Dr Emily Hill is the winner of the Science, Engineering and Medicine (SEM) Faculty Thesis Prize for her thesis on 'Modulation of neuronal function by tau, alpha synuclein or carbon dioxide'. Her supervisor is Professor Mark Wall. View the thesis

Dr Hill is now a Race Against Dementia ARUK (Alzheimer's Research UK) Research Fellow in SLS.

In March, Sopida Wongwas, a second year PhD student in the Corre group, won the the poster prize in the Environmental category of the Royal Society of Chemistry's 2022 #RSCPoster Twitter Conference.
View the animated posterLink opens in a new window on 'Heterologous expression and engineering of Mycosporine-like amino-acid (MAA) biosynthetic gene clusters in Streptomyces hosts'.
Errant Science summarised Sopida's work in a cartoonLink opens in a new window.

In October, the Department of Biomedical and Forensic Sciences at the University of Hull launched an exciting scary story competition for Halloween: Coccus Pocus 2020! Contestants were encouraged to write a short horror or sci-fi story between 500 and 2,000 words, including themes of antimicrobial resistance and/or microbial biofilms. The evaluation committee ranked stories according to the intrigue of their plot, use of language, character description and scientific soundness. Two of our SLS Undergraduates won prizes:

• Amisha Sathi, received the second prize for her story Abnormal, where the protagonist fights a horde of slimy hostile creatures in a post-apocalyptic horror setting.
• Bethany Pearce, was awarded the third prize for her story Day 0, which tells us a tale about a patient suffering from an antibiotic-resistant superbug infection that spreads rapidly all over the hospital.

Find out more and read the stories

Congratulations to Dr Joe Hilton who has won the Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine Postdoctoral Research Prize 2021 for his publication 'Estimation of country-level basic reproductive ratios for novel Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19) using synthetic contact matrices' (PLos computational biology 16 (7), e1008032).
Read the paper

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 
 

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.

On 19 June, Katy Faulkner won the 'Most likely to win a Nobel Prize' award at the University of Warwick Research Harambee for her poster presentation on 'Resilience of forest soil and root-associated microbial communities to extreme weather events'. Harambee is Swahili meaning working together and helping each other. Featuring a wide variety of activities, the Research Harambee brought undergraduates and postgraduates together to celebrate the research culture at Warwick. Katy is a NERC CENTA PhD student in the Bending lab. Find out more about the Research Harambee.

On 19 June, Amy Newman won both Runner Up and Popular Choice at the University of Warwick Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition. 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 in just three minutes. Amy is a NERC CENTA PhD student with Professor Gary Bending, investigating the presence and influence of circadian rhythms on plant-microbe interactions in the rhizosphere. Find out more about 3MT.

Congratulations to undergraduate Beth Hill who has been awarded the SU 'SSLC Secretary of the Year' Representation Award 2019 for her excellent work on the Life Sciences undergraduate Student Staff Liaison Committee (SSLC). The award recognises Beth's work in facilitating the SSLC’s student voice.

"I have thoroughly enjoyed my year as Secretary and for being able to work with other student reps and staff on the committee. It's a really great forum for raising ideas and suggestions to enhance the experience for everyone in Life Sciences. I'd always recommend getting involved and having your say!"