The fifth UTC Transmits seminar was held at the University of Liverpool last week. We invited a host of speakers from across the city to discuss the topic of Personalised Medicine.
Liverpool is uniquely positioned as a leader in the research and ‘bench-to-bedside’ delivery (clinical translation) of Personalised Health thanks to partnerships between the University of Liverpool, Liverpool Health Partners and its nine Hospital Trusts.
The current work in Personalised Health research and implementation already benefits the region, whilst demonstrating the way of the future nationally and internationally.
Our Year 12 and 13 students made the short trip across to the University of Liverpool campus from the UTC, where the seminar programme kicked off.
First to address our students was Ana Alfirevic, a Senior Lecturer in Pharmacogenetics at the University of Liverpool. Ana began proceedings by giving us an introduction to Personalised Medicine, detailing some of her amazing research from the past 10 years. Ana then went onto explain how personalised medicine can be more effective for patients.
Following Ana was Anita Hanson, a Lead Research Nurse at the Wolfson Centre for Personalised Medicine, University of Liverpool. Anita discussed her role in patient recruitment, as well as explaining the part she plays in the design and development of study protocols.
Next up was Dan Carr, a Tenure Track Fellow from the University of Liverpool. Dan gave students an insight into some of the toxic effects medication can have on patients, including everyday medicines, such as paracetamol and aspirin.
After a short break, the seminar programme resumed with Amy Chadwick, also a Tenure Track Fellow from the University of Liverpool. The topic of Amy’s talk was focused around the role of mitochondrial toxicity in drug-induced liver injury.
Our penultimate speaker was Juhi Gupta, a PhD student in Pharmecogentics at the University of Liverpool. Juhi discussed her pathway through education towards studying a PhD, which proved extremely useful for some of our students.
Kate Navaratnam was the final speaker of the session. Also a PhD student at the University of Liverpool, Kate explored the topic of personalised medicine in pre-natal clinical practice.
We’d like to thank all our guest speakers for delivering their exciting and informative talks to our students.
We can’t wait for the next UTC Transmits!