Blog over and out for 2015-16

Hi Everyone!

I hope you are all good and your exams went as well as you’d hoped, if not better!

This is me signing off the Manchester Life Sciences blog for the academic year 2015-16! Today is my last day as an Intern for the Faculty of Life Sciences, and I can’t quite believe how fast this year has flown by! I’ve really enjoyed reading the blogs from our very talented student writers.  I can only hope that you’ve enjoyed it too!

Big thanks to our student bloggers for letting us follow your stories. Their enthusiasm for the university and the city of Manchester has really shown through their writing, making me all the more miss university life and wish I was a student here again!

In fact, I think my favourite job as part of my internship this year has been running the student blog. I love hearing about the different experiences each student gains from university life here. It’s also interesting to compare the bloggers experiences to my own time as an undergraduate life sciences student at The University of Manchester! It really shows the variety of opportunities there are available to get involved with here, academically and socially, within the university and/or the city in general.

Here’s a little photo recap of the year from each of our bloggers:

And not forgetting the placement students!

Miss Mycology 2015/16

You can read back over their blogs from the year using the menu above.

The aim of the Manchester Life Scientists blogs is to give all life sciences applicants a taste of what it’s like to be a student here at The University of Manchester. After all, this could be you in a few months/years time! I hope that we have achieved this, and you can see how fun and rewarding it is to study here!

And to those graduating – congratulations and good luck with whatever the future may hold for you. Remember, if you’re not quite ready to leave The University of Manchester but want some professional experience in a field relevant to your desired career path, you can always, like me, apply to an MGP! There are lots of positions available for a variety of sectors. And trust me, you’ll get so much out of it!

Me after my first week with my new staff card!

Good luck with your applications!

Alina

Digital Media (Recruitment) Intern

 

 

 

Hope’s Placement Year Blog

Hi Life Sciences Student Blog Readers!

I’m Hope, a Biochemistry with Italian undergraduate. Everyone always asks the same question when I tell them what I study – Why would anyone ever mix science and languages?! Aren’t you just making life 10 times harder for yourself? I never quite knew how to answer (apart from that I kind of liked biology, chemistry and Italian at school so mixed them together and came out with Biochemistry with Italian!) and I’m not going to lie, I was sceptical myself. Now, after two years of juggling the two, I have finally been able to put them together during my placement year, and I have realised exactly why I chose to study a life science with a modern language, and why it was one of the best choices I ever made.

My lab pass (makes me feel super important)

I’m currently on placement in Florence, Italy and have spent the past 7 months working in a cancer research lab in the Department of Clinical and Experimental Biomedical Sciences at the University of Florence.

At the beginning, probably like many of you, I wasn’t sure how a modern language placement would differ from a normal industrial placement. However, apart from being able to do your placement, and therefore live, in an exotic country for a year, the placement aspect is pretty similar. I’m working as part of a small and diverse research group carrying out a project on oestrogen receptor positive breast cancer cells and their resistance to aromatase inhibitors (a type of endocrine therapy). The most exciting part of my work here is to be carrying out research that has never been done before, and therefore no one knows exactly what the outcome will be! I was even lucky enough to get acknowledgements in 2 published papers for my contribution within my first 6 months in the lab. This was super rewarding and, believe me, it makes university work way more exciting when you see your own name when reading an article on PubMed!

Day to day work in the lab is pretty laid back. Generally, I can come and go as I please, so long as I get all my work done and make good progress with my placement, which often means getting in super early in the morning because I’ve had nightmares about my cells dying – they really have become like my pets! But it also means taking coffee breaks every 30 minutes and being told to ‘leave early and enjoy the sun’ on a Friday lunch time – so I can’t really complain!

Enjoying my afternoons like a true Italian – gelato, pizza and coffee!

 

Queen of the cells 2016

However, it’s not all about eating pizza in the sunshine, of course there is a lot of hard work involved too! I spend about half my time in the lab taking care of my cells, treating them with various drugs, and carrying out hundreds of experiments on them. Although it didn’t seem like it at first, after a few months of working in the lab, the experiments really do become like second nature. The other half of the time is spent, ultimately, scratching our heads. Researching, reading, discussing, researching some more. But this is the most exciting part, no one has done this research before, no one can say for sure what will happen or why. And that’s the reason I have come out of this year fuelled with a passion for research, motivated to work towards a career in cancer research.

 

 

 

Without a doubt my main worry was how in the world I would manage to work in a research lab IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE. Especially as in second year I struggled to understand labs in my own language. But, believe me, I was pleasantly surprised. Although I’m the only English person in the lab, I’m actually in some senses at an advantage to everyone else, as English is the language of science. I therefore find myself spending a lot of my free time, whilst waiting for a gel to run or for a centrifugation to finish, translating words, explaining grammar rules, correcting papers ready for submission, or most often, explaining just why we drink so much tea in England. This is something I really enjoy, and not only has it given me the great experience in scientific writing, it also gives me the opportunity to ask a million questions on Italian words, phrases, grammar, etc. And, here we are, 7 months later, and I find myself thinking and even sometimes dreaming in Italian. To say a placement abroad is the best thing you could possibly do for both your lab/scientific and language skills is definitely an understatement.

But amazing language skills and lab experience are not the only benefits of studying a ‘with a Modern Language’ degree. On top of all that you get the absolute pleasure of living in an amazing, beautiful city like Florence for a year. Excuse the over-enthusiasm, but I’m well and truly in love with the place. Of course I’m biased, everyone says that about their placement location, but seriously, look how beautiful it is!

Just a few snaps of my favourite city in the world!

Not only do you get the experience of living in a different country, speaking a different language, and embracing the daily life of a completely new culture, you get the opportunity to meet awesome people not only native of your host country but from all over the world. In the space of the past 7 months I have eaten the best paella I have ever tasted (made by my Spanish roommate), learnt a bunch of super important German words (hay bale = Heuballen, kitchen roll = Küchenrolle…) on a roadtrip across Italy with 3 Germans, watched (and triumphed in) England vs. Italy at the amazing Stadio Olimpico in Rome, and cooked a proper British Sunday Roast for 40 foreigners, to name but a few! Not to mention the amazing trips I’ve had the opportunity to go on. My favourite one was for sure spending an exam/deadline free Easter visiting friends in the amazing city of Munich, most of all for the delicious German beer and sausages.

The famous haybale on our roadtrip to Naples

What are weekends for if not sipping coffees on the balcony overlooking beautiful Rome?

My first time in Germany with friends from all over the world

So, overall, it’s been a pretty amazing year. I’ve become fluent in Italian to the point where I dream in it, become skilful enough in the lab to the point that I think of my cells as pets, made friends for life from all over the world who I have already planned visits to see when I return to Manchester, spent every weekend discovering places everyone dreams of travelling to, as well as ones I never knew existed, and above all developed both academically and personally, developing skills and qualities that will help me for the rest of my life. I can’t believe that in a few months’ time it’ll all be over and I’ll be back looking longingly out of a university library window longing for the land of pizza, pasta and red wine…

So if you are considering doing a modern language placement, I have two words for you: do it! (Oh, and you now know the (very long winded) answer to everyone’s ‘why do a science and a language’ question).

Thanks for reading!  And good luck with your university or placement applications, or whatever else it might be.

Hope

FLS research 2016

The academic year 2015-16 is drawing closer to an end, and it’s been another great year for the Faculty. We thought it would be nice to have a reminder of some of the research that has come out of the Faculty this year so far. After all, what better year is there to do it than 2016? – When Manchester is named European City of Science. From all the positive research outcomes of the Faculty this year, it’s certain that this has helped Manchester live up to this name!

2016 started off with a paper published by FLS scientists which showed that there are genetic variants in offspring that can affect the quality of maternal behaviour. The trials for this study consisted of mice families with genetically variable mothers and genetically uniform offspring, and vice versa.

Dr Reinmar Hager, the senior author on the paper, told us how this research is unique:

“The aim was to identify genes that are expressed in offspring but influence the way mothers behave. Normally you try to identify genes that influence how you, and not others, behave. These genes act as indirect genetic effects. Previous research has shown that offspring can manipulate their parents’ behaviour, however, here we identify for the first particular genes with such effects.”

 

Photo: Locke et al (2015). ‘Genetic studies of body mass index yield new insights for obesity biology’. Nature, 518 (7538), 197-206.

It was found that variation in offspring genotype on chromosome 7 and chromosome 5 affects maternal behaviour, which in turn influences offspring development and fitness. It was also observed that offspring growth during the second week is affected by a locus on maternal chromosome, where the B6 allele increases the trait value – so individuals with the maternal phenotype B6 are genetically predisposed to give better quality care. Conversely however, genetic variation among mothers was found to influence offspring development independent of offspring genotype.

David Ashbrook from FLS was also involved in the research. He commented on the significance of these findings and their implications for the future:

“We identified genes which can now be studied in more detail, and shown that specific genotypes may be co-adapted to benefit both parties, e.g. genotypes which predispose to mothers who provide more care also predispose to offspring who beg less. We also demonstrate a method to investigate the genetic effects of social environment, which can now be used to examine adult phenotypes and associated reproductive success.”

Research of this kind is always interesting and useful to us as it can be applied to all social species, including humans. Identifying parent-offspring interactions is the first step in being able to understand the pathways involved with these, and how they are modified by our environment (social and physical).

Leading on from the idea of how the environment can influence our lives, a study involving FLS Professor Andrew Loudon was published later on in the month, showing the importance of having a circadian body clock that matches the rotational speed of the Earth. Scientists within our faculty are well recognised and respected as valuable experts in their research areas. For example, it is clear that the research conducted by Professor Andrew Loundon during his time in the Faculty of Life Sciences at The University of Manchester, has meant that he has become a reputable source to comment on other research in the same field. This is seen in a recent BBC article about making flu vaccinations more effective by administering them in the morning. Here, researchers from The University of Manchester, Prof Loudon one of them, were asked to comment on the idea of using the body clock to make healthcare procedures more successful due to it being done at a most appropriate time for the body’s natural rhythm. So not only do we do great research in the Faculty of Life Sciences, but we are an authority on what makes other research great too!

Similarly, this was also seen in in the discussion of CRISPR, a new gene editing technology that can explore organisms at an unprecedented scale of precision. CRISPR has taken the world of biological sciences by storm, and has enormous application in holding the capability to modify the human germline. Although this discovery was not directly from the Faculty, Matthew Cobb, Professor of Zoology at the University of Manchester, was asked by the BBC to host a show on radio 4 to educate the public about the technology, and the implications and ethical issues it raises for the future. Again, examples like this just demonstrate how other well respected and popular sources value and trust the expertise of scientists in our Faculty!

Other great research from the faculty in January includes:

• Heart is fishy defence against ocean’s dead zones

From early this year, the ZIKA outbreak spread through the Americas and the Pacific – and with it brought the panic associated with the virus and a need for prevention. Scientists at The University of Manchester responded to this by stating that a vaccine is to be developed here. So not only has this year been a great year in terms of research outcomes, but also research prospects! This is just one example of how scientists in the Faculty of Life Sciences are committed to helping people. This dedication to science is something that we as a faculty are very proud of at the University of Manchester, as it can have a hugely positive impact on people’s lives.

Another topic in science that has an impact on the way we live is climate change. A major challenge currently facing the world is how to mitigate this. Scientists have suggested many ways of dealing with climate change, but one that has been widely discussed is increasing the amount of carbon sequestered, or stored, in soil. The reasoning behind this is that soil is one of the world’s largest pools of carbon, so by increasing its size further, we should be able to draw down the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, thereby mitigating climate change.

A study involving Professor Richard Bardgett from the Faculty of Life Sciences consisted of sampling soils across the UK. It was found that over 2 billion tons of carbon is stored deep under the UK’s grasslands, which cover around a third of the UK land surface. This represents a huge amount of carbon that is helping to curb climate change. It was also found that 60% of this carbon is deep in the soil, hidden from past national carbon inventories. Another surprising finding was that carbon stored in grasslands, is sensitive to the way land has been farmed, and that decades of intensive grassland farming, involving high rates of fertilizer use and livestock grazing, have caused valuable soil carbon stocks to decline-  the largest soil carbon stocks beneath grasslands had been farmed at intermediate levels of intensity, receiving less fertilizer and with fewer grazing animals. Carbon stocks were about 10% higher in these grasslands than in the more intensively managed grasslands.

Professor Richard Bardgett commented on these findings:

“These findings are important for two reasons. First, they show that much more carbon is stored in grasslands that previously thought, and second, they suggest that the amount of carbon in our grasslands could be increased by managing them in a less intensive way. Not only could this help in meeting our future global carbon targets, but also it could bring benefits for biodiversity conservation”

Other great research from the faculty in February includes:

• Study explains why our organs are bendy

It seems like 2016 has also brought with it the rise of digital technology in scientific research! During a visit from Life Sciences Minister George Freeman, a new home to the heath eResearch centre was opened at The University of Manchester, making us a hub for some of the world’s best digital and health research in the North of England! This is supported by a current experiment going on in the Faculty. With hay fever season quickly approaching, scientists from The University of Manchester are inviting people to get involved with one of the biggest experiments they have ever conducted to help understand why the frequency of allergies is increasing.

Currently 1 in 4 people have an allergy, a ratio that was not as high in previous years and is still on the rise – however the exact reason for this increase is currently unknown. A team of scientists, including some from The University of Manchester’s Faculty of Life Sciences, have launched an app called #BritainBreathing.  This aims to achieve a better understanding of seasonal allergies by tracking how symptoms change over time and learn about your allergy triggers. Then, by teaming the data from #BritainBreathing with other sources of publicly available weather and pollution data, it will enable us to understand the patterns and causes of seasonal allergies.

One of the key traits of this experiment is science designed with citizens as partners, meaning that it is a collaboration between the scientists developing the app and allergy sufferers. Dr Sheena Cruickshank, Senior Lecturer in Immunology commented on this aspect of the project:

“We have involved the public from the outset with this project in order to not only consult about it but also to co-design the features of the app to ensure it is useful to the allergy community”

Dr Lamiece Hassan from the Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences, is also involved with the project. She said:

“I don’t [have an allergy] myself yet, I say that because allergies are on the rise. Based on current projections, in 10 years over half of us will have an allergy. Digital technology is part of our everyday lives now and that brings huge opportunities for gathering data on a mass-scale for researchers like me.“

Other great research from the faculty in March includes:

• HIV treatment could be used to help treat skin cancers

• Groundbreaking text mining project highlights ‘gender gap’ in scientific research

In more recent FLS news, researchers have used a technique developed by Dr Michael Buckley from the Faculty of Life Sciences, called Zooarchaelogy by Mass Spectometry (ZooMS), to identify human traces from a Neanderthal bone in fragments located in Russia. Dr Buckley developed the method during his PhD, when he realised how difficult it is to identify between fragmentary animal bones. ZooMS works by fingerprinting collagen, an abundant protein in bone that survives for millions of years. This is done by extracting collagen into solution and using an enzyme to cut at particular amino acids, which then produces a set of protein fragments that are specific to particular animals. These are then analysed using a mass spectrometer to measure the sizes of the fragments.

Dr Buckley from the Faculty of Life Sciences told us about how ZooMS can be used:

“My recent developments at Manchester have been to upscale the methodology to make it work with thousands or even tens of thousands of samples, a very useful development whether hunting for human remains like a needle in a haystack, or evaluating palaeobiodiversity through time”

He continued to tell us about his involvement in the study:

 “When I was screening through the batch of hundreds of samples and I spotted the hominin signature I was incredibly excited, as it was the first time that my method had been used to find such ancient human remains, and I am confident that it won’t be the last time.

“This finding continues to add to our knowledge of Neanderthal evolution, and potentially to our own interactions with them. As a method it could really revolutionize our picture of human evolution through the practical aspect of helping find much more material to obtain further genetic information from, such as ancient DNA.”

Well what an impressive year for the Faculty so far – and it’s only May! Aside from this, a number of members in the faculty have been rewarded for their research efforts, which recognises just how important and well-recognised the research conducted here is. Faculty experts continue to inspire us by the quality of research at The University of Manchester, making us proud to be a part of the Faculty of Life Sciences.

For recent updates in life sciences news, please visit:  https://lsmanchesterblog.wordpress.com/ 

 

Lucy’s Third Year Blog

Well hello again,

You find me at one of the busiest and most hectic times of any undergraduate degree: the final stretch of third year. Most third years are currently finishing off their final year project before exams start. As an MSci student though, as ever, things are quite a bit different. The usual 40 credits you get for your literature review and final year project are replaced by three different modules on the MSci course, all of which equip you for your final year as a research student, and beyond.

The first was a 10 credit bioinformatics module which we completed in first semester, which turned out to be much less daunting than I’d expected – I actually did really well in it. The second is a 10 credit project proposal module which is stretched out across the whole year. For this, you have to complete quite a bit of work during the first week back after summer, then compose two different research project proposals (one per semester), one of which will become your final year MSci project. This unit has probably been mt favourite MSci unit, as you have total freedom to work with any of the researchers in the faculty and pursue a project in pretty much anything you can imagine. However, this freedom also comes with a lot of responsibility; you must organise the projects and find two supervisors to work with yourself, and carry out most of the work independently (with a little help from your supervisors, of course).

Finally, we also have a 20 credit experimental skills module. This is a really intense unit, condensed into just 4 weeks. You have to design an individual project, which is part of a wider group research project. My group are carrying out a baseline ecological survey of the green spaces on the university campus, and comparing the biodiversity of that to a local, poorly-maintained park in a residential area behind the university. This project is part of the university’s commitment to social responsibility and working with local communities. The data we produce will be submitted to Manchester City Council and used to inform the planning of the regeneration of the local park, and of the redevelopment and pedestrianisation of Brunswick Street on the university campus, to expand our green spaces. It’s quite exciting knowing that the data we collect will be put to good use. However, there’s a lot of work to be done in a relatively short space of time. This week has been spent doing site visits, and planning the project. We had to write and submit a 2 page experimental design, then we will begin collecting data.

Survey site on campus

I have about 9 days to collect around 50 soil samples from the two field sites, and analyse them in the lab. I’ll be looking at the different properties of the soil, such as: pH, moisture content, the presence of calcium carbonate. Then, I’ll be sieving and centrifuging the soil to separate the microscopic nematodes from within it, to measure the nematode abundance. I chose to look at nematodes because – if you’ve read my other blogs – you’ll know I have a thing for parasites, especially wormy ones! Even though these are free-living nematodes, I couldn’t help but make the tenuous link to parasitism. Anyway, once that’s all done I have to statistically analyse my data and write a 5 page lab report. Then, our group will get together to compile all of our data and collectively produce a professional (looking) A1 poster representing our results. This will then be at the centre of a 15 minute group presentation, in which we will all have to answer questions on the project. Sound like a lot? Yep. Oh, and that’s not even considering exams, which start about a week after all this finishes. Ahhh the life of a third year. It’s a good job I love what I do!

So I guess you’d think that – with all that work – I’ve become a solitary creature, found only in the darkest depths of the library. For the most part, you’d be right. However, I like to make sure I reward myself with a bit of fun. This week brought another Tuesday night at Bongo’s bingo at Albert hall (see my last blog if you’re wondering why on earth a 21 year old student would go to bingo), a night at the Albert’s Schloss bar with a live band, and a summertime themed house party for a friends birthday. I also took my sister to the Manchester Opera House to watch Chicago. It was such a good show and I even got the tickets on a cheap student deal. So I’ve had plenty of chance to blow off some steam.

I’ve also been working hard at fundraising for charity for the past few weeks. My housemate and I both have both volunteered abroad with two sister international development charities; which aim to improve access to clean drinking water, promote gender equality and increase environmental sustainability. We both had such incredible experiences, so we decided to fundraise to help fund future projects. I don’t know how I ended up agreeing to this, but we are doing a sponsored sky dive this week; I am beyond petrified. Amazingly, we’ve already raised nearly £700, so at least my untimely death will be for a worthwhile cause. Anyway, I can’t think about jumping out of a plane right now, so I’m changing the subject to something less traumatic.

Fundraiser by day, hula girl by night.

In fact, I’m going to talk about something quite the opposite of traumatic…PUPPIES! Well, singular – just the one puppy. My best friend from back home graduated from university last summer and is now living and working in Manchester, not too far away from me. She rang me last month and told me she was getting a puppy! I’m probably the most excitable dog lover you’ll ever meet. I’m the weirdo who will go round to someone’s house and sit on the floor spooning their dog, rather than actually spend any time with them. So naturally, I was straight around to her house to meet the little pup! Last week we took her for her very first walk around the reservoir in Manchester and she absolutely loved it! Walks and puppy cuddles are the best form of stress relief from uni work I could ask for; oh, and it’s nice to see my best friend too!

“Arghh I have so many deadlin…aww look at the puppy! Let’s go for a walk.”

The next six or seven weeks will be a whirlwind of excitement and stress which will see me through to the end of third year (well that’s a terrifying thought). It will bring with it: 4 coursework deadlines, 5 exams, 2 music gigs, 1 BBQ (hopefully – it is Manchester), 1 end of year ball and 1 trip to Barcelona! If you’ve read my other blogs, you’ll remember that I booked holiday to Barcelona during Easter with some of my course friends to visit our friend who’s out there working in a zoology lab for his modern language year. Well things didn’t really go to plan; we went to the airport, got through security and were called to board the plane, but alas, our flight was suddenly cancelled due to the French air traffic control strikes. The next available flight was the day after we were supposed to return home. So we lost our entire holiday. They even made us show our boarding cards to go downstairs to arrivals, and then made us go through immigration because we’d “technically left the country”. Suffice to say, it was a pretty depressing train ride back to Fallowfield. We were absolutely gutted; a few days in the Spanish sun was just what we needed. However, we’ve just been refunded for the flights and now we’ve rebooked to go straight after final exams instead! I’m sure we’ll need the break even more by then, and it will be twice as hot. Silver linings and all that eh? Anyway, that’s enough blabbering from me; as usual, I should be doing my work.

Ciao for now,

Lucy

Astynnia’s Second Year (International) Blog

Hello everyone!

In my last post, I talked about how busy my academic schedule was with my Research Skills Module (RSM) and Dissertation. Since I am done with them now, I can assure you guys that RSM online assessments are actually not as daunting as many would perceive. Basically, us Biomedical Sciences students were introduced to 4 different clinical sciences specialism in 4 weeks – Clinical Microbiology, Clinical Biochemistry, Clinical Pathology and Clinical Haematology. By the end of the week, we were required to complete an online assessment either in the form of short answer questions, a summary of a scientific article or methods and results writing. As long as you have a good understanding of the experiments and follow the assessment guidelines, you’re likely to do well! The assessments are worth 50% of the module, so it is important to ask the practical supervisor if you are having any problems understanding the topic. There’s no need to feel shy about this though because they are always more than willing to help you!

As for my dissertation, titled “Gut Microbiome and the Health of Colon” my supervisor gave me two articles as starter references. It took me a little while to get my head around these as nothing is easy when you are doing it for the first time. However, the more you read, the easier it is to understand what you need to include in the 9-page literature review. An easy trick is to always refer to the reference list in the starter references provided as they will provide you with other related scientific articles. And voila! Your reading list is sorted :). It is important for you to properly understand the content within your dissertation because you have to present your dissertation topic to your academic tutor and tutorial group members!

Before parting away for Easter holiday, my best buddy and I had a delicious Korean meal at Seoul Kimchi on Upper Brook Street. It seems like we found another one of Manchester hidden gems! If you are craving or would like to try authentic Korean food, this place is the right place to go to!

Kimchi stew with rice and beef bibimbap. Side dishes anchovies, kimchi (fermented cabbage) and pickles.

However our 3-weeks of Easter break is now at an end. I am currently still doing the modifications works for my RSM lab report. In the coming two weeks, there will be spot tests for Immunology and Parasitology and they are worth 10% each for the modules. I’m a little nervous for these as have found it hard to fit in revision this Easter holidays. That’s because I spent 12 days of the holiday in Norway and Iceland! I’m really making the most of being able to travel around and see as much of Europe as I can while I am over here for my studies away from Malaysia.

The best way to experience Norway is from above. Naturally, that involves a lot of hiking and battling with steep cliffs. However, you will get postcard views of stunning fjords (pulpit rocks) and that is the time when nature makes you feel like a tiny ant in a gigantic world. Iceland was equally as enjoyable with magical cinematic landscapes to leave you in awe. I was able to witness aurora borealis (also known as the northern lights) dancing above my head in Reyjkavik, which was absolutely wonderful. I also visited Seljalandsfoss waterfall.

The view from 605m off the Preikestolen pulpit rock in Rogaland, Norway.

Seljalandsfoss waterfall

 

I would say that it has been a productive semester for me with the right balance between work and play. As much as I wanted the holiday to last, I am looking forward to finishing my 2^nd year as well, which means I am only 2 months away to be back home. 🙂

First day back at university after 3-weeks of Easter holidays celebrated with a McDonalds catch up lunch break!

 

Astynnia x

Dan’s Final Year Blog

Hello everybody, hope you’re well, and welcome back.

Welcome back, that is, to perhaps one of the busiest times of my year.. Rather scarily, tomorrow is the day I’m due to present the exhibit for my final year project. It’s all getting a bit hectic and flustered at the moment I’m afraid!

Just to give you a little context, it’s actually less of an exhibit, rather a stall. Saturday 19th March marks The Body Experience at the Manchester Museum (click link for more info). This is a free event as part of National Science Week, which invites children of all ages into the museum to explore a range of different activities all about the human body and its fascinating components. I am now an official contributor and will have my very own stand, all about vision, the eye and how you see. Science fairs are always hard to have a really big impact on because you only have very limited time with everyone who comes through, as they all want a bit of everything. Hopefully though, it’ll be a good time to really sell neuroscience and inspire some children to get into science and/ or university. I don’t think it’ll be too much of a challenge, I mean vision is quite interesting, and one of the cooler phenomena your body produces. I reckon it would be a hell of a lot harder to really get school kids interested in biology if you had to present a stand on hair, or toenails, or armpits as your selected body part! At least with eyes there’s a bit of everything science wise – the physics of light waves, the chemistry of phototransduction, and the biology of visual processing in the brain.. I don’t know, have I convinced you yet? If not, get down there this Saturday and learn some stuff about neuroscience and vision haha!

The great thing about having an education project like this, is that there’s a much greater spread of marks throughout the project – you can get points for your resource (the fair stand in my case) as well as the report, whereas people doing lab projects have their entire grade riding on their report (20 pages that I’m not looking forward to writing!). Let’s just hope everything works on the day, because there are loads of potential disasters waiting to happen… I can see only too vividly a vision of my demo containers breaking and the entire museum being filled with irritating little fruit flies going in everyone’s eyes and blinding them..  although that is still kind of on the same topic!

What else, oh yes, results came out, since my last post. I’m very pleased with my results from my 4 exams, and with my Lit Review, my January average just about scrapes into a first. So who knows, if the rest of this project goes well, we might be on to something big..

Now, it wouldn’t be a Dan blog if I didn’t manage to throw in something about the Albert Hall would it..? This time we took loads of the Life Sciences Ambassadors up to check out the new craze that is Bongo’s Bingo. Normally, I feel like people associate bingo with the elderly, tea and scones. I was the same. “Was”. Now all I can think about when someone says bingo, is loud music, flashing lights, pitchers, and hundreds of people going mad for The Vengaboys. Hopefully readers will be able to cast your minds back to a time when The Vengaboys were actually a thing, and therefore hopefully appreciate quite how surreal it would be to have them banging out the tunes at a bingo night! Hopefully all the ambassadors made the most of it because we’ve only got one week of it left to go! This makes me very sad, I’m probably going to break down and tell Professor Sheffield I love her, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. The end of the ambassadoring season does, though, give us seniors the opportunity to embarrass and humiliate each other and the juniors with some end of year awards, so it’s not all doom and gloom.

The senior ambassador dream team!

The final ambassador social!

Well deserved post visit day pint

On to sport now, the grand slam is still on for England in the six nations..! It was a very tense and very noisy Friendship Inn (a popular student pub in Fallowfield) on Saturday, as we took the triple crown against Wales, only France left to play, but it won’t matter if they can’t beat Scotland.. it’s all very exciting, just trust me. If we win the six nations, I might not feel so glum about the persistent disappointment that is my beloved Arsenal..

There is however, a more overriding issue to hand that is perhaps more worrying than final year projects, the six nations, and football together, and that is the fact that there is only one week left of term before Easter holidays, and then it really is almost the end of university. Well, for me at least. And whilst that means the stream of parties and holidays that will follow the end of term is drawing nearer, one cannot help but look back, rather than forward, at all that Manchester has been able to provide over the years. Now I know if you have been reading this blog, it might have been very easy to just sit back and say ‘well this guy’s just a delinquent, why should I listen to him?’ Through these blogs, I hope that I have been able to show you the wide variety of things there are to get involved with at The University of Manchester as a Life Sciences student, socially and academically. This is a high quality university and an exciting city with endless things to do, and an ideal place to be a student. There aren’t many places that will be able to encourage study, as well as all the tomfoolery.

Anyway, wish me luck with the project, and I’ll see you all when I get back from France in the Easter holidays.

D xx

British Science Week 2016 (Day 5)

Hello! I’m Lucy, a first year Biology with Science and Society student at The University of Manchester.

The brilliance of biology is that it is underpinning to all elements of life; this ranges from the micro world of bacteria and viruses, to the macro level of climate and nutrition cycles. Everything can be explained in the language of biology. This is made very clear in our first year laboratory practicals! It is an amazing feeling to carry out procedures in the lab and understand what is happening because of your biological knowledge. The laboratory is where biological theory comes to life!

As part of the “Introduction to Experimental Biology” module, we are able to practice and develop our laboratory skills. I particularly enjoyed the “Manipulation of DNA” practical. This experiment involved working with E. coli, exploiting multiple natural biological processes in order to confer antibiotic resistance.

We first manipulated the bacteria through a process called transformation. This involved using a plasmid, as a vector. This is a special piece of genetically engineered circular DNA that contains the desired genes to be inserted into an organism.  Our pGLO plasmid contained the gene for Ampicillin resistance, and also a gene called the Green Florescent Protein (GFP). The GFP gene exhibits bioluminescence and was used to indicate if the transformation had been successful. It was an awesome feeling, to examine the transformed E. coli under UV light, and watch it glow green, knowing that the experiment worked. I had successfully made some bacteria antibiotic resistant!

Next, we exploited the process of bacterial conjugation, which is the transfer of genetic material from one bacterium to another via special structures called pili. During this experiment, we investigated the efficiency of E. coli to transfer genetic material in different conditions, using a liquid culture and solid surface. This was so that we could identify the type of pili that the E. coli contained! We transferred the bacteria onto agar plates that contained different types of antibiotic and left them to grow. We then counted the number of bacterial colonies (you needed a sharp eye for this!) in order to identify if antibiotic resistance had been transferred.

Counting E.coli colonies on agar plates!

This practical enabled me to practise highly useful skills in the field of biology, such a Gel Electrophoresis and pipette handling (which isn’t as simple as it sounds; it definitely has a certain knack to it!). You spend a lot of time reading about these things when studying so it feels good to “put a face to a name” sort of thing.

Hover over photos to view captions:

Set up of Gel Electrophoresis

Pipetting!

I also found the laboratory practical very relevant to modern day society.With increasing interest in the field of genetically modified crops and the growing issue of antibiotic resistance, I felt like I was acquiring key skills and knowledge in order for me to progress in the scientific community and be a part in resolving these very real issues. I can’t wait for my next lab session!

Thanks for reading! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading our experiments this week for British Science Week 🙂

Lucy

For more insight into general first year as a first year student at The University of Manchester, watch our ‘A week in the life of a first year student’ series on the Manchester Life Scientists YouTube:

 

British Science Week 2016 (Day 4)

Hi! I’m Margarida and I study Neuroscience at The University of Manchester. Like most 2^nd year students in 2^nd semester, I am doing a Research Skills Module.

As part of the Neuroscience RSM, we get to do a practical with Nitrous Oxide! Nitrous Oxide is also known as ‘Laughing Gas’, and is used as an analgesic and anaesthetic. It is one of the safest anaesthetics known, with rapid and completely reversible effects. In high concentrations it is used in dentistry and in lower concentrations during childbirth. In this practical we all got to be subjects and also observers. As subjects, we had to breathe either oxygen or one of two low concentration mixtures of nitrous oxide and oxygen. From this, we hoped to increase the subjects’ pain threshold and lower results in cognitive tests. To test this, we measured pain threshold by amount of time that the subject could hold their hand in cold water. There were some interesting effects! However like in all experiments, some of the results we obtained were not exactly what we expected. For example, one subject had a particularly unusual response to the Nitrous Oxide – he didn’t want to keep his hands in the cold water, but wanted to draw butterflies instead.

Another practical that sticks in my mind was also during the Neuroscience RSM, where we got to stain mice brain slices to detect different sensory pathways (where neurons that do certain things are placed in the brain). We stained a number of different neurons in the mouse brains, including ones which sense glucose levels in the blood, one that releases a hormone when the animal is dehydrated, and a photoreceptive neuron.  These neurons connect areas of the brain involved in circadian rhythms (internal clocks that control when to sleep, eat, reproduce). All of the types of staining we used were different; one stained the nuclei of the neurons, other the synapses and the third stain turned blue! It was amazing to be able to get a look at some real brains and actually see the neurons that we have learnt so much about in lectures.

I have realised that the more time I spend in the lab, the more interested I become in research procedure and results. It’s nice to be able to apply what we’re learning in lectures to things we can then go and look at in the lab. I am sad to say that I’ve completed all my labs for this academic year, but I can’t wait to do further lab work next year!

Margarida Trigo

(2^nd year MNeuroscience student)

British Science Week 2016 (Day 3)

Hi everyone,

I’m Emma and I’m a second year Optometry student at The University of Manchester. Optometry teaching at UoM is split between practical sessions and lectures. Right from my very first week at university, we were in the clinics and labs learning the different components of an eye examination. Practical sessions range from refraction clinics to dispensing labs and visual psycophysics labs. 

From first year, we were given the opportunity to test patients (these patients are paid volunteers of the university who come in on a weekly basis to let the students test their eyes). Testing a stranger’s eyes for the first time is quite a daunting experience and definitely something you’re not going to forget. Thankfully, all the patients are really friendly and helpful – some have been volunteering with the university for over 30 years and know the ins and outs of an eye examination routine better than we do! 

That’s me, carrying out an eye examination!

Working with the volunteer patients has undoubtedly been my favourite part of my course to date. We’re given an hour and a half with each patient to determine an appropriate distance and near prescription and to check their ocular health. At the start of each eye test we record the patient’s history and symptoms. This is a great way to find a bit more out about your patient and really helps build a rapport with them. Manchester is the only university that gives its students the opportunity to test patients from their first year and it’s truly an invaluable experience that has definitely helped improve my confidence. No two patients will ever be the same and they’ll always keep you entertained with anecdotes and tales throughout each session.

Clinical experience is not only restricted to university practicals, the staff are forever advertising different paid and voluntary clinical posts available in Manchester. At the start of my second year I started volunteering with a charity called Vision Care for the Homeless (an organisation which offers free eye examinations and spectacles to homeless people). Every fortnight I was able to shadow an optometrist and gain an insight into the range of patients I could one day be testing. Walking into the homeless shelter for the first time was such a nerve racking and daunting experience, however, everyone was so welcoming and friendly. I was given the opportunity to check the optometrist’s refraction results as well as carry out a few minor parts of the eye examination. It’s definitely an opportunity worth getting involved in!

Practical sessions are undoubtedly the most interesting and engaging part of my course. I’ve been able to chat and make friends with other students in my year who I may never have had the opportunity to meet otherwise. I’ve also found out that I have a whole range of ocular conditions that I never even knew existed!

 Happy science week and best of luck with upcoming exams!

 Emma

If you are interested in studying Optometry at The University of Manchester, watch our course video from the Manchester Life Scientists YouTube!

British Science Week 2016 (Day 2)

Hey everyone!

For those of you who don’t already know, Manchester is the European City of Science this year, so it’s pretty apt that one of the experiments that really stuck in my mind here at university was all about Manchester!

My second year Research Skills Module (RSM) in Urban Biodiversity and Conservation was all about investigating the surprisingly wide array of biodiversity found within Manchester. We spent the first two weeks exploring different aquatic and terrestrial systems around the city, learning about the different techniques environmental consultants and field biologists use on a daily basis.

The joggers and dog walkers definitely gave us a few funny looks as a herd of students turned up in Platt Fields Park in our waders, carrying nets and buckets; and every day we were out one of the locals would come up and ask what us odd looking bunch were up to. One particularly memorable moment (though perhaps for the wrong reasons!) came from our trip to Salford Quays, where the weather took a turn for the worse, even by Manchester’s standards. Suffice to say, some gale force winds had me extremely close to being blown head first into the Manchester Ship Canal, an experience I’m glad I avoided!

After examining the effects of historical pollution for the first two weeks, control shifted to us for the second two. We were given the freedom to choose any site we wished in Manchester to go and investigate, carry out a habitat survey, and then devise a conservation strategy for that area. For the first time in our degree we were given complete and utter control of an experiment, and it gave a real taste of what working as a scientist full time would be like.

Our group decided to survey nearby Stretford Meadows, and fortunately this time the weather decided to take pity on us, with some of the sunniest days that year. We looked at the range of biodiversity there, both plant and animals, and when it came to collecting samples my friends were greatly amused by me running round a field with a giant net in my efforts to catch some butterflies; it’s a lot more difficult that you would think!

We carried out a whole range of activities on our site, many of which people wouldn’t associate with biologists. These ranged from researching the history of the site over the past century, to getting in touch with local rangers to find out about the site management. We catalogued the different plant and animal species we’d found on site, and it gave me a huge amount of respect for taxonomists, as it’s certainly not an easy job! We then presented our findings and discussed how we would go about managing the site in order to conserve the biodiversity.

It was definitely one of the most memorable months I had at university. It was really nice to interact with members of the public away from campus and to discuss what we were doing, and it was really interesting to explore other sides of science that we don’t normally get to, such as environmental law. All in all it was a fantastic experience, and definitely confirmed I’m someone who enjoys being out there in the field and not cooped up in a lab all day!

Happy Science Week, and best of luck with summer exams!

Sean

For more information about the Urban Biodiversity field course in Manchester, please visit: http://www.ls.manchester.ac.uk/undergraduate/teachingandlearning/fieldcourses/urbanbiodiversity/