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A selection of news items about the Research Institute from 2006...
ISTM News Archive 2006
December 2006:
Wellcome Trust Biomedical Image Awards 2006
This is the fifth Biomedical Image Award that Dr Dave Furness, one of the Wellcome Trust Medical Photographic Library's long-standing contributors, has received. In 1997, he won two Awards, for an image of a terrapin's hair bundle and another of the whole spiral structure of the cochlea. In 1998, he won an award for a picture of a retina. Then in 2005, his image of a cell's Golgi complex won, followed by his win this year with two images of microscopic pond life.
"It always astonishes me when I win," he says.
Dave is a reader at Keele University in the Auditory Research Group. This year his winning images came as a by-product of a personal interest rather than his main body of research. Protozoa were the subject of Dave's PhD at Manchester University.
"It is just something I have always been interested in and was trained in originally," he explains. "I was always interested in cells even when I was a lad."
Hearing and the structure of the inner ear are the main topics of Dave's current research at Keele, with special emphasis on the sensory hair cells of the cochlea. It is these tiny hair cells in the coiled cochlea that pick up sound waves and allow us to hear. Dave is studying how damage to the sensory hair cells causes deafness, especially in older people.
"Age-related hearing loss is a major problem for many people in their 60s and 70s," he says, adding that his long-term goal is to work on preventing this type of hearing loss and damage, possibly through stem cell therapy.
December 2006
Inaugural Lecture - "Imagine and Discover"
On 5 December Professor Serguei Semenov delivered the latest lecture in the University's programme of Inaugural Lectures for 2006/07.
Medical Imaging is a new approach to medical diagnosis made possible by recent technological advances. Professor Semenov examined the emerging techniques in his lecture, "Imagine and Discover: Medical Imaging".
Prof Semenov researched these technologies for 13 years at Carolinas Medical Centre, USA before moving to Keele as Professor of Imaging in 2006.
November 2006:
Official Launch of Keele's Research Institutes
An audience of more than 300 attended a special presentation in the Westminster Theatre on Friday 17 November to mark the official launch of Keele University's seven Research Institutes. Members of ISTM were present with a display on several areas of the Institute's research.
The Vice-Chancellor said Keele places a high value on excellent research and the University supported internationally competitive expertise in Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Health and Humanities. Keele encourages multidisciplinary research and supports researchers to share their expertise for the benefit of the UK economy and the nation's way of life.
The Vice-Chancellor said: "We aim to provide an environment where excellent research can flourish. We are proud of our achievements in high quality multidisciplinary research and in the application of research knowledge to beneficial outcomes and the establishment of research institutes will help to develop these strengths further."
November 2006:
Magnecell wins at the 2006 Lord Stafford Awards
One of ISTM's spin-out companies, Magnecell Ltd, won the award for "Impact through Innovation" at the 2006 Lord Stafford Awards dinner, held on 16 November at the Alton Towers Hotel in Staffordshire. A group of Magnecell and ISTM staff from Keele, including Prof Jon Dobson and Dr Stefan Ogrodzinski were there to receive the award.
Over 300 regional and national business people attended the event, the host was Kay Alexander and the key speaker PY Gerbeau.
From left to right. Helen Gascoigne (Keele Innovations Office), Stefan Ogrodzinski (Magnecell), Prof. Jon Dobson (Magnecell), Prof. Alicia El Haj (Magnecell), Nick Paul (Chairman AWM), Lord Stafford
Further details of the awards are available at: http://www.thelordstaffordawards.co.uk/
October 2006:
Royal Society Pairing Scheme
Professor Jon Dobson, ISTM, has been selected by the Royal Society to participate in the MP-Scientist Pairing Scheme. He will spend a week at Westminster with Joan Walley (MP for Stoke North), as well as some time in her constituency, and she will spend a day in Professor Dobson's labs.
The MP-Scientist Pairing Scheme aims to build bridges between some of the country's best research workers and members of parliament to help scientists recognise the potential methods and structures through which they can feed their scientific knowledge to parliamentarians, and to give MPs the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the process of scientific understanding and topical research, and ultimately bring this knowledge into better informed discussions and decision making.
October 2006:
Workings of the Cochlea
The current issue of the Journal of Physiology features a number of review articles on recent research into the workings of the cochlea. Included is an introductory editorial by Dr Michael Evans and a review article by Dr Nigel Cooper , both of the Institute for Science and Technology in Medicine. The editorial is co-authored by Professor Corne Kros (Sussex), while the review is co-authored by Professor John Guinan (Harvard) both frequent visitors to Keele. The articles can be found at http://jp.physoc.org/.
September 2006:
New BBSRC Research Grant
Dr Monte A Gates and Dr Ying Yang, ISTM, have been awarded a three year, £525,000 grant from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council entitled; "In vitro (pre)construction of neural circuits in transplantable, biodegradable scaffolds for CNS repair in vivo." The work seeks to devise methods for developing neural "wires" in vitro that can subsequently be implanted (intact) into the injured or diseased central nervous system (for system repair and circuitry reconstruction).
April 2006:
Dr Josep Sule-Suso wins Maxime Hanss Prize
Congratulations to Dr Josep Sule-Suso, who has won the 2005 Maxime Hanss Prize, an award of £15,000 to a scientist in Britain to enable work with a French laboratory in a field of biomedical science and engineering.
The Prize is administered by the Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council to foster Franco-British interactions, and Dr Sule Suso will attend a Prize ceremony in London shortly.
March 2006:
"MALARIA, MOSQUITOS AND MAN - BREAKING A DEADLY CYCLE"
Prof Hilary Hurd and Prof Paul Eggleston, from ISTM's Centre for Applied Entomology & Parasitology , have appeared in a science news programme entitled 'Malaria, Mosquitoes and Man - Breaking a Deadly Cycle' produced by Research-TV for a worldwide audience, and released to co-incide with World Malaria Day. The short film can be seen on ISTM's Videos page.
Earlier news items ...
... relating to the Research Institute for Science & Technology in Medicine can be seen in the News Archive.
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ISTM Research videos online
Video news clips from Research TV about ISTM's research:
- Malaria, Mosquitoes and Man - breaking a deadly cycle
- Breath of Life - a new diagnostic technique
Keele University Press Releases are issued by the Press Office.
