IGM scientists from Prof Mike Briggs’s and Dr Kasia Pirog’s groups are taking part in the Arthritis Awareness Day at the Baddiley-Clark building at Newcastle University on Thursday 26th June 2014. The day is aimed primarily at patients and members of the public, in order to raise awareness of arthritis and musculoskeletal research at Newcastle University amongst the patient groups in the North East and to facilitate the engagement and involvement of patients in the future research activities and projects.

Prof Briggs and Dr Pirog together with Prof Drew Rowan and Dr David Young at the Institute of Cellular Medicine are involved in a pan-European systems biology project (SYBIL, http://www.sybil-fp7.eu), which is bringing 18 research partners from across Europe in order to elucidate the signalling pathways and mechanisms involved in common and rare skeletal disorders.

The program of the workshop is attached below:

On 20th November 2013 we are participating in the STEM event organised for the Gateshead A-Level science/maths students by Gateshead College. This event involves ~12 workshops prepared by scientists from Newcastle and Northumbria Universities as well as local businesses representing STEM-type careers, such as electrical engineering, software & games, sports science, etc. The IGM Public Engagement Committee will host a ‘Biomedical Science’ workshop of 45 minutes repeated 5 times during the day to different students (~8-10 per workshop).

Jon Ingledew (Muscle team), Stephen Lisgo (HDBR) and Kasia Pirog (Skeletal group) are organising short hands-on activities to showcase the IGM research and allow the students to ask questions about the career in science in an informal setting.

If you would be interested in taking part in such events, please drop us an email at: IGMengagement@ncl.ac.uk

The IGM Public Engagement Committee, together with the Centre for Life and the NHS Fertility Clinic are hosting free site tours, offering a unique glimpse behind the scenes of the Centre for Life research labs and facilities as part of the British Science Festival 2013, on 7th and 8th of September 2013. The tours will include a chance to meet some of the people working at Life on the ground-breaking research.

The participants will have a chance to see behind the scenes of the famous Centre for Life, admire the view from the bridge link, take a peek inside one of our labs, see short presentations about the research done here at the IGM, visit the Newcastle Fertility Centre, and most importantly, meet the scientists!

Dr Carla Mellough from the stem cell group will talk about the exciting developments in heart and eye stem cell therapies, Dr Juliane Mueller will explain how zebrafish and mouse models can help in the research of muscular dystrophy, Harsh Sheth will talk about the exciting diagnostic technologies being developed by the Quantum Dx, Dr Simon Tual-Chalot and Esha Singh will talk about myocardial infarction and the novel therapies that are currently being developed at the IGM, Dr Steven Lisgo will display images generated by the MRC Wellcome Trust Human Developmental Biology Resource project (HDBR) and Dr Kasia Pirog will give an overview of the skeletal genetics research in the Institute. Jon Ingledew and Morten Ritso (Muscle Team) are coordinating the day and organising the display in the foyer.

On 5th December 2012 we are hosting an open day for A-level students from the schools around the North East. We invited 80 A-level students from 8 schools to have a look around the labs, learn a few techniques, hear exciting talks about the current research at the IGM and participate in the ethical debate about animal use in science. We are also running a workshop on University applications and an informal session with undergraduate representatives, to give the students a bit of a flavour of what life at Newcastle university may be like and what it has to offer.

We got a mention in the React magazine where you can read more about this event: http://reactmagazine.co.uk/anybody-out-there/public-engagement-school-kids-and-science/ and we will be organising more events of this kind in the future.We would like to thank all the people who volunteered to help with this event.