Anti-Waffle Podcast

In this episode we chat with Professor Bryony Dean Franklin, who is carrying out research on medication safety @School_Pharmacy.  We talk about what might go wrong and why and how it can be prevented from happening. Is barcoding the future of patient safety? @UCL #podcast #research

We spoke to Dr Lena Ciric and Dr Tse-Hui Teh about their research and the vacuum toilet!  Using waste as compost, how it works and where the toilet is now @UCL

Professor Catherine Tuleu, from UCL School of Pharmacy talks about devising medicine delivery for children.  The difficulties of the balance of making medicine easy to take for children, but not too attractive. How much work goes into the process, the tools they use and making the experience a positive one for the patient. First point of contact in treatment is so important. 

We chatted to Rebecca Powell from UCL School of Pharmacy about artificial nerve regeneration, and how they hope to do it!

Dr Ruth Brauer, is a lecturer in Pharmacoepidemiology, at UCL.  Her main research focus is assessing the risks and benefits of drug use in vulnerable patient populations. On this podcast we discussed the importance of collecting data on a wide scale and where data is collected from.  We also chatted about the importance of collaboration and who is using this data to inform their research.

Dr Tim Beasley-Murray is a researcher at UCL. We talked about his research and the book he is currently writing.  We discussed playing the game of Academia and what do those rules look like?  Rules we have to follow, and how do they influence us in different situations.  Reality vs Games. Playful vs the serious.

Andrew Cartmel is a playwright and author of the Vinyl Detective novels.  We spoke about how he tackles research for his books and plays.  We discussed the balance between too much/too little research, getting facts right,  different types of research and using real life experience.   The new Vinyl Detective book and his new play ‘Glacier Lake’ is coming out in May. 

Dr Sara Garfield talks to us about her research into patient engagement and factors influencing patients' decisions about treatment and shared decision making 

Professor Sam Rayner talks to us about her research into Publishing, book shops and book selling.  What makes us read the books we do? We also mention Una Dillon the Bookseller and Georgette Heyer!  

Dr Matt Winning @UCL chats to us about his new book, Hot Mess: What on earth can we do about climate change?  The book is out now

Dr Emma Norris @EJ_Norris at Brunel University discusses her research on making sense of behaviour change interventions using Artificial Intelligence. She is a Researcher @UCL on the Human Behaviour-Change Project https://www.humanbehaviourchange.org/

Dr Victoria Garfield is a genetic epidemiologist working at University College London (UCL), she talks to us about her research and how she uses large scale genomic and population health data to investigate complex disease relationships

PhD student Hannah Taylor gives us some insight into her research at UCL focused on the hearts of young people and how they develop into adulthood.

Geriatrician Dr Sam Searle explains his current research about patients with multiple conditions who end up in hospital and how this should affect their treatment.

Dr Chloe Park is a physiologist carrying out research on the mechanisms of the cardiovascular system with an additional study on the ethnic differences in heart disease.

Nathan Woodling tells us about his work on understanding Alzheimers and the discoveries around glial cells (the non-neuronal cells of the nervous system) rather than neuron cells that change the most as we age.  His team are going through a list of hundreds of genes aiming to pinpoint the exact genes that change and cause Alzheimers.

Dr Andrew Morley shares with Em and Pixie his research into a critical history of anaesthesia, where he’s looking at previous and current incidents, how they were dealt with and what was learnt or changed.  Andy’s primary source of research is an incident book discovered at Guys Hospital and he has been interviewing the staff involved with the events recorded in there between 1955 and 1974.

Prof Chloe Marshall, Prof of Psychology, Language and Education at UCL talks about her research into how children learn language and how to read and write.  Her work is around those who are learning in challenging circumstances.

Chloe has a BSc (Hons) in Biology from the University of East Anglia, and a MA in Linguistics and PhD in Human Communication Science from University College London. Her first career was as a Montessori nursery teacher and teacher-trainer, where she became fascinated by young children's language and early literacy development, and by how language and literacy set the foundation for academic learning.

John Ward, Professor of Synthetic Biology for Bioprocessing at UCL speaks to Pixie and Em about his work using and experimenting with enzymes to make very specific changes in small molecules, doing with biology what organic chemists do with chemistry, but making much less waste and shortening the number of steps for each change process. 

Professor Ward explains how he and others at UCL will be applying their expertise to experiment with enzymes that may mitigate the problems of plastic and plastic waste. They hope to find bacteria and enzymes that can start to degrade and chop up, very specifically, certain kinds of plastics.

The research also includes a citizen science project looking at composting to see how ‘biodegradeable’ and compostable plastics break down in different environments. 6 months after binning a plastic knife in there, is it recognisable?

Professor Alan Penn of UCL takes us through a brief history of his research in Architecture and Urban Computing, from looking at the pitfalls of post war social housing, and its effect on social breakdown in London, to new research questions about the effects of digital space on real world spaces and communities. We also hear about his new role as Chief Scientific Advisor at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the first appointment for this role for 7-8 years and one of vital importance in the wake of Grenfell; a tragic wake-up call to government, proving the need to marshall evidence for better regulation and guidance on the way we construct our buildings to create healthy and safe spaces that are also productive and sustainable.

Dr Matthew Winning Research Associate UCL Energy Institute, UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources. Dr Winning is an environmental economist and his research is looking at how you can apply economics to make the planet better! Listen to Dr Winning discuss his research. What impact changes will have on the planet and people. He is also a stand up comedian and he has an upcoming tour starting in London, 21-23 Feb 2020.

Matthew's main research focus is on the macroeconomic impacts of environmental policies. His research interests include climate change policy, circular economy, green growth, low carbon transitions, and macroeconomic modelling. He has published on the economics of the Paris Agreement, improved global economic modelling of the role of scrap steel in the circular economy, the role of negative emissions technologies in achieving deep decarbonisation towards 1.5oC, and the links between energy system and macroeconomic models.

Sudax Murdan Associate Professor of Pharmacy, carries out innovative research into how we can better and more conveniently administer vaccines and medicines. In this episode she discusses her ideas for vaccine designs that would protect new babies from the common Strep-B infection as they are born, specifically relevant in remote regions where the normal westernised medical procedure of giving antibiotics to the mother during birth, cannot happen, usually because no medical professional is present. Instead she hopes to design an effective oral vaccine that can be taken by the mother alone. We also hear about the apparently neglected field of research in fungal nail infections. Dr Murdan has laid the ground in her research to develop new methods for medicines to be administered to treat fungal nail infections, for example, through commonly used products like nail varnish, lacquers and UV gels. 

In this episode we hear about research, past and present, of Professor Andrew Hayward and Dr Al Story,  who've spent much of their careers looking into the pathways of a disease, often perceived to be a one of migration and, at least in the UK, a disease of the past. In fact, London is leading in Europe with a disease that is really one of poverty and exclusion, and much of it is home grown. Here they discuss some of their findings; the link of TB prevalence to crack cocaine use, to poverty, access and availability of services - the social determinants of TB. And they talk about the development and purpose of their Collaborative Centre for Inclusion Health; a research centre based on a long history, initially focusing on infectious diseases and how we control them in socially excluded groups, then looking into the broader health needs of these excluded groups with complex needs and circumstances. Listen to hear how the evidence they're generating is allowing for NHS 'Find and Treat' services to go into hostels, day treatment centres and prisons, taking diagnostics, to where the cases are and finding treatment plans that work for the individual.

The hidden 1 billion. Despite being 15% of the world’s population; where one in every four households in the world has a person with a significant enough disability for it to make a difference to their everyday life, people with disabilities often remain marginalised, invisible, and the last in line when it comes to international development or global health or human rights efforts. But things are changing - with some help from Professor Nora Groce and colleagues at the Disability Research Centre at UCL. In this episode we hear about efforts to include disability in the Sustainable Development Goals, and about Nora’s part in the development of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The question is; ‘what is the everyday experience for people living with a disability in their local environment? And what could be achieved if instead of expecting people with a disability to adapt to the world as it is, we considered how we can adapt the things we do, to be inclusive for people with disabilities?’

In this concise and intriguing podcast, we’re introduced to emerging technologies in biomedical research that offer alternative methods, and which promote the 3Rs of animal testing: Replace, Reduce, Refine. Recent Post Grad Dr Chris Smith talks about his experiments in 3D Organotypic Modelling (manufacturing human tissue) – of both skin and gum tissue, testing their differences in wound healing. We learn about what his findings could mean for improving surgery and other wound recovery times, and hear about other technological developments, such as the Organ-on-a-chip that ‘looks like the future’ of biomedical experimentation.

What do you see when you think of a Pharmacist? A high street dispensary, perhaps? In this episode Dr Yogini Jani, Health Foundation Improvement Science Fellow and consultant Pharmacist at University College Hospitals London, shows us another side to Pharmacy and discusses her research that explores complex factors that influence behaviours and decisions around dispensing our precious, essential and life saving medicines; penicillin antibiotics.

NHS services are not just about treating sickness, they’re about preventing and mitigating ill health too. In this episode Dr Darren Sharpe tells us about the pilot interventions he and his team are evaluating in London. The interventions aim to reduce strain on GP practice services and better support patients, particularly those with multiple medical or non-medical needs and problems which may impact on each other, aka ‘complex needs’. Listen in to learn more about the pilot’s integration of ‘Social Prescribing’, and to hear of administrative innovations, such as the ‘digital front doors’, being put in place to save time and money for the NHS, whilst also keeping patient needs at the forefront of service.

If you’re thinking about applying to medical school in the UK, but don’t know where to start looking, then this could be the podcast for you. In it Dr Kath Woolf tell us about her ongoing research, looking at who in society becomes a Doctor and who doesn’t - and why. She investigates how different medical schools prepare trainees for work in the NHS, and how that affects the type of Doctor they later become. She finds that people from underrepresented backgrounds, for example, those without family backgrounds in medicine, or with no family history in higher education at all, will receive less good information about the right choices to make when applying. Good information is crucial to maximise the opportunity of getting a place at a school that works best for their career aspirations.

At a time when medical schools have a remit and a responsibility to broaden out interest to less represented groups, and to increase diversity and representation, this is important stuff.

How can individual efforts in our everyday lives mitigate disaster risk for the collective? And what major structural barriers obstruct the facilitation of disaster prevention at a grander scale?

In this episode Dr Ilan Kelman talks through some examples and introduces us to his unique research; where diplomacy bridges disaster-risk reduction, global health and climate change.  We learn, amongst other things, why llan and colleagues believe the phrase ‘natural disaster’ should be phased out and replaced with ‘human disaster’. And we get to understand the roots - or ‘baselines’ of disaster and health; vulnerability, human values, societal structures - which may force individuals into constrained options. We also hear of unintended success stories in disaster prevention, where First Aid training for teenagers led not only to lives saved in the streets, but also to increased litter picking and overall safer, cleaner streets – mitigating the increased risk of major flooding as a consequence of changing climate.