8th Dean’s Research Prize Showcases Students’ Outstanding Work

The afternoon highlighted the huge range of research that undergraduates, postgraduates and PhD students across the Faculty are involved in, from bariatric surgery through to painless fillings for children’s teeth, the development of a wearable device to correct spinal balance, and research into the difference between what doctors say and what they really mean.

The winner of the Postgraduate Research Presentations Prize was Natalie Edner from the Division of Infection and Immunity for her research into follicular helper T cells which can predict response to immunotherapy in type 1 diabetes.

Seventeen students also took part in the internationally successful 3MT® (three minute thesis) competition. An 80,000 word thesis would take nine hours to present, but these students had just three minutes. Nekisa Zakeri, again from the Division of Infection and Immunity, took home the 3MT® Prize, with her research: ‘The new cells on the block: removing the breaks for liver cancer therapy’.

As well as the talks, a large number of posters were displayed from students across the Faculty. Helena Perez Pena from the MSc Drug Design programme was presented with the Postgraduate Poster Prize, while James Cai from the iBSc Immunology, Infection and Cell Pathology won the Undergraduate Poster Prize.

But perhaps the most popular presentation of the afternoon was from Yingqu Hou from the Division of Medicine, who won the People’s Choice Award, voted for by the audience. She engaged listeners with a lively presentation on ‘Pneumonia: Sticky Bacteria in Action’.

The outstanding work of the students throughout the afternoon showcased the brave, bold research taking place in the Faculty of Medical Sciences. As Zalike Keskin Erdogan from the UCL Eastman Dental Institute said at the end of her presentation: “Always wonder, always question, science will bring you a solution.” UCL Faculty of Medical Sciences students are proving just that.