As part of a monthly series featuring the eight finalists in the 2020 BBC Gardeners World Magazine Gardens of the Year competition, Andy Gladman, a Crop Centre PhD student and his Leamington Spa ornamental allotment were the subject of March's edition. Find out more

Congratulations to Adrian Racovita, a fourth year BioMedical Science Mbio student, for his achievements over the last year.

• In March 2020, Adrian won Best Presentation at the Posters in Parliament (PiP) competition for his poster entitled 'Bacterial Neural Networks: Evolutionary Game Theory' (photo above).
• In August, he published a first author paper in Biochemical Society Transactions on 'Reinforcement learning in synthetic gene circuits'.
• Adrian also published a first author paper in the conference proceedings of the International Workshop on Bio-Design Automation (IWBDA) on 'Bacteria mastering the tic-tac-toe game through synthetic adaptive gene circuits'. 
• In December, with the Jaramillo group, Adrian presented at The 1st International BioDesign Research Conference on 'Engineering adaptive gene circuits in bacteria mastering game playing by reinforcement learning'. Find out about the conference
• Adrian has also been commissioned by the Science Committee of the Romanian Academy to write an article.

Third year Biochemistry student Katie Savva and 3 other students from Cambridge, Nottingham, and Georgia Tech Universities have been accepted onto the European Space Agency’s Spin Your Thesis 2021 campaign, carrying out research into the movement of nutrients into vesicles under hypergravity. The NOAHS ARC team will travel to ESTEC in Noordwijk, Netherlands, in September to use the Large Diameter Centrifuge there. YouTube interview(6 Feb 2021)

You might also like to listen to an interview Katie recently gave about her interest in biochemistry, space and quidditch! YouTube interview (6 Feb 2021)

The Warwick Institute of Engagement (WIE) is delighted to announce the appointment of 38 Foundation Fellows, 27 Honorary Fellows and 32 Associate Fellows.

Undergraduate Jerry Yu explains how he got involved:
'Hi, my name is Jerry Yu, I’m currently a second year Biochemistry student and I’m also a fellow of WIE. Engagement is all about sharing your passion with others. As a life sciences student, my passion lies in bioscience. However, I first discovered my eagerness for sharing as an Outreach Officer for Warwick BioSoc.The goal of this position was to spread enthusiasm towards life sciences around the local community and that is what I did I organised talks and even designed and taught life sciences lessons to primary school children. As a result of my work, I was recommended by a professor to apply to be a WIE fellow. I applied and here I am now. Engagement is important as it inspires and allows others to make informed decisions about what they enjoy. As a WIE fellow, I will be working to improve how engagement is done in the university and create more engagement opportunities which are welcoming and interesting especially in the current pandemic. More importantly, I would like to inspire you to share your passions with others. Afterall, what is life without a little bit of spice.'

Eight other members of SLS have also secured fellowships:
Honorary Fellows - Kevin Moffat, Rebecca Freeman
Foundation Fellows - Cansu Kuey, Ian Hands-Portman, Rachael Kirwan
Associate Fellows - Ellie Jameson, Eric Holub and Freya Harrison

The 3MT develops academic, presentation, and research communication skills by challenging students to effectively explain their research in engaging, accessible language to a non-specialist audience.
This year, both winners came from SLS:

• Congratulations to the winner - Rohini Ajaykumar on 'Studying bacterial resistance for antimicrobial drug development'.
• And the runner up and popular choice winner - Scott Dwyer on 'Controlling honey bee parasites : will the mites meet their match?'.

Find out more about 3MT 
 

Beth Hill, a third year Biomedical Science student, has written a blog highlighting how the pandemic has had an impact on higher education.

The Lord Rootes Memorial Fund is intended to encourage creativity, innovation and impact through support of projects by Warwick students. Hear from Toyin Dairo (Graduate of Biomedical Science, 2019) about her innovative project:

'In September 2019, I took part in an independent project funded by the University of Warwick’s Lord Rootes Memorial Fund. The project was titled 'Tackling the stigma of special needs in the third world' and involved talking to a number of professionals (in both the UK and Kenya) about the quality of care for people with special needs in their own countries.

I travelled to the capital of Kenya (Nairobi) and volunteered within a school for pupils with special needs over a two week time period, in order to formulate an idea of how the pupils were being catered for. Whilst also being in Kenya, I was able to explore the city, go on a four day safari and experience the local culture. The experience was amazing and I would encourage everyone to get involved in some form of humanitarian work. My project report has now been published on the Lord Rootes Memorial Fund’s page and will hopefully provide an insight into the development of care for people with special needs in both first and third world countries.'

Toyin won a £300 prize for the quality of her work.