Dr Jayne Dennis

Undergraduate Teaching

My pedagogic approach for teaching human genetics and genomics emphasises interactive and student-centred learning.  I use scenarios, including those created by generative AI, to foster critical thinking and problem-solving skills among learners.  Student feedback on my teaching is consistently excellent:

“Jayne Dennis [is] a fantastic and enthusiastic teacher who cares about her students' success and was therefore a big motivating factor in my choosing this module.”

“Jayne is an amazingly strong woman and lecturer and I admire her way of teaching, empowerment of women roles in society, and I look up to be like her because of how good she is at what she's doing.”

I organise two modules: Human Genetic Disorders (BIO227) and Advanced Human Genetic Disorders (BIO324).  I supervise final year projects in education research and I mentor project skills students on topics in genetics, cancer and personalised medicine.  I am a tutor on the first year Essential Skills module (BMD100), Advisor to Biomedical Sciences students, and Senior Tutor to both the Medical Genetics and Biomedical Sciences programmes.

I have been an Advance HE Senior Fellow since 2017 and I regularly review applications for Associate through to Senior Fellow.

In 2019-2023 I was Director of Teaching and Learning for Biomedical Sciences, responsible for the academic management of the undergraduate programmes co-delivered by SBBS and the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry (FMD).  During the pandemic I oversaw the transition of ~40 modules, ~850 students and >100 academics to online and then blended learning.  Concurrently I was Programme Director for Biomedical Sciences: in this role I led a review and consolidation of the programme, aligned learning outcomes and reduced assessment.  These initiatives all resulted in substantial gains in the programme’s performance in the National Student Survey (NSS).

In 2016-2018 I was Director of Student Experience with oversight of the advisor scheme, engagement with student satisfaction surveys and chaired the Student-Staff Liaison Committee. In 2014-2016 I was responsible for the undergraduate Ciência sem Fronteiras scholarship programme within SBBS.

Previously I taught at St George’s, University of London (SGUL), where I obtained my Postgraduate Certificate in Biomedical & Healthcare Education. I continue teaching at City St George’s as a visiting lecturer on the Cancer Biology module.

Research

Research Interests:

I am currently the Director of Scholarship in SBBS.  In this role I have created a community of scholarship practice in the School and I mentor >30 academics on Teaching and Scholarship contracts as they begin their scholarship journeys.

My own pedagogic research focuses on metacognition in higher education, especially the teaching practices used by staff to support students’ metacognitive development, such as peer assessment and small group learning. I use mixed methods approaches to investigate students’ experience with, and outcomes from, these teaching practices.   I have presented my work at the annual conference of the Society for Research in Higher Education (2024, 2021, 2018), Advance HE STEM conference (2020), and I have been an invited speaker at several UK universities.

I review manuscripts for Medical Teacher and FEBS Open Bio plus conference abstracts for the Society for Research in Higher Education, of which I am also a member.

This academic year I am a Queen Mary Academy Fellow, identifying best practice in scholarship.

Previously I recently completed an MA in the psychology of education at the world leading Institute of Education, which is now part of University College London.

My scientific research focused on the use of molecular and genetic information in the clinical management of disease, especially cancer. My PhD (University of Glasgow) investigated gene expression profiles in the classification of primary cancers. This work formed the basis of a diagnostic algorithm for Carcinoma of Unknown Primary which was evaluated in a Cancer Research UK sponsored clinical trial (CUP-ONE, CRUK/08/006).

Following my post-doc at Imperial College London I held senior positions in two genomics facilities.

Publications

Selected Publications:

Dennis JL & Somerville MP (2023) Supporting thinking about thinking: Examining the metacognition theory-practice gap in higher education. Higher Education. 86:99-117

Herrera C, McRaven MD, Laing KG, Dennis JL, Hope TJ & Shattock (2021) Early colorectal responses to HIV-1 and modulation by antiretroviral drugs. 9(3):231

Gravett AM Dennis JL, Dalgleish AG, Copier J & Liu WM (2020) The efficacy of chemotherapeutic drug combinations may be predicted by concordance of gene response to the single agents.  Oncol Lett. 20(6): 321

Liu WM, Scott KA, Dennis JL Kaminska E, Levett AJ & Dalgleish AG (2016) Naltrexone at low doses upregulates a unique gene expression not seen with normal doses; implications for its use in cancer therapy. Int J Oncol. 49(2): 793-802

Scott, KA, Dennis JL, Dalgleish AG & Liu WM (2015) Inhibiting heat shock proteins can potentiate the cytotoxic effect of cannabidiol in human glioma cells. Anticancer Res 35(11): 5827-37

Oien KA & Dennis JL (2012) Diagnostic work-up of carcinoma of unknown primary: from immunohistochemistry to molecular profiling. Ann Oncol 23 suppl 10: x271-277

Le Bihan M, Bigot A, Skov Jensen S, Dennis JL, Rogowska-Wrzesinska A, Lainé J, Gache V, Furlong D, Nørregaard Jensen O, Voit T, Mouly V, Coulton G, & Butler-Browne G. (2012) In- depth analysis of the secretome identifies three major independent secretory pathways in differentiating human myoblasts. J Proteomics 77:344-356

Cullingford TE, Markou T, Fuller SJ, Giraldo A, Pikkarainen S, Zoumpoulidou G, Alsafi A, Ekere C, Kemp TJ, Dennis JL, Game L, Sugden PF, and Clerk A. (2008) Temporal regulation of expression of immediate early and second phase transcripts by endothelin-1 in cardiomyocytes. Genome Biology 9:R32

Tomlinson C, Thimma M, Alexandrakis S, Castillo T, Dennis JL, Brooks A, Bradley T, Turnbull C, Blaveri E, Barton G, Chiba N, Maratou K, Soutter P, Aitman T & Game L. (2008) MiMiR: an integrated platform for microarray data sharing, mining and analysis. BMC Bioinformatics 9:379

Oien KA, Dennis JL, Evans TRJ (2007) Metastatic adenocarcinoma of unknown origin. In Progress in Pathology 7 (editors N. Kirkham & N. Shepherd), Cambridge University Press, pp 135-162

Dennis JL & Oien KA. (2005) Hunting the primary: novel strategies for defining the origin of tumours J Pathol 205:236-47

Dennis JL, Hvidsten TR, Wit EC, Komorowski J, Bell AK, Downie I, Mooney J, Verbeke C, Bellamy C, Keith WN & Oien KA. (2005) Markers of adenocarcinoma characteristic of the site of origin: development of a diagnostic algorithm. Clin Cancer Res 11:3766-72

Dennis JL, Vass JK, Wit EC, Keith WN & Oien KA. (2002) Identification from public data of molecular markers of adenocarcinoma characteristic of the site of origin Cancer Res. 62:5999-6005

Griffiths RA, Schley L, Sharp PE, Dennis JL & Román A (1998) Behavioural responses of Mallorcan midwife toad tadpoles to natural and unnatural snake predators. Anim Behav 55(1): 2-7-14