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Soak a Scientist - 19th August 2023

Soak a Scientist was a success once again!

It was great to see so many people around Endcliffe Park engaging with the Scientists and contributing to a great cause. There were raffles, a baking sale, nail painting, and of course, the popular water buckets to soak the scientists.

We can only thank everyone who participated and supported this event, as together with the South Yorkshire MND Association, we have successfully raised £800, which will directly contribute to support investigation on MND.

18th Medical School Meeting - 17-18th July 2023

Highlights of Day 1 - a day dedicated to ECRs!

Attending a conference in person feels even better in this post-pandemic period! I felt the passionate vibe for science in the 18th School Research Meeting, during the talks and panel discussions but also in the corridors during lunch time and poster presentations. This two-day annual meeting is always a great opportunity to meet creative scientists from all career stages, from technician and PhD students to early career researchers and senior researchers. This year it was not an exception!

The program this year was different from previous years, with a big focus on Careers and Knowledge Exchange. During the Career session, I was delighted to hear about the experiences of other people with similar background to mine, and to learn about how they found their path within so many career options and how they reached their current position, either in academia or industry. It was very encouraging to hear Dr. Leila Abbas’s experience; she was a postdoctoral researcher for many years and demystified some myths about long postdoc posts. Her experience shows that the idea that long postdoc experiences are not appreciated in the academia or industry is not necessarily true! Indeed, she is now a pre-clinical manager in the start-up company, using her previous postdoc experience in her current role. Leila and other speakers in this session also highlighted the value of saying yes and the power of no! It was a reminder to keep my goals and priorities in mind. Overall, this was a wonderful session; listening about the speakers' experiences and practical advice made me feel much calmer about my career and helped clearing my mind about possible career options in the future. The panel discussion with all the speakers was a great opportunity for questions, and I only wish we have had more time to do this, as it was so useful!

For the first time there were short Industrial Talks, where the industrial sponsors presented their main products/ services. I truly enjoyed this session as it allowed me to better understand what is the focus of each company and go directly to the most relevant stands during lunch time to ask more specific questions and have useful discussions with the companies' representatives.

In the afternoon, there was a session on Collaboration and Knowledge Exchange, followed by a panel discussion with all the speakers. This was a brilliant opportunity to learn more about how academia and industry can work together to advance with medical knowledge. It was great to hear Professor Dame Pam Shaw and Professor Luc de Witte sharing some successful examples of drug discovery/ development and development of health care devices, in collaboration with industrial partners. Drug discovery and commercialisation are two important topics in translational research and I only wish there was more opportunities to learn more about them.

Cannot wait for the program of next years' Research Meeting!

Cake, Coffee and Connecting- 24th May 2022

MDHRSA coffee morning has come back!

After nearly 2 year and half pandemic, we final come back to normal a bit by bit. The coffee morning converts to "Cake, Coffee and Connecting" to make this event more interesting. It stays to hold every Tuesday morning in Lecture Theatre 2 in the Medical School. This time it is not only to make the connection with company, you also can make connection to other researchers across the faculty. In the event, it is not only company to give the talk, now PhD students or early career researchers are invited to make a little presentation to share their projects and ideas.

Today, it is the launch of the brand-new coffee morning. The first session was kicked off by Dr. Amy Paskins from Neuroscience giving a talk titled 'Your brain on stress' and discussing her research into stress granules and their effects on the development of neurodegenerative diseases. Amy was followed by Raphael Galleh, a PhD student in Clinical Dentistry who gave a very interesting talk about his current research into periodontitis, a severe gum infection that can lead to tooth loss and serious health complications. Finally, the ECR talks concluded with Neuroscience PhD student Allan Shaw who highlighted his research into C9ORF72-mediated amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) pathology using reprogrammed patient-derived astrocytes. It was great to have people to share their research and have a nicely discuss science together through this event.

This event was sponsored by two biotech companies- Proteintech and Starlab, they were kindly to bring plenty of free goodies for all attendees. The event concluded nice refreshments featuring hot and cold drinks, delicious muffins, cupcakes, pastries and a victoria sponge cake. The event is not only feed you with nice refreshments but also with brilliant knowledge!

The Art of Being Brilliant Webinar

On the 29th of June 2021, we organised the Zoom webinar “The art of being brilliant” hosted by Sanjeev Sandhu. We have 73 people joined the webinar, it showed that people want to get more idea about “The Art of being brilliant”. I really enjoyed the questions that Sanji asked us for breaking ice. He let us warm up by stating what we are doing at the university. Then Sanji enquired about what one thing each body wants to take away from the session, some people said how to stay in happiness, how to be positive and so on. Another question was the best thing about the pandemic, there were a good discussion, people mentioned have more own time, no usual routine, no commute, etc…, they were all related to us and our lives.

Opportunity is nowhere

An interesting challenge that Sanji asked us to read loudly the above word. It was completely proved we were depending on perspective (now here vs. no where). It was truly brilliant! There’s always a need to take a fresh new positive eye to look at things. Sanji then recited part of his life journey through the Middle East (Dubai), a rich city we all know, but it surprised him how people there were rich but not ‘fulfilled’. I like the conclusion he made from his story that money can bring success but not happiness and enjoying the smaller things in life can offer an opportunity for happiness. The best sentence I like is “seeing an opportunity needs a healthy mindset”.

What not wellbeing is and what wellbeing is?

What a good question that we hear everywhere now, but have you asked yourself the definition of it? At least, I am starting to think now. It was the question Sanji asked us, we had a discussion, to me, wellbeing is to be fulfilled, satisfied with what I have and grateful for what I have. Sanji shared his answer with us. To him, it was about connecting to three things: ourselves, the community and the natural environment. What about yours?

Describe the best version of yourselves in just 3 words. Kind, generous and honest, quite a lot of us use the same/similar words! Sanji revealed that some research said only 2% stay at this ‘best version’ mood most of their time. He defined this positive mood by ‘flourishing’ i.e. happiness leaks out of the person, what a wonderful description! The remaining 98% are mood hoovers, like me who wants to reach the best version but still struggling on the way to there. But most importantly is that mood hoovers are not bad people, just this ‘best version’ mood is not in their default yet.

Gratitude

Finally, after Sanj explained what was common among this 2%, the ‘best version’ mood people, is they express their gratitude. They are often grateful about something or to someone. He requested us to pick somebody in our lives, express gratitude to them, and say why. It reminded me when I finished yoga, the moderator always said greeting the day, honour your body, Namaste.

It was very nice workshop, it is not about how Sanji taught us what the wellbeing and happiness is, but it is about how he asked the questions which we may not think about deeply before, during the discussion we find our own answers need to be a bit deeper. I really like the sentence that Amy shared, “Not every day is a good day, but there is always something good in every day.” Hope we can all find our strengths every day.

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