Recruiting the Scientists of the Future

Christina

Dr Christina Malamateniou is a Lecturer of Perinatal Imaging in the Department of Perinatal Imaging and Health, part of the Division of Imaging Sciences & Biomedical Engineering. She organised a morning of talks and activities, showcasing King’s top quality clinical research to a local primary school.

There has never been a more exciting time for children to engage with the latest clinical science developments than now: new, more powerful and sophisticated MRI scanners are being built, a multitude of advanced imaging techniques are being developed-to study normal development and disease as early in the course of life as possible, starting (literally) from the womb(!); 3D-printing and robotics have brought visualisation and understanding of complex pathologies to a totally new level and genetics promises to disentangle the mysteries of human life!

My colleagues at King’s College London and I are passionate about both our clinical research and science and it was exactly this passion that we wanted to instil to 25 ten-year-olds from Heath House Prep School when they visited us at King’s College London Waterloo Campus at the end of summer 2015.

It was a pleasant morning at the Franklin Wilkins Library and I started our day describing how MRI scans are done in our department (Perinatal Imaging and Health) and how the clever imaging we use can make a difference in the quality of life of the very premature babies; children giggled when they saw for the first time how a fetus moves inside his mummy’s tummy and they had the chance to play with an inflatable full size MRI scanner too (a.k.a. the Giant Doughnut, “wow, now I can see why it makes such a loud noise, it is huge!”, kids remarked during the break).

The children then got a chance to learn cool facts about the most amazing, tireless muscle of our body: the human heart and got excited with the robotic arms that Dr Kawal Rhode and his PhD student Shuangyi Wang have constructed to study it. During the break kids saw, and even hold, 3D printed copies of human hearts and they got to guess which one belonged to a premature baby!

Dr Claire Thornton took the baton to introduce us to the magic of genetics and what better way than helping the children learn how to extract DNA from the most fragrant fruit of the summer: strawberries. The students were absolutely thrilled with all the lab equipment they got to use and they amazed us with their questions and eagerness to learn more. We could clearly see some little scientists in the making there!

After an inspiring morning, the children were introduced to our library facilities and academic study during a fun-packed event, carefully planned and organised by our amazing library staff. Mrs Beata Gędłek and her wonderful team navigated the children in the library quiet zones, discussion rooms, study pods (with kids commenting that they looked like coming out of a star wars movie!) and they organized a fun book treasure hunt, with books relating to the morning talks. Kids were divided into 5 groups (Medicine, Biology, Genetics, Robotics and Physiology) and they were like little science detectives as they looked for the specified books using maps and clues carefully prepared by the library staff. They then presented their results and answered questions in the high-tech touch-screen newly installed computer room in the library. There were all smiles when they were awarded their library super-user certificates and KCL gifts at the end of the day.

What an eye opening experience for the children and great fun for us too; kids were asking the most amazing questions, participating and engaging with science, their eyes lighting up with enthusiasm. They were clearly overwhelmed by the amazing facts they learned during our fun interactive workshop. Their feedback says it all: “That was the most amazing visit of our school this year”, “I learned about babies born early and strawberry DNA”, “I didn’t want the day to end!”, “I think I want to become a scientist after all”.

The success of this event and the smiles on children’s excited faces was the best reward for us all. It was also a great way to advertise the multidisciplinary top quality research that takes place everyday at King’s College London across many different departments. I am indebted to all the people who enthusiastically came along and shared their passion in doing research and teaching science to these young inquisitive brains. I guess for us all there is only one question: “When is the next time we can do it again?!”

Staff from King’s Imaging

KHP Summer School: robots, brains, hearts & strawberries!

Jenny Cook

Dr Jenny Cook, Research Associate in Public Engagement in Science at the Biomedical Research Centre organised the week long summer school for King’s Health Partners.  One day was spent at the King’s Imaging Sciences & Biomedical Engineering Division where the 16 year old students enjoyed hearing about the range of imaging techniques that we use here. This blog, written by Jenny, originally appeared on the KHP Summer School blog. #khpsummerschool Follow Jenny @jennyscience

Today we visited the Imaging Department at King’s College London at St Thomas’ Hospital. The Communications and Engagement Manager Alice Taylor-Gee, did a fantastic job at lining up different activities to showcase a diverse range of imaging modalities and lab techniques.

The King’s Imaging department is very engaged and lots of the researchers are working to communicate their research and inspire young people.

In the morning the students were introduced to members of the Imaging division and their research project and outcomes with presentations. We met Chris Kelly who works on perinatal brain imaging using a technique that can visualise diffusion to define the edges of neurones and map them. We also heard from Alberto Gomez who spoke about how robotics is being developed to provide a more sophisticated ultrasound to be used on pregnant women to scan their unborn babies.

Dr Samantha Terry (soon to be lecturer!) talked about different types and sources of radiation. She actively demonstrated how DNA damage can occur due to radiation using a rope and scissors and then detailed how her team harnesses this power and a complicated tracer/inhibitor to selectively fight prostate cancer cells.

During the afternoon, the students rotated around three labs. Firstly the students went to a lab with Enrico, Brett and Rick who work with radioactive tracers and examines the effects of hypoxia on cardiac perfusion. A very tiny rat’s heart was connected up to perfusion equipment where it continued to beat. This allows the researchers to change stimuli and heart conditions and examine the effects.

In order to understand more about the cellular changes that can take place under hypoxic conditions due to brain injury in pre-term infants, Claire and Ana from the perinatal lab talked about understanding cellular changes by extracting and examining DNA.

In this session, we extracted DNA from strawberries using extraction buffer and isopropanol and measured the DNA concentrations to compare strawberries. Surprisingly it doesn’t relate to strawberry size in our groups!

Different imaging methods can be used to visualise different parts of the body, comparing CT to examine bones versus MRI to identify liquids. The students went down to the clinical oncology departments at St Thomas’ to the MRI machine and managed to correctly identify several scanned images of items under the MRI machine.

“On Wednesday we spent the day learning about imaging; it’s a really interesting field because scientists from all parts of science are needed to improve the imaging techniques we use today. At school, they teach us  very little about medical imaging and for that reason I learnt lots. Because of the summer school, I now understand the basics of a PET, CT, X-Ray, MRI and ultrasound scan, and was able to see an MRI and ultrasound scan in use. One way cardiologists are able to prepare for an operation now is through 3D printing; scientists print out hearts in plastic to see how they can operate. For me, this was really fascinating because I was able to see the structure of a real heart and learn about how medical methods are improving.” Kate Bernal (age 15)

“I’ve attended the Summer School for 5 days at King’s Health Partners.  It was an extremely fun experience and I learnt and saw many things.  I learnt presentation skills, various amounts of technical skills, and developed an understanding of many features of biomedical research.  I learnt clinical scenarios and life support skills at a simulation centre and I sat in on lectures from many professionals; including professors, doctors, and researchers.  All of the activities were engaging, and interesting, and educational.  I even got to extract strawberry DNA!” Mohaned Al-Bassan (Age 16)

We would like to say a very big thank you to Alice for co-ordinating the activities today and everyone from the Imaging division who gave a presentation, demonstration or provided an activity!

For more photos of the day’s events please go to our #khpsummerschool hashtag.

Raising my head above the (lab) parapet

Last week was British Science Week and the Division took part in an exhibition in the corridors of St Thomas’ Hospital to highlight the research that we do here. Claire Thornton, Lecturer in KCL Perinatal Brain Injury Group talks about her experience.

Science Week stickers

One of the great things about being a cell biologist is that no two days are the same. At a fundamental level, there are new discoveries to be made and problems to be solved; nothing ever beats that rare moment when you know your experiment has worked unequivocally, your cells actually behaved in the way you predicted and your hypothesis really is true! As you climb the science career ladder further, the lab work becomes balanced by writing papers and grants, giving talks, teaching and supervision, all of which bring more variety (not to mention their own peculiar challenges). But one thing I rarely get a chance to do is present what we do directly to the public. I was able to change that last week, by taking part in a British Science Week exhibition at St Thomas’ Hospital. The exhibition was also a chance for healthcare scientists to showcase their various and diverse fields so we would be in good company.

The research in my lab aims to discover the molecular mechanisms behind brain injury in preterm and term babies. Currently there are no treatments available for preterm brain injury and only one, therapeutic hypothermia, for term brain injury. We believe that understanding these disease mechanisms will enable us to identify targets for which new therapies can be designed. This is obviously a very emotive area so it was with a little trepidation that we planned our exhibition.

Ana getting ready for pipetting

We set up a variety of microscopes to show people the differences in post-mortem brain tissue from babies with no brain injury compared with babies who experienced term brain injury. We also brought with us a fluorescence microscope to look inside live neurons at structures such as nuclei and mitochondria, and the changes that occur in them when a cell death mechanism is triggered. Finally, as we work with such small volumes, we challenged our visitors to have a go at using our pipettes to measure out anything from 1ml down to 1μl (a millionth of a litre)!

Veena explaining what visitors are seeing through the microscope

What a positive experience! Ana, Veena, Ginger and I had lots of interest in our work and some very searching questions about our research. Initially I was concerned that visitors might be put off by the idea of talking about injured babies, but it was exactly the opposite. We seemed to be explaining and answering questions solidly for 4 hours! The overriding opinion we heard was that it was a pity these exhibitions didn’t happen more often, and that there should be some kind of schools roadshow. The adults were as enthusiastic as the children and were very good at getting stuck in! Of the children and young adults I talked to, the majority were considering a career in science, engineering or medicine, and were very keen to interact with all of the exhibits, both on our stand and the others. There were teams from Medical Physics, Cardiovascular and Biomedical Resources showing everything from cardiac ultrasound and 3D printed hearts to wireless robots directed by arm movements and making strawberry DNA.

Me pointing out the coloured neurons

For me, not only was it a reminder about why we do this work, it was also a chance to reconnect with my fundamental awe at the elegance of brain cells and their interconnections.  How these complex cells sense their environment and communicate with each other and how trauma alters their behaviour and triggers their death is something I am happy to work on for a very long time.