” (Prof Glynis Murphy) and on 8 June 2016 Dr Michelle McCarthy will be holding a session looking at domestic violence and women with learning difficulties.

Darren Griffin, Professor of Genetics at the University, has welcomed the go-ahead from the fertility regulator for UK scientists to genetically modify human embryos.

Commenting on the decision by the regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), Professor Griffin said it demonstrated that the UK now ‘leads the world’ in both the science and social science of research into early human development.

Professor Griffin, of the School of Biosciences, said: ‘The ruling by the HFEA is a triumph for common sense. While it is certain that the prospect of gene editing in human embryos raised a series of ethical issues and challenges, the problem has been dealt with in a balanced manner.

‘It is clear that the potential benefits of the work proposed far outweigh the foreseen risks. It is a clear example how the UK leads the world not only in the science behind research into early human development but also the social science used to regulate and monitor it.’

Professor Griffin’s main interests are in the study of chromosomes, principally in humans (from spermatogenesis to preimplantation development) and birds. He is a member of the University’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies of Reproduction (CISoR) which comprises several like-minded academics dedicated to the study of reproduction in all its forms.

New research has identified a first step in the design of a new generation of anti-cancer drugs that include an agent to inhibit resistance to their effectiveness.

The research, by an international team co-led by the University’s Professor Martin Michaelis of the School of Biosciences, in conjunction with Professor Jindrich Cinatl of the Goethe University , Frankfurt am Main, Germany, could pave the way for tailored combinations of drugs that would provide more effective treatment for patients suffering from therapy-resistant cancers.

Drug resistance is the major reason for the failure of anti-cancer therapies and patient deaths. Despite major improvements in cancer treatment in recent decades, cures are still mostly achieved by early cancer detection and local therapy using surgery and radiotherapy. Once cancer cells have spread throughout the body and formed metastases (secondary tumours), the prognosis remains grim with five-year survival rates being below 20%.

Effective systemic drug therapies are needed therefore to improve the outcomes of patients diagnosed with metastatic disease. However, many cancers are characterised by intrinsic resistance, where there is no therapy response from the time of diagnosis, or acquired resistance, where there is an initial therapy response but cancer cells eventually become resistant.

Arguably, the most important resistance mechanism in cancer cells is the action of drug pumps that act as a mechanism to move anti-cancer drugs from cancer cells. Of these, ABCB1 (also called multi-drug resistance gene 1 (MDR1) or P-glycoprotein) is the most relevant one. Previous attempts to target ABCB1 as part of anti-cancer therapies have failed.

The new research provides a first step towards the design of tailored combinations of anti-cancer drugs and ABCB1 inhibitors that specifically cause the accumulation of anti-cancer drugs in ABCB1-expressing cancer cells but do not affect the body distribution of other drugs or food constituents.

In addition to Professor Michaelis the Kent team included Dr Mark Wass. The research, entitled Substrate-specific effects of pirinixic acid derivatives on ABCB1-mediated drug transport, was published in Oncotarget .