Update on the Postgraduate Training Platform
Our PhD students have been busy attending conferences, presenting, publishing and winning awards! Read on for a full update.
Annual Scientific Meeting, awards & postgraduate face-to-face training day
At the Annual Scientific Meeting in Edinburgh in November all students presented their research in the form of a poster or an oral presentation. There were many excellent presentations and one award given for each category.
Adam Peel (University of East Anglia, Norwich) won the prize for Best Oral presentation. Title: 8-Isoprostane in Exhaled Breath Condensate: A Systematic Review in Adult Asthma. Main supervisor: Andrew Wilson.
Mohammad Al Sallakh (Swansea University) won the prize for Best Poster presentation. Title: Making sense of patient-reported currently treated asthma using routinely collected data. Main supervisor: Gwyneth Davies
Mohammad also went on to share the Best Poster prize at the Farr Institute Informatics for Health 2017 conference in Manchester (24th-26th April). Well done Mohammad!
In conjunction with the Annual Scientific Meeting in Edinburgh, we had a great face-to-face training day on the 10th November which was organised with a lot of help from our student representative, Tracy Jackson. The day comprised of two well-received presentations - Prof Steff Lewis (University of Edinburgh) presented on ‘Statistics in Clinical Research’ and Dr Joanna Young (Scientific Editing Company Ltd) on ‘Pitch Perfect: Public Speaking and Networking for researchers’. Both sessions were very interactive and there was also time for the students to network and discuss their projects.
Our most recent training day was held on the afternoon before the Patient and Public Involvement Fair, on the 22nd April in Edinburgh. Many thanks to Dr Chris Newby who travelled up from QMUL and presented on career opportunities after PhD study.
Webinar series
There have been two further webinar training sessions including a talk on 'Using theory to understand and influence behaviour: the what, why and how!’ led by Dr Liz Steed (Queen Mary University of London) and Salina Ahmed, followed by a progress report by Christina Pearce on her research project, ‘Adherence in Children with Problematic Severe Asthma’.
The second webinar consisted of two presentations, the first titled ‘Using social media to increase the impact of your research’ which was delivered by Dr Luca Borger (Swansea University). This was followed by a presentation by Mohammad Al Sallakh on his research project: ‘Defining asthma and assessing asthma outcomes using electronic health record data: a systematic scoping review’.
Student Representative
We would like to thank Tracy Jackson who has done an excellent job as the student representative for 2016 and we welcome our new representative for 2017, Karim El Ferkh (University of Edinburgh). Karim was elected in January 2017 by the postgraduate students.
Affiliated PhD Students
We have formally welcomed two more PhD students as affiliated Asthma UK Centre for Applied Research PhD students: Marissa Mes and Caroline Katzer. Both are based at University College London with Prof Rob Horne as their main supervisor. We also welcome Sam Etoe, who started his PhD with us in April and is based at the University of East Anglia (supervisors: Prof Andrew Wilson, Prof Andy Jones, Prof Gareth Stratton, Dr Gwyn Davies).
Conferences & bursary awards
Congratulations to Adam Peel and Mohammad Al Sallakh who were both awarded an Asthma UK Centre for Applied Research travel bursary to attend the BTS Winter Meeting in December 2016.
Student abstracts presented at the BTS Winter Meeting
Adam M Peel, Christina-Jane Crossman-Barnes, Jonathan Tang, Stephen Fowler, Gwyneth Davies, Andrew Wilson and Yoon Loke. Biomarkers in adult asthma: a systematic review of 8-isoprostane in exhaled breath condensate. Thorax 71 (Suppl 3), S1, 2016.
Al Sallakh MA, Rodgers SE, Lyons RA, Sheikh A, and Davies GA. Making sense of patient-reported currently treated asthma using routinely collected data. Thorax 71 (Suppl 3), P148, 2016.
E Vasileiou, A Sheikh, C Butler, K El Ferkh, CR Simpson. Safety and effectiveness of influenza vaccines in people with asthma: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Thorax 71 (Suppl 3), P133, 2016.
The following poster was presented at Informatics for Health 2017 conference, 24th–26th April 2017, Manchester Central:
Hui CY, Walton R, McKinstry B, Parker R, Jackson T, Vasileiou E, Pinnock H. The features patients ‘want’ in a smartphone app to support asthma self-management and their clinical effectiveness: A systematic review of the telehealth interventions and online discussion forums.
Selected New Publications
Daines, L & McMurray, A, (2016). Asthma in Children. Innovait., DOI: 10.1177/1755738016678013.
Adam M Peel Christina-Jane Crossman-Barnes, Jonathan Tang, Stephen Fowler, Gwyneth Davies, Andrew Wilson and Yoon Loke, (2017). Biomarkers in adult asthma: a systematic review of 8-isoprostane in exhaled breath condensate J. Breath Res. DOI: 10.1088/1752-7163/aa5a8a.
Ahmed, S., Salim, H., Steed, L., & Pinnock, H. (2017). Blue inhalers: blowing hot and cold. Npj Primary Care Respiratory Medicine, 27(1), 6. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41533-016-0008-4.
Upcoming activities & events
- There will be an Asthma UK Centre for Applied Research bursary award call in the spring to support students to disseminate their work at conferences.
- In September (date tbc) we are organising, together with the MRC & Asthma UK Centre in Allergic Mechanisms of Asthma, a joint 2-day meeting in London. The main focus of the meeting is on training, dissemination and networking opportunities for our PhD students and early career researchers. Senior academics & principle investigators are also encouraged to attend. Theme for the day: ‘Tackling the challenges of managing asthma’.
- Many of our students will attend and present at several upcoming conferences during 2017, including:
- International Primary Care Research Group,17-18/5, 2017
- European Respiratory Society, 9-13/9, 2017
- Primary Care Respiratory Society-UK29-30/9, 2017
- British Thoracic Society 6-8/12, 2017
Finally, congratulations to Tracy Jackson and Eleftheria Vasileiou who successful completed the second year of their PhDs and are now in their final year.