Katie Mortimer, a Biomedical Science student who graduated in 2021, recently published a paper from the results of her third year project. The project on 'Impact of antihypertensive and antihyperlipidaemic drugs on neuronal stem cell function’ with Professor Johannes Boltze led to a first author publication in Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience.
Read the paper.

Hear from Jeanette Selby, Senior Genomics Technician, on her success in a pioneering technical leadership programme:

"At the end of 2021 my application to the Herschel Programme for Women in Technical Leadership, run by MI TALENT, was successful. The programme ran during the first 6 months of 2022 offering the chance for me to attended on-line courses covering a wide range of topics relevant to women in the technical workplace: ‘Culture and Context’, Confidence and Empowerment’, You as a Leader’ and ‘Influencing and Negotiating’. All of these courses were packed with useful references, advice and tools to help me grow in confidence and realise my potential in my current role as well as look forward to the challenges future roles may bring.

The second arm of the programme, running along side the on-line course content, were our Actions Learning Sets (ALS). These were groups of 4 or 5 delegates, put together to use the process of action learning to talk though and solve workplace issues of the individuals in the group. This initially seemed a daunting prospect; we had never met each other and COVID meant our face-to-face introductory meeting did not happen. However, our monthly on-line sessions became a highlight of the programme. My group found much common ground and we helped each other work through immediate problems and looked at longer term goals. We will all be staying on touch and it is good to have expanded my network of technical contacts across 3 other institutions!

The programme culminated with an in-person celebration event in London and it was so good to meet the people I had been working with over the 6 month course. It was a really worthwhile programme that has taught me a lot about myself and how to help make positive changes to my workplace and practices.

Find out more about the programme

Congratulations to our winners of the Warwick Awards for Teaching Excellence:

The WATE PGR SEM Faculty Award celebrates the exceptional work of colleagues at a very early stage, who teach and support learning in Science, Engineering and Medicine.
Winner - Niamh Harrington, a microbiologist who has just completed her PhD. Niamh's research is focused on the development of a pig lung model for bacterial infections in Cystic Fibrosis.

The WATE PGR Cross Faculty Award celebrates the exceptional work of colleagues at a very early stage in their academic career, recognising educators who work across Faculty boundaries supporting university-wide projects or by working in interdisciplinary ways.
 Commended - Zoi Ioannidou, third year MIBTP PhD student in Life Sciences. Zoi is currently studying on the Academic and Professional Pathway for Postgraduate Researchers who Teach (APP PGR) course.

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.

Emeritus Professor Bill Finch-Savage has recently been awarded Lifetime Membership to the International Society for Seed Science (ISSS) for his exceptional contribution to Seed Science and to the Society. As President Elect and then President he oversaw International Symposia in Poland, Brazil and China in addition to several international workshops.

Dr Sarah Bennett talks to TALENT about her career path to becoming the WISB Research Technology Facility Manager. TALENT is a project which leads and influences change to advance status and opportunity for technical skills, roles and careers in UK higher education and research. Watch Sarah's story

The room was full of tension and enthusiasm on Wednesday 16 February as Warwick’s team, Pistils at Dawn, entered this year’s Botanical University Challenge (BUC). Pistils at Dawn fought well in the closely run competition, coming 11th out of the 18 institutions that entered. Only 4 points separated Pistils at Dawn from the top eight teams, which went on to compete in the finals on 23 February. The Challenge organiser, Dr Jonathan Mitchley sent team Pistils at Dawn “huge commiserations for such a close shave” and told the team to “be proud, very proud” as they were the first ever team to enter for the University of Warwick.
 
Co-captains Jamie Pike and Annabelle de Vries, along with Andy Gladman, Stefania Luca, and reserve Andis Gyori László, were quizzed on a broad range of botanical subjects including botanical literature and art, plant identification, and national flags! The team hopes to enter again next year, with eyes set on top place. You can see how well you fair and meet the teams by visiting the BUC YouTube channel.

Four female climate scientists from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (Maria Rehman, Mst Atikunnaher, Manpreet Kaur Saini and Udvashita Chakraborty) - who are currently pursuing postgraduate studies in SLS thanks to 'Women in STEM’ scholarships - share their experiences and reflections on the International Day of Women and Girls in Science.
Press release (11 February 2022)

On Friday 11 February, Anna Ceesay, a second year Biochemist, and Outreach Officer for Warwick's Biological Society, is joining a Virtual Q&A panel to celebrate Women in Science at Warwick. The day marks the sixth International Day of Women and Girls in Science; a day designed to promote full and equal access to, and participation in, science for women and girls. The live panel event will give the opportunity to meet some of the women in our Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine, and ask them any questions about Science at Warwick. Find out more