XClose

UCL School of Pharmacy

Home
Menu

Science and Pharmacy Taster Session for an East London primary school

25 March 2020

Professor Catherine Tuleu and collaborators recently visited Henry Maynard Primary School to talk about the science of making medicines and their safe use. This event took place during British Science Week earlier in the month.

British Science Week 2020 (6-15 March) offered the opportunity for a team of 12 PhD students and Early Career Researchers to engage with over 850 pupils aged 4 to 11 years old.  

Visit to Henry Maynard Primary School to do scientific activities

A variety of interactive and educational activities were designed for each year group:

  • Reception, Year 1 & 2 children made slime of different consistencies (viscosity of fluids), flavoured and coloured water pretending they were medicines, exploring the interaction between their senses (formulation development), and assembled a multi-layered body puzzle while discussing “where medicines go” (drug delivery).
  • Year 3 built a giant jigsaw to understand medicines life cycle (drug discovery and pharmaceutical development). They also played a medicines cabinet board game to understand what medicine are, about different formulations and key safety messages around medicines use (medication safety).
  • Year 4 learned the importance of the dose and accuracy in making medicines and experimented with weighing and filling capsules for different paediatric and adult patients (pharmaceutical calculations, pharmacokinetics and compounding).
  • Year 5 discussed drugs from natural sources and did a rainbow chromatography experiment (pharmacognosy). They also drew and built chemical structures of products of photosynthesis (pharmaceutical and biological chemistry).
  • Year 6 were introduced to manufacturing and quality control with 3D printlets they made. They looked at how medicines behave inside the body with a disintegration experiment (pharmaceutical development, manufacturing and in-vitro testing).

Thanks to FabRx, pupils also had a chance to watch a shape of their choice 3D printed right in front of them - an activity that was exciting and popular for both the children and teachers alike!

Moreover, the majority of children and their parents consented to taking part in two important academic research studies (UCL Research Ethics Committee Approval ID Number 4612/026). The first was a quinine taste assessment to measure how children’s sensitivity to bitterness differs from adults. The second was to determine children’s perceptions/preference of appearance of 3D printed tablets manufactured using 4 different techniques (namely, selective laser sintering, fused deposition modelling, stereolithography and semisolid extrusion).

Special thanks to kids and grown-ups at Henry Maynard Primary School as they were ‘epic’!

And also to the following 'epic' teams:
KS1 team: Hend Abdelhakim, Dani Andrews, Solomon Sheriff 
KS2 team: Francesca Gavins, Christine Madla, Uzma Jaffry, Elisa Alessandrini, as well as Sarah Mirza and Lewis Tullett (Pfizer STEM ambassadors)
3D Printing Team: Xiaoyan (Bonnie) Xu, Patricija Januskaite, Alvaro Goyanes 
Taste Team: Alexander Keeley, Sejal Ranmal
 

Further information:

Contact:

Dr Catherine Tuleu
Professor in Paediatric Pharmaceutics
European Paediatric Formulation Initiative Chair
Founder of senCeuTics Ltd.

Image credit:

Henry Maynard Primary School