UCL doctoral students race to raise money for Bliss

A trio of doctoral students from the UCL Institute of Healthcare Engineering are taking part in the Royal Parks Half Marathon, this October, to

justgiving.com/fundraising/GIFT-SurgForBliss" target="_self">raise £1,200 in support of Bliss, a UK-based charity that helps babies born prematurely or sick.

Luis C. Garcia-Perraza, Michael Ebner and Stefano Moriconi, who will be running the stunning 13.1 mile route, are all studying at the UCL EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Medical Imaging, a centre that specialises in the latest imaging methodologies for healthcare.

Bliss is a charity the students are connected closely with, as it is a key partner of their Guided Instrumentation for Fetal Therapy and Surgery (GIFT-Surg) research project. GIFT-Surg is a major, international project developing novel ways to operate in-utero in order to alleviate problems which can occur during pregnancy such as poor organ growth or complications with twins sharing the same placenta.

The students' PhD project aims at creating clearer and more accurate internal visualisation for surgeons, vision-tracking software to target surgical tools during delicate keyhole procedures and bespoke pre-surgical planning using automatic analysis of MRI data.

Michael Ebner said, "After meeting parents who have pregnancy complications through our research studies and hearing personal accounts from the advisory group we wanted to do more to support the patients. When we discovered Bliss had a charity team with the Royal Parks Half Marathon we put together an application straight away. Luckily, Bliss accepted our proposal and we're now well under way to reaching our pledged target."

Charity quiz night

If you'd like to help Luis, Michael and Stefano to reach their fundraising target, the students are hosting a Charity quiz night on Thursday 15 September in Mully's Basement Bar. Tickets cost £12 per person and include entry to the quiz and raffle, a drink on arrival and complimentary nibbles. All proceeds from the event will support the charitable work of Bliss.

For more information please visit the charity quiz night event page for details on how to buy a ticket.

If you'd like to make a donation to support Stefano, Michael and Luis in fundraising for Bliss, you can donate directly through JustGiving.

Links

• Luis, Michael and Stefano's JustGiving page
• Luis, Michael and Stefano's Charity quiz night event page
• UCL EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Medical Imaging

Katie Konyn, Communications Manager, UCL Institute of Healthcare Engineering