Tag Archives: Violaine Sée

Halloween Science at the Institute of Integrative Biology

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spooky science

Post by Dr Jill Madine

On Wednesday 31st October 2018 IIB and SoLS held the first Institute-wide School Engagement event within the Life Sciences Building. 82 children from Banks Road, Litherland Moss Primary Schools and home-schooled pupils from the local area attended the morning session with 128 Secondary school children from Notre Dame Catholic College, Prescot School, Kings Leadership Academy Hawthornes, Academy of St Nicholas, Archbishop Blanch and St Michaels High attending the afternoon session.

Pupils took part in a range of fun spooky science activities:

  • exploring relationships between skulls and other features of animals (e.g. diet and faeces!) with Michael Berenbrink and PhD student Kelly Ross
  • finding out about blood flow and gravity, how holding your breath slows your heart and which animals that make your heart race with SoLS Terry Gleave and Rachel Floyd
  • making zombie proteins out of magnetic beads with Luning Liu and Fang Huang, assisted by many students
  • looking at model organisms under the microscope with the Centre for Cell Imaging (CCI – Violaine See, Dave Mason, Jen Adcott, Daimark Bennett, Anne Herrmann, Marco Marcello and PhD students Kit Sampat, Hammed Badmos, Rebecca Kelly)
  • finding out how much protein is in the foods we eat including fishing in cauldrons for the answers from the Centre for Proteome Research (CPR – Kimberley Burrow, Jos Harris, Victoria Harman and PhD students Max Harris, Rosie Maher, Iris Wagner, Natalie Koch)
  • pupils could also get up close and find out more about a range of animals kindly provided by staff from World Museum and from within SoLS with Carl Larsen
https://twitter.com/luningliu/status/1057892900674170880

Additional student and staff helpers including Alice Clubbs Coldron, Lauren Tomlinson, members of Jill Madine group (Hannah Davies, James Torpey and Alana Maerivoet), Louise Colley and Laura Winters were invaluable in organising the day and logistic arrangements on the day.

Meet the Scientists

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On Saturday 17th March IIB led the Meet the Scientists Event at the World Museum. Activities included stands led by the CCI and Madine group from IIB along with other stands from Life Sciences, ITM and IGH.

The CCI had a large team, and all worked together brilliantly on the Seeing is Believing stand! The team included:

Violaine See (CCI staff): Preparation of samples for imaging, and assistance at the event.

Dave Mason (CCI staff): Preparation of samples, imaging of samples, produced posters for the event, and assistance at the event.

Marco Marcello (CCI staff): Organisation of virtual reality tours of microscopy images, with Virtual Arcade

Daimark Bennett (CCI staff): Preparation of samples for imaging, and assistance at the event.

Raphael Levy (CCI staff): Preparation of samples for imaging, and assistance at the event.

Anne Herrmann (Postdoctoral researcher): Imaging of samples, preparation of printed materials for the drawing microscopy station.

Sophie Cowman (PhD student): Filmed and produced a tour of the CCI facility, which was on display during the event.

Rebecca Kelly (PhD student): Preparation of CCI postcards, set up and take down of stand, and assistance at event especially for the match the picture quiz.

Claire Kelly (PhD student): Set up and take down of stand, and assistance at event especially for the virtual reality microscopy tour.

Hammed Badmos (PhD student): Preparation of samples, and assistance at event especially for the microscope demonstrations.

Jen Francis (PhD student): Assistance at event especially for the microscope demonstrations.

Sumaira Ashraf (Postdoctoral researcher): Set up and take down of stand, and assistance at event especially for the microscope demonstrations.

Jen Adcott (CCI Staff): Organisation of the Seeing is Believing stand and co-ordinator of activities, imaging of samples, designed and produced the match the picture quiz and microscopy stickers, and assistance at the event.

Feedback from the CCI stand, seeing is believing:

Violaine See – “It was great, and the activities were all very popular. What I really liked about our exhibit is that it was real science. Well done Jen A for leading this, the result was absolutely awesome. Well done Jen F, Hammed, and Sumaira for guiding the kids with the microscopes with so much patience and enthusiasm. Dave has been an absolute star with the colouring sheets and at explaining what we do with microscopes. Rebecca and Claire have been fantastic with the quiz and virtual reality. An amazing team effort. I feel very fortunate to have you all around, you are amazing.”

Daimark Bennett – “Fantastic effort by everyone and great activities – it was great to see how busy it was even later on. The VR clearly went down a storm and everything from the stickers to the CCI movie looked really professional and well put together. It really is hard to convey the science when it’s so chaotic but I think the exhibit was pitched at the right level. In any case, my daughter, who is not easy to impress, gave the thumbs up 🙂 Well done everyone!”

Jen Adcott – “It’s great to work with such a fantastic team of people! The day was busy, and the CCI stand seeing is believing was hugely popular with many repeat visitors. I am looking forward to meeting more future scientists at the next events.”

The Madine group ran 2 activities ‘How does the heart work?’ and return of the popular ‘A lego treasure hunt for new medicines!’ with the help of PhD students James Torpey and Nathan Cumberbatch, MRes student Kiani Jeacock and undergraduate volunteers.  Visitors enjoyed learning how blood is transported around the body by watching blood cells flow around the giant circulatory system (borrowed from IACD created with a Wellcome Trust Public Engagement award, granted to Dr Valentina Barrera). Children of all ages were keen to take part in the Lego treasure hunt around the museum to find the correct drug that fit the Lego protein molecule, and be rewarded with a Lego Scientist to take home. Thanks to members of the group for their help and enthusiasm when describing the drug development process through the use of Lego.

Shrewsbury School visit

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The Lower Sixth Biology visited the Institute for Integrative Biology.

With a world-class biological research facility only a couple of hours away, it would seem silly for us not to pay them a visit each year, and once again we were generously hosted by Professor Alan McCarthy – Head of Undergraduate Admissions for Liverpool’s School of Life Sciences (and Shrewsbury School Governor). In the morning we heard talks giving overviews of the key technologies we would later be seeing.

You can read the rest of their visit report here.

 

 

 

2017 Sée Lab Nuffield Students

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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).”

 

movie

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

Science week in Mosspits Lane primary school, 6-7 March 2017

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As part of her honours project Mary Roughley visited Mosspits Lane Primary School in Wavertree, Liverpool, during Science week. She has spent an afternoon with each year 6 class and engaged with the pupils on topics such as scales in the universe, the concept and calculation of magnification and the power of using microscopy in biology. As part of her honours project, Mary has planned the session and developed the supporting worksheets and instruction protocols. After a short presentation, the whole class went out onto the playground to collect their own live samples to view under the microscope, the class were then split into three groups to rotate between the three exercises that were organised. The most popular activity was collecting and viewing their samples. The pupils were given magnifying glasses and also had access to the Zeiss stemi labscope to enable them to examine their specimens. They collected insects, worms, leafs, bread crumb, aphids, hairs…They really enjoyed this activity and were fascinated and very excited by what they could see with a microscope: worms digestive tubes, tiny unsuspected hairs on insect legs and “a starry night sky” (salt imaged with transmitted light)!

The pupils also made their own magnifier using water in petri dishes. They learnt how to calculate magnification and used this knowledge to calculate and compare the magnification of a magnifying glass and the magnifier that they made. They realised that their magnifier made with a drop of water was as good as a commercial magnifying glass.

For the third activity, the pupils used the schools computers and an online programme to learn more about scales. The software showed objects of different sizes ranging from galaxies to a proton nucleus. This activity reinforced the idea that microscopes are essentials to biologists, as many things are much too small to be seen with the naked eye. This is what Mary says about her experience: “I received excellent feedback from the pupils. They thoroughly enjoyed the session and some mentioned that they would like to become biologists. They particularly enjoyed using the microscope and collecting their samples and a number of pupils said that the only bad part of the session was packing away! As a proof of the success of the half-day, the teachers had to fight for the children to go out at playtime. They preferred observing their samples under the microscope. I have personally really enjoyed delivering the sessions, I found the experience very rewarding especially when the pupils said they wanted to be biologists! The experience has also made me consider teaching as a career.” This is what the children wrote about the session: “‘I wish the session was longer!!; I liked seeing the intestines in the worm, it was gross but cool!; The bacteria in the pond water was really cool.” It was a very enjoyable experience at all levels: for the children, the teachers, the undergraduate student involved and me, the academic supervisor. Thank you to Mosspits Lane to have worked with us on this project.

Violaine Sée, IIB

11 Nuffield students visited IIB this summer

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This past summer, the Institute of Integrative Biology has once welcomed Nuffield students, just, many more than last year. Thank you to Jane Hurst, Michael Gerth, Philipp Antczak, Violaine See, Luning Liu, Dave Mason and Raphael Levy for providing these placements.

 

 

The importance of culturing cells in hypoxia – Dr. Violaine Sée

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The company don whitley scientific has produced a video of Violaine Sée explaining the importance of controlling the oxygen level when culturing cells; excerpt

For example, we have shown that if cells are cultured in hypoxia [low oxygen] for several days, then they become resistant to chemotherapeutic treatments

Speaking at the AGM of the Neuroblastoma Society: a privilege and a challenge

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wpdcbc3682_05_06Violaine Sée is Lecturer in the Institute of Integrative Biology and co-director of the Centre for Cell Imaging. Find out more about her research here.

Last Saturday (25/04/2015), I had the huge privilege but also the challenging task to present our research at the annual general meeting of the Neuroblastoma society in London. The society was founded in 1982 by a group of parents whose children were suffering from or had died from neuroblastoma, a very aggressive childhood cancer. Thirty years later, the society is still run in large by parents and grand-parents, who have experienced very difficult times because of this terrible pediatric cancer. It was a privilege to talk to the members of the society who are working so hard to fund medical research into improving diagnosis and treatment of the disease. It was also a challenge, talking to an audience that relies on you and your research to make a difference to the treatment of their children’s disease. It is a very difficult task because science is slow and does not translate immediately to the clinic, yet there are many hopes that it will. Not only scientists must convey their message in lay terms and make sure that they keep their audience with them at all time, but, just as importantly, the message has to be right, fair and humble, even though the audience might have high expectations. Fundamental research makes slow progress, new cures cannot be found within the timescale of a project and the worst message from such a presentation would be based hypes and false hopes, instead of rigorous and objective scientific facts. This is a huge responsibility for us as scientists and I had in my heart to keep this right.

The chick embryo as a model for metastasis

The chick embryo as a model for metastasis; credit Anne Herrmann

So I explained my vision on one important aspect of the disease, which is its metastatic spread in the body. I presented how such spreading can be studied and the models that are available in laboratories. I introduced our chick embryo model, which for this developmental disease is particularly well suited and explained the metastatic spread using metaphors such as the ability of crawling in the jungle with the need to cut tall grass, bushes etc (invasion and metalloproteases) and the ability to escape the crocodiles in the stream of the river and grab something like a branch on the river bank to come out of the water (cell circulation in blood vessels and extravasation with the use of integrins). Because I work in the Centre for Cell Imaging, I had plenty of images and videos to show what the cells really do when they travel in the body.

I would like to thank the Neuroblastoma Society and their always welcoming members for the nice meeting. I have a great admiration for the society dedication and contribution to the scientific and clinical research, and I have no doubts, that it has contributed to many recent advances in the knowledge and management of the disease.