Angus Inman
1st year student on the MRC DTP in Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research
I am currently in my first year of the MRC DTP in Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research at the University of Warwick. I am currently in the first of two eleven-week research mini-projects having completed two terms of taught modules. Following the second mini-project I will embark on a three year PhD.
For my undergraduate degree I studied Physics at Lancaster University with a year out studying at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It was during this year out that I took a course on Biophysics that put me on a path to change my focus towards biological systems and medical research.
As such when returning to Lancaster University for my MPhys project I worked with Prof. Aneta Stefanovska using nonlinear mode decomposition to investigate the health of endothelium. For this I had to take blood flow and ECG data from twenty students that was then analysed to create parameters for endothelial health.
In applying for this course I was excited about being able to change my focus towards biology whilst keeping a quantitative view. The taught modules were very enjoyable especially Molecular Biology (MD998) and Research Topics in Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research (MD978). Both of these have taught me a great deal especially Molecular Biology which involved a lab component that was completely different to anything I had done in my undergraduate degree.
My first mini-project with Professor Nasir Rajpoot is focused on the automated recognition of tumour cells in melanoma lymph nodes. This is a computational project that will use deep learning algorithms to detect the presence of melanoma in lymph nodes. This has involved working in the Computer Science department in liaison with University Hospital Coventry & Warwickshire.
