For the past few weeks, first-year EASTBIO student Zoe Gidden (based at the University of Edinburgh, supervised by Professor Lynne Regan and Dr Mathew Horrocks) has been volunteering in the Pathology Department at Northampton General Hospital to help set up COVID-19 testing. Shortly after returning home, Zoe reached out to the Head of Pathology, Augustus Lusack, to offer her help at what is a challenging time for the department.

Since then, Zoe has been working closely with Augustus and two University of Northampton PhD students, David Young and Charlotte Brookes, to set up an in-house molecular laboratory capable of COVID-19 testing. The team is extracting viral RNA from patient swabs and then using RT-PCR to detect if SARS-CoV-2 RNA is present. Zoe has found that laboratory techniques she learnt during the first year of her PhD (PCR and nucleic acid extraction), along with problem solving skills have helped her to make valuable contributions to the team’s efforts.

On the 5^th March 2020, EASTBIO first-year PhD student Eddie Martin organised a concert with a difference. The performers? Researchers in the fields of Biological Sciences and/or Music. Their instruments? Computer programming languages. The audience? Enjoying a healthy mix of inspiration, entertainment, and bemusement.

Eddie Martin introducing the event (5 March 2020, Edinburgh, 50, George Square)

This event welcomed all to the diverse and overlapping worlds of sonification, algorithmic music composition, and live-coding/algorave. I will now interrupt this article for some basic definitions:

Sonficiation – Turning data to (non-speech) sound. Think heart-rate monitors or Geiger counters.

Algorithmic Music Composition – Writing music using an algorithm with minimal human input. (Mozart used grids and dice. Nowadays we use computer programming languages.)

We are delighted to start working together with our new student reps - Daniel, Abi, Dewi, Philip, Tgan and all the many volunteers/reserves - to develop relationships and training events that remain relevant to our PhD students and their research plans.

We encourage all our students to approach their reps and trust them to act as interlocutors to the EASTBIO Management Group. 

More information about them here.
 

Jordan Mitchell, third-year EASTBIO student working with Professor Danielle Gunn-Moore at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Medicine, has two published papers in 2019 from his research:

a review article, 'Mycobacterial infections in cats and dogs,' at VNJ

and a research/clinical paper, 'Tuberculosis due to Mycobacterium bovis in pet cats associated with feeding a commercial raw food diet' at the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery.

Congratulations, Jordan!

Another year is concluded for the EASTBIO community with the much anticipated Annual Symposium on bioscience research, held at our partner institution University of Dundee on the 13-14 June 2019.

Welcome by EASTBIO 2019 Symposium host and EASTBIO Co-Director, Dr Edgar Huitema

The key event on the EASTBIO diary has attracted over a hundred and fifty delegates for two days of talks, poster presentations, a keynote address by UKRI BBSRC Strategy & Policy Officer Dr Abigail Harris, a highlight session on Career Paths and Stories, social events and many prizes. We had the honour of having excellent and engaging senior academics who acted as chairs to the five thematic sessions that embraced the entire range of research conducted by EASTBIO students:

New video on the NPIF Skills School ‘Broadening Horizons: Cultivating an Innovative Mind Set (Edinburgh, 4 - 5 June 2018) with advice from industry experts (click on the photo above to watch the video).

The BBSRC Innovator of the Year 2019 Award competition is now open, and the BBSRC has again a category for Early Career Impact that is particularly relevant to DTP current students and recent leavers. We rely on our community to spread the word, whether that means circulating relevant information or submitting specific recommendations to highlight excellent researchers and encourage them to apply.

Winners of each of the four categories – Commercial Impact, Social Impact, International Impact and Early Career Impact – will receive a £10,000 award, with a further £10,000 for the overall BBSRC Innovator of the Year winner. Awards will be presented at a high-profile event in London in May 2019.

Further information and links to submit either applications or recommendations can be found on our website.

The BBSRC Skills School ‘Broadening Horizons: Cultivating an Innovative Mind Set’ was held with great succes in Edinburgh, from Monday 4 to Tuesday 5 June 2018.

This event was supported by the BBSRC National Productivity Investment Fund (NPIF).

Read more here.
                     

NPIF Skills School ‘Broadening Horizons: Cultivating an Innovative Mind Set’

Edinburgh, 4 - 5 June 2018

This skills school “Broadening Horizons: Cultivating an Innovative Mind Set” has been developed by the BBSRC EASTBIO DTP and the BBSRC IBioIC CTP in partnership and close collaboration with 5 industry facilities: the IBioIC Flexible Downstream Bioprocessing Centre, Edinburgh (FlexBio); the National Phenotypic Screening Centre, Dundee; BioAscent / the European Screening Centre, Biocity, Newhouse; the Edinburgh Genome Foundry; and the Roslin Cell Therapies Ltd GMP facility, Edinburgh.  It draws on expertise and know-how from these complementary partners to address industry-identified needs and skills gaps.

Event programme.

Event website.