2017 Sée Lab Nuffield Students

In the summer of 2017, two year 12 students from the North West of England visited the Centre for Cell Imaging on their Nuffield research placements.

Their placement involved testing a semi-high-throughput screening method for anti-cancer drugs using cell-migration as their readout. They worked with a Glioblastoma cancer cell line during their time in the facility and shared the following comments about their experiences:

 

Charlie Fogg:

“I believe that this summer placement at the University of Liverpool was the greatest experience of my life, and I will always remember it as the reason I firmly decided that this was the career in which I needed to pursue. I believe that this summer was an eye-opening experience into the real world of science, specifically cell microscopy, and it gave me countless new ideas and theories which I will take away with me into the future, and hopefully begin to research into myself one day. The placement inspired me to want to carry on pursuing science for the rest of my life and fed my ambition to achieve in a new world which I now see with many more possibilities than I had originally perceived.”

Fahda Albaba:

“This summer was not the same of all my previous summer, it was amazing and interesting because I spent it in department which I’d like before to be on, I learnt a lot of useful things: using high demand microscope, experiment skills as well as the importance of organisation, planning  and time management for each project. This placement gives me the chance to recognise the enjoyable feeling of practical and research world. Also this project allows me to deal comfortably with analysed imaging software which I am never deal with before, these wonderful software will make me think more deeply about the experiment, is not the same of the past (just follow the instructions).”

 

U87 cells stably expressing a red nuclear marker. Timestamps are HH:MM

Pinfold Junior School day at the Millennium Wood

by Meriel Jones

Getting children out of the classroom to connect with the natural world should be a feature of primary education and is also an excellent way to introduce science.  This is why, towards the end of the summer term on July 5^th, children from Pinfold Junior School in Scarisbrick near Southport found themselves in their local Millennium Wood for the day.

Along with building dens, hunting for treasure and making mini scarecrows with their teachers, they went on a bug hunt with Dr James Davies, a postdoctoral associate in the Institute of Integrative Biology.  Extracting creepy crawlies from the undergrowth and then admiring dragonflies and butterflies as they flew past kept the young hunters, and James, very busy.

In addition, Patrick Hamilton, Lois Ellison and Kelly Roper, undergraduate students from the School of Life Sciences Student Outreach Society, were on hand with activities in the local church hall that was the base for lunch. Kelly said ‘We all really enjoyed the day and it has sparked some new ideas for outreach activities we can develop further. Therefore it was a beneficial experience for us as well.’

‘I would say the main thing I took away from the day was how much fun the children had applying what we had told them about adaptations, to the creation of their own creatures which had a whole range of creative/imaginative features.’

This event is the most recent in the Institute of Integrative Biology’s relationship with Pinfold School that began in 2010 and has included a project that won the annual national Rolls-Royce Eden Award for the best implemented environmental project meeting the needs of a school in 2013.