UCL SCHOOL OF LIFE AND MEDICAL SCIENCES
ISSUE 1 NOVEMBER 2008

Welcome to the first edition of the
School of Life and Medical Sciences
(SLMS) newsletter. In the last year we’ve seen the amalgamation of the activity of the Faculties of Biomedical
Sciences and Life Sciences into
SLMS. The SLMS newsletter and the new website reflect this development.
The aim of the SLMS newsletter is to provide staff with updates on teaching and research activities; and to disseminate information about administrative policies and procedures. Although each newsletter will be brief, we hope that each one will help highlight individual and group achievements of SLMS staff.
The new SLMS website, launched at the end of October, has established the Schools internet presence; it indexes the biographies and publications of over 1000 members of staff who lead on research and education activities. The website will enable visitors who are unfamiliar with UCL’s structures to easily access the information they require whilst enabling us to showcase our strengths in research and educational activities that cut across a number our Divisions and Institutes.
We want to make this website as user-friendly as possible and we can only do that with your input. We have already received constructive feedback from staff as to how we can improve the website, but suggestions as to how we can continue to secure further improvements should be made to the
School Communications Manager, email: slms-editor@ucl.ac.uk.
We have been involved in a number of major initiatives over the last 12 months, including the development of an Academic Health Sciences
Centre - UCL Partners; and the announcement that UCL, along with three other leading biomedical research organisations, will create the
UK Centre for Medical Research &
Innovation (UKCMRI). This newsletter contains updates on these initiatives.
Our research excellence continues to attract considerable financial support.
This newsletter contains details of SLMS research projects above £500,000 with a start date of October 2008.
The 2008 Shanghai Jiao Tong
Academic Rankings indicate that
UCL’s place among the world’s leading universities has risen again, UCL is ranked 22nd in the world; 3rd in
Europe and 1st in London; whilst in the
2008 Times Higher Education – QS
League Tables UCL rose from 9th in
2007 to 7th place. These rankings are well deserved, our staff and students should be proud of their achievements in recent years.
Finally, as we progress through the academic year, we would like to extend a warm welcome to new staff and students in the School.
Professor Edward Byrne
Executive Dean of UCL Faculty of
Biomedical Sciences and Head of
UCL Medical School
Professor Peter Mobbs
Professor of Physiology and Executive
Dean UCL Faculty of Life Sciences


3-4  MAJOR INITIATIVES
4  RESEARCH FOCUS
5  RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS
6-7  RESEARCH NEWS
8  NEW GRANT SUCCESS

9  SLMS NEWS ROUND UP
10  UCL NEWS
11  SLMS STUDENT NEWS


12-13  INTERVIEW
PROFESSOR NORA GROCE
14-15  PEOPLE NEWS IN BRIEF
NEW STAFF PROFILES
NEW APPOINTMENTS
IN OCTOBER 2008
AWARDS

16  ALUMNI REUNION
ISSUE 1 NOVEMBER 2008 UCL SCHOOL OF LIFE AND MEDICAL SCIENCES

SLMS RESEARCH
UCL and four of its major clinical partners are coming together to form
Europe’s largest Academic Health
Science Partnership (AHSP) through which world class medical research can be better planned and delivered.
UCL Partners brings UCL together with Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust (GOSH),
Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS
Foundation Trust (Moorfields), the
Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust (the
Royal Free), and University College
London Hospitals NHS Foundation
Trust (UCLH).
By promoting a strategic approach to medical research and healthcare across the member organisations, the partnership intends to deliver significant improvements in health for those living in London, which can be shared around the world. The strategic development, funding and delivery of UCL Partners’ services and associated research programmes will be driven by a board of directors who will oversee and coordinate these activities. Members of the board will comprise representatives of the partner organisations.
Professor Sir Cyril Chantler will become the first Chair of UCL
Partners. Sir Cyril, who has served as Chair of GOSH for eight years, will serve as the UCL Partners Chair for an initial period of one year from 1
February 2009.
The partnership will be organised around themes selected on the basis of research, clinical and education training criteria focusing on a case that the themes either are, or are capable of becoming world class academically and can demonstrate the performance, capacity and support for clinical services to be developed in a coordinated way across the multi-site partnership.
A list of eight potential themes has been identified by the AHSP
Executive Group; the potential themes are: Child Health, Cardiovascular,
Cancer, Infection, Immunology and
Transplantation, Neurological Disease,
Ophthalmology, and Women’s Health.
The list of research themes is not exclusive and it is anticipated that other potential themes will be identified and agreed in the future.
The UCL and Partners Health
Sciences Research Deanery (HSRD) will take responsibility for coordinating the case for themes; they will establish
Working Groups for each theme.
Agreement on which potential themes satisfy the criteria will be determined by the AHSP Board; Commissioners of NHS services will also be consulted about the proposed themes.
The expectation for each of the themes is that they will have a strong leader, appointed through an open competitive process, with the expertise and background to provide integrated strategic planning for the research, education/teaching and clinical components of the themes and to link with the corresponding NHS services in the Partner organisations to maximise opportunities for research and benefit to patients.
Theme Working Groups were convened in September 2008 and will submit their templates to the UCLP
Board between Nov 30th and
Dec 23rd.
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Further information is available on the UCL Partners website, www.uclpartners.com.
UCL SCHOOL OF LIFE AND MEDICAL SCIENCES ISSUE 1 NOVEMBER 2008

SLMS RESEARCH
Progress continues with plans for one of the most exciting developments in medical research for a generation. Four of the world’s leading biomedical research organisations – UCL,
Cancer Research UK, the Medical Research Council and the
Wellcome Trust – are behind the vision to build the UK Centre for Medical Research & Innovation (UKCMRI). UKCMRI will bring together the best scientists, doctors and researchers to advance scientific understanding and allow the development of treatments. UKCMRI will also train future generations of medical scientists.
The project, announced by the Prime Minister in December
2007, will be based on a 3.5 acre site next to St Pancras
Station and the British Library in London; it will include state-ofthe-art scientific facilities and infrastructure, as well as access to teaching and specialist hospitals.
The partners are now working together to determine the scientific vision for the Centre; to agree the design of the building and achieve planning permission; and to establish governance processes. The exact nature of the involvement of
UCL staff will be determined once the scientific direction of the
Centre has been agreed.
The development of the science vision is being led by a
Science Planning Committee (SPC) chaired by Sir Paul Nurse,
President of Rockefeller University in New York and former
Chief Executive of Cancer Research UK. UCL is represented on the committee by Professor Ed Byrne and Professor
Claudio Stern.
In addition to recommending the scientific direction for the
Centre the SPC is also considering key issues such as facilities, the high-level design principles for the building to maximise scientific synergy, the scale/scope of innovation space and the potential for collaboration with other organisations.
In October 2008 Fleishman-Hillard, one of the leading communications agencies, was selected as communications consultants. The consortium will shortly recruit a
Communications Manager to liaise with key partners, including agencies and with the local community, to deliver the UKCMRI communications strategy.
The consortium aims to put a planning application for the new building in during
2009, and the Centre is expected to open in 2014.
MRI scan of prostate
(circled in red) showing the prostate cancer enhancing as white contrast (circled in yellow). The enhancement occurs because of the abnormal blood vessels in and arounf the cancer.
Mark Emberton, Reader In interventional Oncology and
Honorary Consultant Urological Surgeon, UCL and Hashim
Uddin Ahmed, MRC Clinical Research Fellow, UCL
The treatment of early prostate cancer using surgery or radiotherapy to destroy the whole prostate can make one in every two men lose their erections and one in five become incontinent of urine. Focal therapy – treating the cancer alone
4 and leaving the healthy tissue in tact – promises to make the side effects of treatment something of the past. Treatments for prostate cancer result in side-effects because the surrounding structures are damaged. Structures like nerves and vessels and organs like the rectum and bladder can be either irradiated, cut, de-nervated or displaced.
(UCLH), led by Mark Emberton, are conducting a number of clinical trials that look at different types of focal therapy. Two of the studies use sound waves to target the cancer with a technology called High Intensity Focused Ultrasound or HIFU.
This is done on a day case basis with patients leaving hospital an hour or two after treatment. The early results look promising with no incontinence reported in the patients treated to date and potency preserved in nearly all (95%). The team at UCLH are about to begin a completely new form of therapy using a derivative form of Chlorophyl combining this with laser light.
This combination seems to generate very discrete lesions within the prostate that – in previous studies with a prototype agent – appeared to preserve the structure of the prostate. The team at UCLH are the first in the world to use this combination for men with prostate cancer.
A team of researchers at University College London Hospital
UCL SCHOOL OF LIFE AND MEDICAL SCIENCES
Further information is available at: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/surgicalscience/.
ISSUE 1 NOVEMBER 2008
T1W axial MRI,
1minute post gadolinium contrast

SLMS RESEARCH
Dr Yvonne Kelly, UCL Epidemiology & Public Health, has contributed to the public health debate about pregnancy and drinking, with the study showing that children born to mothers who drink lightly during pregnancy - as defined as
1-2 units per week or per occasion - are not at increased risk of behavioural difficulties or cognitive deficits compared with children of abstinent mothers. Dr Kelly said “The reasons behind these findings might in part be because light drinkers tend to be more socially advantaged than abstainers, rather than being due to the physical benefits of low level alcohol consumption seen, for example, in heart disease. However, it may also be that light-drinking mothers tend to be more relaxed themselves and this contributes to better behavioural and cognitive outcomes in their children.”
People who view pictures of someone they hate display activity in distinct areas of the brain that, together, may be thought of as a ‘hate circuit’. The study, by Professor
Semir Zeki and John Romaya of the Wellcome Laboratory of Neurobiology at UCL (and the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL) examined the brain areas that correlate with the sentiment of hate and shows that the
‘hate circuit’ is distinct from those related to emotions such as fear, threat and danger – although it shares a part of the brain associated with aggression. The circuit is also quite distinct from that associated with romantic love, though it shares at least two common structures with it. The results, published in PLoS One, are an extension of previous studies on the brain mechanisms of romantic and maternal love from the same laboratory. Explaining the idea behind the research, Professor Zeki said: “Hate is often considered to be an evil passion that should, in a better world, be tamed, controlled, and eradicated. Yet to the biologist, hate is a passion that is of equal interest to love. Like love, it is often seemingly irrational and can lead individuals to heroic and evil deeds. How can two opposite sentiments lead to the same behaviour?”
The discovery of the earliest known cases of human tuberculosis (TB) in bones found submerged off the coast of Israel shows that the disease is 3000 years older than previously thought. The new research, led by Dr Helen
Donoghue and Dr Mark Spigelman, both UCL Centre for
Infectious Diseases & International Health, and scientists from
Tel-Aviv University sheds light on how the TB bacterium has evolved over the millennia and increases our understanding of how it may change in the future. Helen Donoghue said, “There is an active discussion going on at present amongst those interested in molecular evolution and genomics, on the length of time that humans and the causative organism, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, have co-evolved, and our data back those who argue for a very long association. The 9000-year-old DNA has a deletion which is characteristic of most modern strains.”
Employees off sick for long periods - even for common conditions like flu - are far more likely to die before their co-workers who do not take such leave, according to research published in the BMJ. “It is not just down to serious medical conditions but it seems this relationship is seen across a wide range of common health problems,” said Jenny Head, Senior Lecturer in Statistics who led the study. “This appears to be a good early marker for people going on to develop more long-term serious illnesses.”
Researchers at UCL Division of Biosciences (Research
Department of Cell & Developmental Biology) along with collaborators at King’s College have identified a molecule which could be key to understanding the cause of motor neurone disease (MND) and other neurodegenerative disorders.
Researchers showed the molecule, Wnt3, plays a key role in establishing connections between nerve cells and the muscles they control. The research, published in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), is funded by BBSRC,
MRC and the Wellcome Trust. Lead researcher Professor
Patricia Salinas said: “For decades we have been studying how nerves communicate with their target muscles and we know that in diseases like MND the sites of contact between nerves and muscles become weak. However, many mysteries remain as to how these contacts form under normal circumstances and therefore it has been very difficult 5 to see what has gone wrong in MND. The work we are publishing today puts another important piece of the puzzle in place and offers up a new possibility for developing drugs to treat MND and other neurodegenerative diseases.”
UCL SCHOOL OF LIFE AND MEDICAL SCIENCES ISSUE 1 NOVEMBER 2008

SLMS RESEARCH
coordinate and strengthen systems biology at UCL was used as a framework for this discussion.
Systems biology is booming and without signs of a bust just yet. This is evident from the numerous new journals, scientific meetings, divisions in pharmaceutical companies, and institutes established dedicated to systems level approaches in the life sciences. This has been accompanied by a shift in Government research funding priorities. The BBSRC for example is now committed to dedicating as much of 40% of its funds to promote research in systems biology. This represents both a challenge and an opportunity for UCL.
There was widespread agreement that there is an urgent need to promote and coordinate cross-faculty research in systems biology at UCL. In addition, several people stressed the need for the University to make significant investments in this area for there to be real progress. Although no clear consensus emerged about the best large-scale investment strategy for the future, it was broadly agreed that an inclusive UCL Biosystems network be established now. This network would then be used as a springboard to bring together groups to form the core of a future UCL Institute for Systems
Biology. The plan is to present a revised strategy document along these lines to the Provost for seed funding in the coming weeks.
The opportunity arises because UCL has great strengths in interdisciplinary research, exemplified by the
CoMPLEX PhD programme, the Ear
Institute, WIBR, UCL Neuroscience etc. The challenge it brings is one of developing a strategy to co-ordinate and communicate systems biology research in order to attract funds from large scale funding calls. A town meeting was held in September to discuss the future of systems biology at UCL, as a first step towards raising our profile and towards developing a coherent strategy for the coordination and development of systems level research in the life sciences.
Colleagues who wish to see the draft strategy document, contribute ideas about the best way forward or wish to be included in the nascent
Biosystems network, should contact:
Buzz Baum, b.baum@ucl.ac.uk.
The meeting drew close to 100 researchers. The goal of the meeting was to agree upon a way forward, and
6 to kick-start the further development of systems level research in the life sciences at UCL. A strategy document (drawn up by a crossfaculty panel, Tom Duke, Alan
Johnston, Paul Kellam, David
McAlpine and Sylvia Nagl) outlining specific steps that could be taken to
The launch of the new UCL Genetics
Institute (UGI) was marked by an oversubscribed symposium for UCL staff in July. UGI brings together geneticists from Life and Biomedical
Sciences to work on cross cutting research themes. UGI will expand genetics research and postgraduate education to create a world leading centre in the application of biostatistics and bioinformatics to health and population research at UCL. An MSc in the Genetics of Human Disease is planned for 2009 and lectures will be supplemented with the very successful
UCL SCHOOL OF LIFE AND MEDICAL SCIENCES online seminars ‘The Biomedical &
Life Sciences Collection’ from Henry
Stewart Talks (see http://www.ucl.
ac.uk/medicalschool/current-students/ learning-resources/).
Further information is available on the Institute website: www.ucl.ac.uk/ugi
In October Professor Angus Silver and Padraig Gleeson, UCL Division of
Biosciences (Research Department of Neuroscience, Physiology &
Pharmacology), were awarded
£1,048,732 to investigate “The development and standardisation of biologically realistic neural network models through an open source database”. The project, funded by a five year Wellcome Trust Biomedical
Resources grant, will commence on
1st December 2008.
Professor Peter Mullany and Drs
Adam Roberts and Elaine Allan are part of a team that have been awarded
€2.99 million to investigate “The
Physiological Basis of Hypervirulence in Clostridium difficile: a Prerequisite for Effective Infection Control” by the
EU. Known as the Hyperdiff project; the overall objective of this proposal is to determine the physiological factors that cause hyper virulence in
Clostridium difficile, to provide crucial information for both the development
ISSUE 1 NOVEMBER 2008

of more informed tests for diagnosis and epidemiological studies, and the formulation of more effective countermeasures for infection control and disease management.
The Eastman team are one of the partners in this multi-centre study which also includes University of Nottingham,
UK, Institute of Public Health, Maribor,
Slovenia, Istituto Superiore di Sanità,
Rome, Italy, Université Paris XI, Paris,
France, Leiden University Medical
Center, Leiden, Netherlands and TGC
Biomics, Mainz, Germany.
The project commenced on
1st November 2008.
these two chronic diseases often diagnosed in the same individual.
These projects, lead by Professor
Nikolaos Donos and Dr Francesco
D’Aiuto of the UCL EDI Periodontology
Unit, are in collaboration with
Professor John Deanfield (UCL
ICH Cardiac Unit), Professor Aroon
Hingorani (UCL Centre for Clinical
Pharmacology), Dr Steven Hurel
(UCLH NHS Foundation Trust) and
Professor Stephen Humphries, (UCL
Centre for Cardiovascular Genetics).
Plans are at an advanced stage for the expansion of the Joint Unit to include the Royal Free campus.
Over the coming months work will be carried out to determine how best to deliver robust and efficient Research
Management and Governance across the two campus sites. It is anticipated that the new Joint Unit, which will form the basis for consistent RM&G across UCL Partners, will be formally launched in Spring 2009.
A UCL/UCLH collaboration has received funding of £576,607 from
Diabetes UK and the CBRC to evaluate the effect of periodontitis on diabetes mellitus and its management.
This work will also ascertain the possible genetic interactions between
New £26 million facilities designed to promote world-class treatment and research into debilitating neurological conditions such as epilepsy,
Parkinson’s disease, stroke and brain tumours were officially opened at the beginning of October. The seven-storey Clinical Neuroscience
Centre at 33 Queen Square will bring together researchers and clinicians from the adjacent National Hospital for
Neurology and Neurosurgery (NHNN) and the UCL Institute of Neurology, housing outpatient services and research facilities under one roof.
The launch of the Centre coincides with the opening of the Advanced
Neuroimaging Suite: a state-of-the-art imaging facility with three specialist
MRI scanners and an Interventional
MRI BrainSuite system. BrainSuite provides an angiography, MRI and surgical facility – unique to the UK – for real time scanning of the brain and spine during surgery. The facility will offer innovative treatments to patients with complex neurological conditions.
Both facilities were officially opened by
HRH The Princess Royal, Chancellor of the University of London.
Plans are underway to establish a new Clinical Trials Unit at UCL in the coming months. The new CTU will consist largely of the biostatistics and clinical trials management teams of the
Joint Unit and will focus on non-cancer specialties at UCL, complementing and working closely alongside the UCL and
Cancer Research UK Cancer Trials
Centre. A registered CTU would give
UCL investigators the methodological and management support required to carry out high quality trials. Moreover, it will offer potential for collaborations on grant applications (some NIHR funding streams require a collaboration with a
CTU to carry out trials).The CTU will apply for UK Clinical Research Network
(UKCRN) registration in 2009. A UKCRN registration would enable the CTU to bid for core infrastructure from external funding bodies, thereby enhancing support for clinical trials at UCL.
Seven centres across the UK have been awarded Network grants in
Synthetic Biology. UCL and Birkbeck is host to one of these Networks; it will be run by John Ward (SMB, Division of
Biosciences, UCL) and Irilenia Nobeli
(Department of Crystallography,
Birkbeck). Called Network Synbion, it comprises researchers across six departments at UCL and Birkbeck and also includes five other universities in the UK. The Networks are jointly funded by the BBSRC and
EPSRC with additional funds the
Economic and Social Research
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Council (ESRC) and the Arts and Humanities Research Council
(AHRC).
UCL SCHOOL OF LIFE AND MEDICAL SCIENCES ISSUE 1 NOVEMBER 2008

we are indebted to all our sponsors. without their continuing support we would not be able to undertake world class research. Listed below are details of research projects above £500,000 with a start date of
October 2008. these awards, from a variety of sources, support a wide range of research across the School.
 Dr Paul Richard Riley
UCL Institute of Child Health
£1,090,811
British Heart Foundation
Lineage characterisation of adult EPDCs: stemness, multipotency and contributions to cardiovascular homoeostasis and endogenous repair
 Professor Dmitri Rusakov
UCL Institute of Neurology
£1,069,248
Wellcome Trust
Principles of Neurotransmitter
Signal Formation in the Brain
 Professor Helen Valerie Curran
UCL Division of Psychology and Language Sciences
£586,199
MRC
What Determines an Individual’s
Vulnerability to the Harmful Effects of Cannabis?
 Dr Christopher John Scotton
UCL Division of Medicine
£877,384
MRC
Fellowship – Crosstalk Between
Extravascular Coagulation,
Chemokine Networks and Immunity in Fibroproliferative Lung Disease
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 Roberto Alonzi
UCL Cancer Institute
£918,314
MRC
Fellowship – The Development of Magnetic Resonance Based
Hypoxia Imaging for Targeted
Radiotherapy Planning
 Dr Julia Vivian Bailey
UCL Division of Population
Health
£504,298
MRC
Interactive Computer-based
Interventions for Sexual Health
Promotion
 Dr Barbara Jennings
UCL Cancer Institute
£778,331
MRC
Fellowship – Regulation of
Development
Gene Expression through Control of Transcriptional Elongation
 UCL Cancer Institute
£1,667,511
Samantha Dickson Brain
Tumour Trust
HGBF Samantha Dickenson Unit in Brain Cancer Research
 Professor Anne Mandall Johnson
UCL Division of Population
Health
£ 1,999,996
Wellcome Trust
The National Survey of Sexual
Attitudes and Lifestyles 2010
 Professor Eleanor Anne Maguire
UCL Institute of Neurology
£1,037,451
Wellcome Trust
The Neural Basis of Spatial and Episodic Memory in Humans
 Prof David Alan Isenberg
UCL Division of Medicine
£656,075
Nuffield Foundation
From Bones to B Cell Biology
UCL SCHOOL OF LIFE AND MEDICAL SCIENCES
A major reorganisation of UCL
Division of Medicine at the Royal
Free Campus is now in progress involving the relocation of 100 staff, and the renovation, refurbishment and reorganisation of 2,500 m2 of laboratory, office and clinical space on the second, lower third and upper third floors of the Medical School
Building. The project will bring the
Division’s Research Centres together on adjacent floors to optimise facilities for efficient working and synergistic interactions. The total cost of the project will be £6.485 million of which £5.35 million is currently in hand; The Wolfson Foundation has generously awarded £2 million towards the project; £1.35 million is to be derived from discretionary funds, £500,000 from UCL central funds; £500,000 from The Royal
Free Charitable Trustees; £500,000 from The Royal Free NHS Trust and
£500,000 from The Moorhead Trust for Renal Research at the Royal
Free. In January, work will start to allow the unification of the whole
National Amyloidosis Centre facility, including clinical research space, on the lower third floor and also work will commence on the construction of a dedicated mass spectrometry facility for the Royal Free Centre for
Biomedical Science on the upper third floor. During 2009, construction will start on new laboratories, offices and shared facilities on the second floor for the Centres for Nephrology,
Rheumatology, Neuroendocrinology, the Transgenic Unit of the Royal Free
Centre for Biomedical Science, and a new laboratory for Microbiology. It is anticipated that the project will be fully complete by the middle of 2010.
ISSUE 1 NOVEMBER 2008

The School of Life and Medical
Sciences launched a new website at the beginning of October. The website indexes the biographies and publications of over 1000 members of staff who lead on research and education activities.
The website provides a complete list of our programmes at undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral levels, includes details of public lectures and seminars, and a rolling news service.
The Deanery will add regular, informal editorials to the website.
For more information, please log on to www.ucl.ac.uk/slms/
On 25-26 October, Medsin UCL hosted the Medsin National Conference 2008 on the theme of ‘Power and Politics in Global Health’, supported by the
UCL Institute for Global Health and
UCL Grand Challenges. Medsin is a national network of students concerned with issues in global health, and its annual conference is one of the largest student-led conferences in the UK.
Building work is about to commence in the Darwin Building to create core space for the new Institute of
Healthy Ageing. The key purpose of the IHA is to combine work on the new biology of ageing with the study of diseases of ageing and to discover new means to enhance healthy ageing and lifelong well being. The IHA initiative recently gained momentum with the award of £5.1 million from the Wellcome
Trust for work on biology of ageing, and provision of £1.2 million by the Provost for creation of the new space, which is within the Research
Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, and which should be ready for use in early Summer
2009. Meanwhile, several new staff have been recruited to the
IHA: Dr Lazaros Foukas, Lecturer phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase signalling and ageing currently at
QMW and Dr Eugene Schuster,
MRC Senior Research Fellow, functional genomic analysis of ageing, currently at the European
Bioinformatics Institute, Hinxton. Ms
Julie Black also began work as IHA
Administrator.
Further information is available on the Institute website: www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucbtdag/iha/
As part of its future strategy and vision, the School of Life and Medical Sciences wishes to investigate the opportunity for developing and expanding its delivery of continuing education (CPD). If you can spare 5 minutes - please complete the questionnaire about CPD devised as part of a scoping project to further this aim.
UCL Council approved a proposal to change the name of the Medical
School from the ‘Royal Free and
University College Medical School’ to
‘UCL Medical School’; the new name came into force on 1st October 2008. http://tinyurl.com/UCLCPDSurvey
The Joint UCLH/UCL Biomedical
Research Unit’s new website was launched in September. The website includes information on the Unit’s research management and governance activities including research approvals processes, research governance, clinical trials management, biostatistics and education and training. The site also includes dedicated pages for patients, as well as information on the
Joint Unit’s research collaborations and own programmes of research. Topical news items of relevance to clinical and translational investigators working at
UCLH/UCL are also available on the site.
For further information, please log on to www.ucl.ac.uk/joint-rd-unit
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UCL SCHOOL OF LIFE AND MEDICAL SCIENCES ISSUE 1 NOVEMBER 2008

UCL Library Services is displaying an exhibition of items from its Special Collections in honour of Charles Darwin.
The materials selected for this exhibition illustrate Darwin’s life, work and the influence of his ideas about inheritance and evolution on his contemporaries and successors, including eminent UCL people. The exhibition will be on display in the Main Library from 27 October until
31 January 2009. It’s free to enter.
Have you ever looked in EntrezGene, UniProtKB or Ensembl and examined the annotation of your favourite gene and been disappointed by the annotations available? Then consider spending 10 minutes improving the situation and at the same time potentially raising the profile of your own paper (and
UCL) within these biological databases.
The Cardiovascular Gene Ontology Annotation Initiative
(CV GOA Initiative), which was launched last year within the Cente for Cardiovascular Genetics, UCL, funded by the
BHF, aims to annotate genes involved in cardiovascular processes (www.cardiovasculargeneontology.com). We have a target list of over 4000 genes (around 1/6th of the genome) and would welcome suggestions to improve the annotation of these genes. Don’t be put off by the fact that these are ‘cardiovascular’ genes, because the overlap with inflammation, hypoxia etc means that the genes are not only limited to cardiovascular processes.
Nominations are now being accepted for
The 2009 Dr Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical
Research, which recognises scientists in basic or clinical research who have made significant transformational contributions toward the improvement of human health. Instituted in 2004, the Award includes a $100,000 cash prize to the recipient(s).
Nominations will be accepted online at www.pauljanssenaward.com until December 15,
2008 for evaluation by an independent Selection
Committee. The winner(s) will be announced in May 2009.
In 10 minutes you could send (GOannotation@ucl.ac.uk) the PMID or Reference details for a paper (or a couple of papers) which you feel provides good experimental evidence for the function of a gene, the processes it is involved in or the location of the gene within a cellular environment (eg nuclear or extracellular). The CV GOA Initiative annotators, Ruth Lovering and Varsha Khodiyar (Ext 40930) will then read the paper and extract as much information as they can, by associating experimentally supported Gene Ontology (GO) terms with the appropriate genes.
All of these annotations will be available in all the major biological databases (EntrezGene, UniProtKB, GeneCards,
Ensembl), and will acknowledge both UCL and the BHF.
Many scientists will turn to GO publications referenced within annotations as their first source of information about a gene.
Consequently we are providing a unique opportunity to raise the profile of UCL by increasing the number of UCL-associated papers included in the GO annotation data for each gene, as well as improving the content of the GO dataset and improving the resources available for the analysis of high-throughput data.
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At the recent British Orthodontic Conference Emma
Laing, Orla Jackson and Fiona Ryan were selected from a highly competitive field of UK Orthodontic trainees to speak at the University Teachers Group
Prize Presentations. Fiona Ryan won first prize and gave her presentation on “Orthognathic Patients’ perceptions of referral to a mental health professional” to the whole congress.
Vijay Chudasama was named Best Chemistry Student for his research project, Novel Modular Approach to the Synthesis of Functionalised Oxazoles, Imidazoles and Thiazoles, supported by Jon Wilden of the UCL Department of Organic
Chemistry and Chemical Biology. The prize was awarded by the Royal Society of Chemistry. Chudasama is now undertaking a PhD on the C-H Activation of Aldehydes.
UCL SCHOOL OF LIFE AND MEDICAL SCIENCES ISSUE 1 NOVEMBER 2008

FROM
The Institute of Ophthalmology will launch a new Masters programme in the Biology of Vision. The programme will be suitable for students with either a science or medical degree who wish to enhance their knowledge and expertise in basic cell biology, genetics and neuroscience and to specialise in the eye as an integrated biological system. The programme will draw upon the extensive basic and clinical research experience that is available at the Institute and at Moorfield’s Eye
Hospital. Registration will open in
January 2009.
Further information:
UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, www.ucl.ac.uk/ioo/Education.php
This programme offers a foundation in understanding cancer as a disease process and its associated therapies.
The MSc programme is divided into three parts – compulsory core modules, optional modules and a dissertation. Topics covered will include: basic biology and genetics of cancer; mechanisms of tumour progression & metastases; host-cancer cell immune editing; molecular diagnostics; genomics & informatics; principles of radiotherapy
& cytotoxic therapies; targeted therapies; biotechnology; design, conduct and analysis of phase I,
II and III cancer clinical trials and epidemiological studies.
Further information:
UCL Cancer Institute, www.ucl.ac.uk/cancer/
In October 2008 UCL was ranked 7th in the times Higher - QS world University Rankings. the ranking is a composite indicator that integrates peer review and opinion with quantitative data.the criteria used includes recruitment of international faculty; enrolment of international students; staff: student ratios and citations, as well as an expert opinion survey.
UCL SCHOOL OF LIFE AND MEDICAL SCIENCES
Building on the current portfolio of advanced, undergraduate courses in genetics, UCL Genetics Institute, is developing an MSc in Human Genetics to provide scientists and clinicians with an in-depth knowledge of the genetics of human disease and how this can be applied to alleviate human disease through the development and application of diagnostic tests or therapeutic agents. The programme will cover single gene disorders as well as multifactorial diseases, and a major component will be ensuring that students are skilled in the techniques required to apply their knowledge in a research environment (commercial or academic). The core modules provide a broad coverage of the genetics of disease, research skills and social aspects, whilst specialised modules allow a more in depth analysis of two subject areas and will be supplemented with talks in the Henry Stewart Talks collection. The two research projects, one library based and the other generating new data, will provide research experience in two areas of genetics.
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Further information:
UCL Genetics Institute, http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ugi/
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In 1995 the ‘Leonard Cheshire Centre of Conflict Recovery’ was established by the well-known international charity Leonard Cheshire Disability in partnership with UCL under the
Directorship of Dr James Ryan in the
Department of Surgery. This Centre focused on complex global health issues as they relate to people with disability, primarily on humanitarian disasters.
The Centre concentrated on both what happens to people with disabilities in times of an earthquake, civil war or other disaster and also on how to improve the health and well-being of those disabled in some way as a consequence of these traumatic events.
The Centre attracted a great deal of international attention under Dr Ryan’s watch, and when he made the decision to retire, thought was given to the future direction of the programme.
As a result of this growing attention to disability in global health and development circles, Leonard Cheshire
Disability, in conjunction with UCL, decided to reframe the centre, and move it in to Epidemiology and Public
Health. In October 2007 the Centre was renamed ‘the Leonard Cheshire
Disability and Inclusive Development
Centre’ and as part of this reframing and expansion, Leonard Cheshire
Disability decided to fund a Chair in
Global Disability. I hold the Chair and am
Director of the Centre.
To the best of my knowledge, the Centre is truly unique. It is the first centre based at a major university that is specifically focused on people with disabilities within the larger framework of global health and international development. This is important because while people with disabilities make up 10 percent of the world’s population, 650 million people, they make up 20 percent of the world’s poor. And they are on almost no one’s radar screen.
In recent years disability issues have been given an increasingly larger frame as reflected in the United Nations’ (UN) recently ratified ‘Convention on the
Rights of Persons with Disabilities’.
There is also a growing awareness that major health and development initiatives, such as the Millennium Development
Goals (MDG), must - but do not always - include people with disabilities.
The World Bank has come out and said that we can not reach any of the MDGs unless we include people with disabilities and not just through specialised programmes but general inclusion. We can not solve global poverty until people with disabilities are included in the larger global health and development mix.
ISSUE 1 NOVEMBER 2008

I really want the research done within this Centre to make a difference in the real world. I want to raise awareness of disability issues. I’d like the Centre to be a crossroads of global research and advocacy around disability issues.
We are dealing with the poorest and most marginalised population on the planet. I want UCL as an academic institution to make a contribution. I’m very anxious that the work we do not only has a good scientific base but also that it will address cutting edge issues and deal with concerns that are of immediate relevance to people with disabilities around the world.
UCL faculty and students who do research that deals with global health or development issues – whether they are in law, medicine, social service, or architecture,
I want them to understand and include disability issues from the outset. I’m keen to collaborate broadly in an interdisciplinary fashion with faculty and students throughout the University.
We will be collaborating with other academic institutions; we are particularly keen to partner with academic institutions in the developing world, to work with them on issues around disability so that we can foster local expertise. In addition I would like to bring more students who have disabilities into academia, to work on these issues.
We work broadly with the UN system
- UNICEF, WHO, the UN Secretariat, and so forth and also partner with
NGOs and a number of Disabled
Peoples’ Organisations (DPO).
DPOs are run by and for people with disabilities, we view DPOs as the legitimate voice of disability issues and concerns, and we are committed to having a very strong relationship with them.
I trained as a medical anthropologist.
I have a doctorate from Brown
University, USA. My doctoral dissertation was what initially got me involved in disability studies. It was on the high rate of heredity deafness in the population of on an island –
Martha’s Vineyard, off the coast of
Massachusetts. For about 300 years the entire hearing population adapted to this disability by becoming bilingual in English and Sign Language; so what to us is a disability to these Islanders was normal variation. From there I completed a post doc on violence against people with disability at the
Harvard Medical School.
For the last 17 years I’ve worked at Yale University where I helped to build a global health programme and have continued to do a lot of research on global disability issues.
Most recently I was the PI of the Yale/
World Bank Global Survey on HIV/
AIDS and Disability. I was also Chair of the Thematic Group on ‘Violence
Against Disabled Children’, for UN
Secretary General’s recent report on
‘Violence Against Children’. Also, I’m just finishing up guidelines for UNFPA, a piece on the sexual and reproductive health of people with disabilities.
I was recently working in Mozambique and went to a very remote rural village, and they were using some of the guidelines that I had written for the World Bank to include people with disabilities in their HIV programmes.
That was my career highlight.
In addition to working on disability I work as an anthropologist in global health for a number of UN agencies and I sit on a number of boards, often for small charities, small NGOs. My main focus is to bridge the world of academia and applied health and development. You can have theoretical constructs or very specific knowledge but if it’s not helping someone at the end of the day, then what good is it? I think that academia has tremendous power and we don’t often use the knowledge we gain enough to really make a difference, especially for the world’s poorest populations. There are two issues: One is the fact that we don’t ask the best questions and the second is that we can be slow at translating what we know into formats that are useable in the real world. Most of the world’s population doesn’t see the inside of a 4th grade classroom let alone get to an intuition like UCL, so I think we have a tremendous obligation to use this knowledge for the good.
In many ways, the lack of disability issues in global health and international development are reminiscent of the development programmes over 20 years ago, which were designed without ever thinking about women.
Back then you could design an entire programme of agriculture in Namibia or fish farming in Latin America or education in Southeast Asia without thinking about how women and girls would be included; women were not on the conceptual map. Now you couldn’t possibly do this. We want to make sure that disability becomes another one of these cross-cutting issues and that in future, you won’t be able to design a programme or set up a policy without making sure that people with disabilities are included.
Further information about the
Leonard Cheshire Disability and Inclusive Development
Centres is available at: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/lc-ccr/.
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ISSUE 1 NOVEMBER 2008

UCL Cancer Institute
Dr Barbara Jennings , Research Fellow
(MRC Career Development Fellow).
UCL Division of Biosciences
Mr Juan Acosta-Martinez ,
Postgraduate Teaching Assistant/
Demonstrator; Miss Rugina Ali ,
Research Assistant; Miss Jasmin
Baboo , Postgraduate Teaching
Assistant/Demonstrator; Mr Daekyeong
Bae , Postgraduate Teaching Assistant/
Demonstrator; Ms Julie Black ; Ms
Jane Dempster , Executive Officer; Ms
Carina Gandhy , Research Technician;
Dr Suzanne Griffiths , Teaching
Fellow; Dr Matthew Gold , Sir Henry
Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellowship; Mr
Razwan Hanif , Postgraduate Teaching
Assistant/Demonstrator; Mr Spyridon
Konstantinidis , Postgraduate Teaching
Assistant/Demonstrator; Dr Giovanni
Lesa ; Dr wojciech Margas , Research
Associate; Dr Mathieu Letellier ; Miss
Helen Matthews , Research Associate;
Miss Begum Mothia , Postgraduate
Teaching Assistant/Demonstrator; Miss
Oluwayemisi Olusanya , Postgraduate
Teaching Assistant/Demonstrator; Mr
Naqash Raja , Postgraduate Teaching
Assistant/Demonstrator; Mrs Andrea
Rayat , Postgraduate Teaching Assistant/
Demonstrator; Dr Christopher Shelley ,
Research Associate; Miss Claire
Stevens , Research Associate; Mr
Jun Zhang , Postgraduate Teaching
Assistant/Demonstrator.
UCL Division of Infection & Immunity
Dr Chrystelle Couedel , Research
Associate.
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UCL Division of Medicine
Mrs Marna De Cruz , Principal Clinical
Physiologist in Echocardiography; Dr
Cara Hendry , Clinical Research
Associate; Dr Mark Montgomery ,
Research Associate ; Dr
Christopher Scotton , Senior
Research Fellow; Miss Melanie
Stables , Research Assistant; Miss
Abigail taylor , Research Assistant.
UCL Division of Population Health
Ms Lucy Chambers , Research
Associate; Ms Jane Derges , Senior
Research Associate; Miss Gabrielle
Harvey , Research Associate; Ms Ona
Mccarthy , Research Associate; Ms
Lydia Poole , Research Assistant;
Dr Nicola Shelton , Senior Lecturer/
Reader; Mr Ryan Li , Research
Assistant.
UCL Division of Psychology
& Language Sciences
Dr Caroline Catmur , Research
Associate; Mr tom Freeman , Research
Assistant; Dr Sam Gilbert , Royal
Society Research Fellow; Dr Nivedita
Mani , Research Fellow; Ms Glenda
Young , Executive Officer.
UCL Division of Surgery
& Interventional Science
Mrs Caroline Moore , Clinical Training
Fellow in Urology; Dr Dimitri Raptis ,
Clinical Research Associate.
UCL Ear Institute
Dr Julia Maier , Research Associate.
UCL Eastman Dental Institute
Miss tendai Mukosera , Research
Dental Nurse.
UCL Institute of Child Health
Dr Elena Almarza , Research Associate;
Dr Say Ayala-Soriano , Clinical
Research Associate; Miss Sarah
Beddow , Research Assistant; Ms
Sveva Bollini , Research Assistant; Mr
Mark Evans , Research Assistant; Dr
Luca Giacomello , Clinical Research
Associate; Ms Jacqueline Jonuschies ,
Research Assistant; Ms Sarah
Mccarthy , Research Assistant; Mr
Joaquim Vieira , Research Assistant Ms
Laila Younes , Research Assistant.
UCL Institute of Neurology
Dr Sven Bestmann , Senior Research
Fellow (BBSRC Fellowship); Mrs Marie
Braisher , Multiple Sclerosis Research
Coordinator; Professor Xavier Golay ,
Chair of Magentic Resonance Physics and Translational Neuroscience; Ms
Eunjeong Lee , Research Associate ;
Ms Joan Liu , Research Associate;
Dr Laura Mantoan , Clinical Research
Associate; Dr Damineh Morsali ,
Research Associate; Dr Sinead
Mullally , Research Associate; Dr Gail
Owen , Principal Research Associate
(Clinical Trial Project Manager); Dr Clare
Press , MRC/ESRC Interdisciplinary
Post-doctoral Fellowship; Dr Dietrich
Schwarzkopf , Research Associate.
UCL Institute of Ophthalmology
Dr Michael Crossland ; Dr Brett
Hosking , Research Associate; Dr
Prateek Buch , Research Associate; Dr
Neel Dhruv , Research Associate; Ms
Hannah Dunbar , Research Associate;
Dr Steffen Katzner , Research
Associate; Miss Amna Shah , Research
Associate; Dr thomas webb , Research
Associate.
wolfson Institute of
Biomedical Research at UCL
Dr Fabienne Alfonsi , Research
Associate; Mr Christoph Schmitt ,
Research Assistant.
Dr Mariana Resnicoff recently joined the UCL Centre for Stem Cells and
Regenerative Medicine as Strategic
Coordinator. The Centre is a new cross-faculty initiative to increase the cohesiveness of research in the areas of stem cell biology, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine (including basic research, applications, clinical translation, legal/ethical implications and more). Mariana completed a PhD in
Buenos Aires on human breast cancer biology, then a Postdoc in several places
(including Institut Cochin in Paris and
Renato Baserga’s lab in Pennsylvania).
She was Assistant Professor at Thomas
Jefferson University in Philadelphia for several years before becoming Founding
Editor of the prestigious Cell Press journal
Cancer Cell. Then she moved back to
France to be Coordinator of a European
Science Foundation programme on Medical Sciences and acted as
Consultant for various pharmaceutical companies before joining the Centre.
ISSUE 1 NOVEMBER 2008

Dr Cecil Helman of the Research
Department of Primary Care and
Population Health will be awarded a silver medal - the ‘George
Abercrombie Award’ - by the Royal
College of Genertal Practitioners, at their AGM in November 2008.
The Award is given for ‘outstanding contributions to the literature of general practice’.
The University of Santiago, Spain, has awarded its first Compostela
Dentistry Award in the category of most distinguished international clinical investigator to Professor
Crispian Scully CBE. Professor Scully attended a ceremony at the University of Santiago on the 26th October
2008 where he was presented with the award by Professor Senén Barro,
Rector of the University of Santiago.
Mervyn Singer, Professor of Intensive
Care Medicine, and Director of the
Bloomsbury Institute of Intensive
Care Medicine, delivered the Opening
Lecture at the recent European
Congress of Intensive Care Medicine attended by over 5000 delegates. This honour was the first bestowed upon a
British intensivist.
On 1st October Professor Stephen
Porter took up the position of
Director of the UCL Eastman Dental
Institute (EDI). Professor Porter has an outstanding track record as an eminent researcher, clinician and educator in the oral healthcare sciences. His research centres upon the oral aspects of viral infection and the aetiology of potentially malignant oral disease. His clinical interests are the management of complex immunologically mediated and potentially malignant disease of the mouth and salivary glands.
Professor Geraint Rees was recently awarded the 2009 Goulstonian
Lecture, which he will deliver at the
Royal College of Physicians on 26th
February 2009. He will discuss recent advances in brain imaging technology that show it is possible to accurately decode changes in an individual’s conscious awareness based only on non-invasive measurements of their brain activity. These ‘brain reading’ abilities may transform our understanding of the brain, and provide important new medical insights; but they also raise important ethical issues concerning the privacy of personal thought. Professor Rees will describe recent work in this area, while setting it in the broader context of medical diagnosis and treatment.
Professor Stuart Rosen was elected Fellow of the Acoustical
Society of America.
Professor Susan Michie was elected Fellow of the European
Health Psychology Society.
Professor Jon Driver was elected
Fellow of the British Academy
Professor Michael Duchen was elected to the Academia
Europaea.
Professor Steve Jones has been elected to the Board of the British
Council.
Dr Gregor Campbell received the
Provost’s Teaching Award.
Professor Robert Brown (IOMS) has been appointed President of the Tissue Engineering Society.
Professor Gordon Blunn (IOMS) was awarded by UCLB the
Business Entrepreneur Award.
Professor Allen Goodship (IOMS) is President elect of the
Orthopaedic Research Society.
we regret to announce the following death.
Dr Joseph Bearn (died 31
October 2008) MBBS (1947),
Junior Lecturer (1949),
Lecturer (1951), Senior
Lecturer (1959), Department of Anatomy, Middlesex Hospital
Medical School.
ISSUE 1 NOVEMBER 2008
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Below, you can find details of a small selection of SLMS events. As these events are subject to change, it is always advisable to confirm details in advance with the named contact. A full listing of SLMS events is available on the website: www.ucl.ac.uk/slms/seminars-events
UCL Chemistry
Lunch Hour Lecture:
‘The Secret of Man’s Red Fire’
Dr Daren Caruana time/Location: 13.15pm,
Darwin Lecture Theatre
Free admittance, with no need to pre-book. Lecture will be online for seven days afterwards.
Further information: www.ucl.ac.uk/lhl/
Lancet Lecture 2008
‘Disease Targeted Programs and
Health Systems Strengthening: the Virtuous Circle’
Professor Michel Kazatchkine
UCL Infection & Immunity
Lunch Hour Lecture:
‘From ‘Grey Goo’ to Nanomedicine’
Professor Thomas Rademacher time/Location: 17.30-19.30 followed by drinks, Kennedy Lecture Theatre.
UCL Institute of Child Health
Places are limited and advance booking is necessary
Contact: Dan Martin,
Dan.Martin@ucl.ac.uk
time/Location: 13.15pm, Darwin
Lecture Theatre Free admittance, with no need to pre-book. Lecture will be online for seven days afterwards.
Further information: www.ucl.ac.uk/lhl/
UCL Institute of Ophthalmology
Lunch Hour Lecture:
‘Stemming Vision Loss with Stem Cells - Seeing is Believing’
Professor Pete Coffey UCL Institute for Global Health
Symposium: ‘A New Global Public
Health Movement?
Managing the Health Effects of
Climate Change’
13.15pm, Darwin Lecture Theatre
Free admittance, with no need to pre-book. Lecture will be online for seven days afterwards.
Further information: www.ucl.ac.uk/lhl/ time/Location: 14.00-17.15,
Kennedy Lecture Theatre
Contact: Sarah Ball,
Email: s.ball@ucl.ac.uk
Further information: www.ucl.ac.uk/global-health/
UCL Institute for Global Health
Symposium: Human Rights and Disability:
The Missing 10% of the World’s Population
Nora Groce (Leonard Cheshire Disability/
UCL Epidemiology & Public Health), Colm
O’Cinneide (UCL Laws) and Raymond Lang
(Leonard Cheshire Disability) time/Location: 16.30-18.00. Drinks will follow. JZ Young Lecture Theatre
Contact: Sarah Ball,
Email: s.ball@ucl.ac.uk
Further information: www.ucl.ac.uk/global-health/
Alumni from the Faculty of
Biomedical Sciences and the
Faculty of Life Sciences who graduated in 1959, 1964, 1969,
1974, 1979, 1984, 1989, 1994,
1999, 2004.
The UCL alumni community embodies all graduates of the
Middlesex Hospital and Royal Free
Hospital.
To express an interest in attending this reunion please contact James
Davis, Head of Alumni Relations,
Email: james.davis@ucl.ac.uk
Editor:
Fleur Adolphe
Design:
UCL Medical Illustration,
ICH/GOSH
Articles for the
SLMS Newsletter:
Please forward copy to the editor: f.adolphe@ucl.ac.uk
Deadline for Submission:
15 December 2008