Student activities

May 2023

• Julia Dielesen - Event organiser for "Our Body" Pint of Science 2013.

December 2022

• Julia Dielesen - 3rd place in the WHRI Magazine Writing competition.
• Serena Bert attended the British Society for Immunology Congress (BSI).

November 2022

• Julia Dielesen gave a poster presentation at the International Symposium Neutrophil, Mexico. Julia's poster was titled, Neutrophils contribute to an early activation of pro-inflammatory CD4+ T-helper cells in response to ischemia/reperfusion injury in vivo.

October 2022

• Congratulations to Nicola Dark for completing the Royal Parks Half Marathon on Sunday 9th October. Nicola successfully raised over £600 for the British Heart Foundation (BHF) in memory of her Grandfather. If you would like to support Nicola and donate please visit her JustGiving page.
• Dominic Huxley attended Cell Therapy for Cardiovascular Disease - What's next? (Chonnam University).
• Dominic Huxley organised PGR WiP seminars and socials for WHRI PhD students to share research.

September 2022

• Kaya Olczak attended the BIHS Annual Scientific Meeting (York, UK), 12^th-14^th Sept 2022. Kaya won the Young Investigator Oral Prize for her presentation, “Investigating the role of the small GTPase R-Ras in blood pressure control”.  She was awarded £250 and a travel grant of £1500 to present the work at the High Blood Pressure Research Council of Australia in 2023 (conference registration and accommodation covered by the Research Council of Australia).
• Serena Bert attended the WHRI Seminar: Translational biomarkers: from information growth to knowledge growth with Dr Theodora Katsila. 
• Silvia Fanti attended the International Symposium on Signal Transduction at the Blood-Brain Barriers. Silvia was awarded the Best Poster Prize for 'The metabolic fate of microglia cells isolated from aging mice'.
• Nikayla Patel becomes a mentor on the WHRI BAME mentoring scheme.
• Serena Bert attended the Biorender Demonstration, hosted by Biorender.
• Silvia Fanti attended the Cardioimmunology Conference, Zurich (Poster presentation and networking).
• Ami Vagdama attended the EUPLAN International Conference (Milan).

August 2022

• Nikayla Patel has taken on the role of Clinical Pharmacology Representative for the Work in Progress committee.

July 2022

• Serena Bert, Nikayla Patel, Greg Funge and Christina Gkantsinikoudi attended the 67^th London Vascular Biology Forum (WHRI, QMUL).
• Nikayla Patel volunteered for the WHRI Work Experience Programme. This involved four sixth form students shadowing Nikayla in the lab.
• Ami Vagdama attended the ISTH 2022 Congress (London).

June 2022

• Well done to all those who took part in the BHF 4-Year MRes/PhD Student Conference at the University of Leeds on Wednesday 29th of June. Queen Mary University of London had a variety of posters and talks:
  

  Silvia Fanti - 'Defining the adaptive immune response in Autoimmune Myocarditis' (poster)
  Balraj Sandhar – 'Investigating the relationship between thymic involution and T cell responses' (poster)
  Laura Deelen - 'Characterisation and augmentation of intra-cardiac migration of iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes – towards the optimisation of myocardial regeneration therapy' (3 min turbo talk)
  Kaya Olczak - 'Investigating the role of R-Ras in blood pressure control' (3 min turbo talk)
  Darren Wilson - 'Investigating Cardiomyocyte Dysfunction in Dilated Cardiomyopathy associated with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy' (10 min talk)
  Balraj Sandhar (best poster prize)
  Kaya Olczak (3 min turbo talk second runner-up).

• Balraj Sandhar attended the Stemness, Regeneration and Immunity Conference.
• Balraj Sandhar, Nicki Dyson, Tripti Kulvekar, Greg Funge, Christina Gkantsinikoudi, Nikayla Patel, Laura Deelen and Serena Bert attended the WHRI Annual Review.plate
• Kaya Olczak was runner-up for the WHRF Lay Communications Prize for 'Understanding blood pressure one gene at a time' (£400 Travel Grant).
• Dominic Huxley organised PGR WiP seminars and socials for WHRI PhD students to share research.
• Serena Bert attended the WHRI Seminars: Neutrophil dynamics in metastasis to the lung with Dr. Leo Carlin and An NKT-ILC2-Eosinophil Network Regenerates Thymus Function After Damage with Prof Graham Anderson.
• Serena Bert attended the Assay Genie Genieplex Technology demonstration.
• Dominic Huxley to teach Physiology practical sessions for first-year medical students at QMUL (June-October 2022). 
• Serena Bert attended High-Dimensional Functional Phenotyping of Preclinical Human CAR T Cells, hosted by Fluidigm.
• Christina Gkantsinikoudi won the Best Image prize at the WHRI Annual Research Review and was shortlisted for the BHF Reflections of Research 2022.
• Dominic Huxley attended the BHF ‘Understanding Blood Pressure’ public engagement workshop (June). 
• Greg Funge led student events for an exhibition of PhD projects as Co-Chairman of WiP Council.
• Tripti Kulvekar attended the UK Biobank Conference 2022.

May 2022

• Balraj Sandhar attended the Harvard Aging Symposium.
• Dominic Huxley attended the BHF ‘Understanding Blood Pressure’ public engagement workshop (May). 
• Nikayla Patel attended the Early Career Researchers Seminar: Career Options (The International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology).
• Laura Deelen and Nikayla Patel attended the BHF Annual Soiree.
• Nicola Dark attended the BHF Student Conference (Leeds).

April 2022

• Balraj Sandhar attended the yICSA Senescence Symposium.
• Tripti Kulvekar attended SEGEG 2022.

March 2022

• Serena Bert attended the WHRI Seminar: Collective leukocyte navigation with Prof Michael Sixt.
• Serena Bert attended The imperative role of Next-Generation sequencing within Aging, hosted by Novogene.
• Nicola Dark and Ami Vagdama attended the Platelet Society Conference (Hull).
• Nikayla Patel attended 'The Consequences of Sex Bias in Preclinical Research' (Charles River).

February 2022

• Serena Bert attended High-parameter Imaging & Suspension Cytometry: CyTOF and Hyperian imaging system, hosted by Fluidigm.
• Nikayla Patel attended 'Metabolic aspects of heart failure' (The ESC Working Group on Cellular Biology of the Heart).
• Silvia Fanti presented at the WHRI Cardiovascular Seminar series: 'Tracking (and treating) cardiac autoimmunity' (Oral presentation with Prof Federica Marelli-Berg)

January 2022

• Balraj Sandhar, Nikayla Patel, Tripti Kulvekar, Silvia Fanti, Nicki Dyson, Laura Deelen and Greg Funge attended the WHRI PhD Symposium. Silvia Fanti was awarded the 3rd year PhD Prize for 'Role of cMet+ memory T cells in acute cardiac autoimmunity'.
• Greg Funge is currently assisting with an Endocrinology paper on developing a suitable model for acromegalic cardiomyopathy.

December 2021

• Nikayla Patel attended 'Advances in nephrology: What’s hot in pre-clinical, clinical and big data renal research' (The Royal Society of Medicine).
• Nikayla Patel presented at the UK Cardiovascular Vevo User Meeting (FUJIFILM VisualSonics).
• Trupti Kulvekar attended 'EASD EGIR & NAFLD Study Group 2021'

November 2021

• Nikayla Patel presented at the Biochemical Pharmacology Lab Meeting.
• Tripti Kulvekar attended the UK Biobank Scientific Conference.
• Nikayla Patel was the student focal point and WHRI Representative for the Women in Academia Panel discussion hosted by Graduate Studies at the College of Pharmacy, Qatar University.
• Greg Funge assisted in writing an abstract and providing data for a presentation at the British Endocrine Society Annual Conference.
• Serena Bert attended the Gus Born 100th Anniversary Lecture.
• Silvia Fanti attended and presented at the BSI Conference (Edinburgh). 'Defining the adaptive immune response in Autoimmune Myocarditis' (Poster presentation).
• Greg Funge assisted in writing an abstract and providing data for a presentation at the British Endocrine Society annual conference.

October 2021

• Balraj Sandhar, Tripti Kulvekar, Silvia Fanti, Nicki Dyson, Serena Bert, Kaya Olczak, Nikayla Patel, Laura Deelen and Greg Funge attended William Harvey Day.
• Laura Deelen attended the LSCN Annual Symposium.
• Tripti Kulvekar attended and gave a poster presentation at the American Society of Human Genetics Annual Meeting.
• Serena Bert attended the CV seminar: Predicting atrial fibrillation recurrence: combining population data and patient-specific biophysical models. 
• Dominic Huxley attended the Key Aspects of Modern Drug Discovery (Biochemical Society) Conference.
• Nikayla Patel acted as the student focal point for “Women in Academia” Panel discussion hosted by Graduate Studies at the College of Pharmacy, Qatar University. Responsibilities included circulating information to peers at WHRI, representing WHRI and acting as the contact point for the organisers at the College of Pharmacy, Qatar University.

September 2021

• Nikayla Patel attended the 18^th Annual Meeting of the Society for Heart and Vascular Metabolism (ISHR). 
• Serena Bert attended the WHRI Seminar: Neutrophils as critical influencers of T cell differentiation, with Dr Emily Gwyer Findlay.
• Shireen Mohammad attended the British Pharmacological Society Conference: Pharmacology 2021. Shireen was the winner of the Best Oral Communication Prize.

June 2021

• Balraj Sandhar, Nicki Dyson, Trupti Kulvekar, Serena Bert, Shireen Mohammad, Silvia Fanti, Nikayla Patel and Laura Deelen attended the WHRI Annual Review. Silva Fanti was awarded the Best Poster Prize for 'Defining the adaptive immune response in Acute Autoimmune Myocarditis'.
• Shireen Mohammad attended the British Pharmacology Society & ELRIG: Translating Ideas in Therapies Conference and was awarded the Best Poster Prize.
• Trupti Kulvekar attended the NAFLD EASD Conference.

May 2021

• Serena Bert attended the BHF Accelerator Award Seminar: T cell immune responses in heart inflammation and failure, with Dr Pilar Alcaide.
• Hannah Nicholls attended The Alan Turing Institute Omics Seminar.
• Dominic Huxley attended The Research World Post-Covid19 Conference.

April 2021

• Balraj Sandhar, Hannah Nicholls, Nicki Dyson, Shireen Mohammad, Serena Bert, Dominic Huxley, Kaya Olczak, Greg Funge, Silvia Fanti, Nikayla Patel, Laura Deelen (co-organiser) and Stefan Russo (co-organiser and host) attended the BHF Student Conference.
• Nikayla Patel attended the BSCR Symposium.
• Dominic Huxley attended the 4th ERNEST Conference - GPCR Signalling.

March 2021

• Nikayla Patel attended the Pan-London 3Rs symposium.
• Dominic Huxley attended the BHF Alumni Week.
  
• Ami Vagdama attended the Platelet Society Meeting (Keele University)

February 2021

• Tripti Kulvekar attended the UK Biobank Conference. 
• Hannah Nicholls attended The Alan Turing Institute Student Showcase.

January 2021

• Balraj Sandhar, Nicky Dyson, Shireen Mohammad and Laura Deelen attended the WHRI PhD Symposium.
• Kaya Olczak and Tripti Kulvekar attended the Festival of Genomics.

December 2020

• Nikayla Patel, Serena Bert and Greg Funge attended the Business of Drug Development Symposium.
• Shireen Mohammad attended the British Pharmacological Society Conference and was awarded Best Poster Prize for a poster presentation.
• Shireen Mohammad attended and gave an oral presentation at the 65th London Vascular Biology Forum. Winner of the Late-Breaking Poster Prize.
• Tripti Kulvekar attended the London Genetics Network.

November 2020

• Silvia Fanti attended the 1st Virtual Multidimensional Cardiovascular Workshop.
• Silvia Fanti attended Introducing the Vevo 4 Series Episode 1: Vevo for Liver & NASH (Non-Alcoholic Steatohepatitis) Imaging.
• Silvia Fanti attended the BSI Conference (Edinburgh).
• Tripti Kulvekar attended the SEGEG Multi-omics + Big Data Autumn 2020 meeting.

October 2020

• Greg Funge attended the WHRI CMR Conference/Day.
• Silvia Fanti attended the High-Dimensional Data Analysis with FCS Express 7 Webinar.
• Silvia Fanti attended the Introduction to Researcher Careers Webinar/Talk - School of Medicine and Dentistry 

September 2020

• Silvia Fanti attended the Human Immunogenetics Symposia.

July 2020

• Kaya Olczak attended IGES 2020.
• Silvia Fanti attended the 1st year PhD Day: Maximising the Impact of Conferences and Networking.

June 2020

• Laura Deelen, Nicki Dyson, Serena Bert and Silvia Fanti attended the WHRI Annual Review. 
• Kaya Olczak attended the European Society of Human Genetics (online) meeting.
• Silvia Fanti attended the 1st Queen Mary 3Rs meeting Western blot and Immunofluorescence masterclass.

May 2020

• Laura Deelen co-organised Pint of Science 2020 (Event Manager - Planet Earth).

April 2020

• Laura Deelen won the 2020 William Harvey Research Foundation Lay Communications Prize. Laura successfully engaged the panel of expert judges in her persuasive written submission and final presentation on, “The development of stem cell therapy for heart failure”.  
• Silvia Fanti attended the ISHR Cardiovascular Seminar Series.

March 2020

• Laura Deelen attended the ARU Guest Lecture.
• Laura Deelen attended the London Stem Cell Network Annual Symposium. 

January 2020

• Laura Deelen, Hannah Nicholls, Shireen Mohammad, Nicki Dyson, Silvia Fanti and Stefan Russo attended the WHRI New Year PhD Symposium.
• Silvia Fanti attended the WHRI Seminar Series.

December 2019 

• Stefan Russo co-organised the British Heart Foundation (BHF) Quizmas fundraiser.
• Laura Deelen attended the London Myology Symposium.
• Nikayla Patel attended the Business of Drug Development Symposium.

November 2019

• Laura Deelen attended the Stem Cell Forum.
• Laura Deelen and Nicki Dyson attended the BHF Alumni Day.

October 2019

• Shireen Mohammad won the Young Investigator Award and a travel grant at the XVIII^th International Congress of the European Shock Society in Chania, Greece (October 9-11, 2019). The top five submissions were shortlisted to be in the final round and were scored on merit in a blinded manner by five international expert judges. Five finalists presented their work in a ten-minute presentation followed by a Q&A session with a panel of five judges on Thursday 10^th October 2019. Shireen’s winning talk was titled ‘Does metabolic endotoxemia play a role in the insulin-resistance, steatohepatitis and proteinuria caused by high-fat diet in mice?’. 
  
• Laura Deelen, Hannah Nicholls, Nicki Dyson, Silvia Fanti, Greg Funge, Shireen Mohammad, Balraj Sandhar and Kaya Olczak attended William Harvey Day.
• Kaya Olczak attended the UCL BHF Research Accelerator Launch & Annual UCL Cardiovascular Symposium.
• Hannah Nicholls attended the IBM/QMUL Women in Technology Conference.

September 2019

• Stefan Russo co-organised the British Heart Foundation (BHF) Summer BBQ fundraiser. 
• Laura Deelen attended the Biology Meets Physics Symposium.
• Kaya Olczak attended the 14^th International Workshop on Cardiovascular Biology and Translational Medicine. 

July 2019

• Hannah Nicholls attended New Horizons in Genomics: Cross-cutting themes in Genomics / New Horizons in Genomics, Theme: Emerging concepts in genome regulation (QMUL).

June 2019

• Kaya Olczak attended the 2^nd UCL & Barts Heart Centre Translational Electrophysiology Symposium.
• Josh Dingham was the first place winner of the British Pharmacological Society Early Career Researcher Writing Competition. Josh's winning article is titled 'Of Fangs and Pharmacology: A Deadly Cure for Heart Disease' and will be published in the August edition of the society magazine, Pharmacology Matters. 
• Michael Preedy won the Young Investigator Award at the 9th International Conference on cGMP, 14-16 June 2019, Mainz, Germany. The Young Investigator Award is voted for by the senior academics at the meeting and presented at the annual conference dinner. Awards were given to PhD students or early career researchers (less than six years post PhD) who presented their research at the conference. Michael's winning talk was titled 'Phosphodiesterase 2 inhibition promotes nitric oxide/guanylyl cyclase/cGMP signalling in heart failure’. 
  
• Michael Preedy represented the William Harvey Research Institute at the Annual School of Medicine and Dentistry Postgraduate Research Careers Day on Thursday 27 June 2019. Michael was the winner of the best talk prize for his presentation on 'Targeting Cyclic GMP in Heart Failure'.  
• Eithne Maguire and Michael Preedy were invited to speak at the Stock Exchange Veterans Annual Charity Dinner on Thursday 27 June. They were joined by BHF London Fundraising Manager Jo Howe. This year the Stock Exchange Veterans picked the BHF as their charity of the year. Etty and Michael spoke to approx 200 dinner guests about their research and on the night over £12,000 was raised for the BHF.
• Michael Preedy was invited to speak at the 9th International Conference on cGMP: Generators, Effectors and Therapeutic Implications in Mainz, Germany. 
• Hannah Nicholls attended Artificial Intelligence in Society, Kings College London.
• Silvia Fanti attended the 1st Queen Mary 3Rs meeting Western blot and Immunofluorescence master Class.

May 2019  

• The BHF 4-year MRes/PhD Programme was well represented at the 2016 Pint of Science Festival. Pint of Science is a festival that aims to deliver interesting, fun and relevant talks on the latest science research in an accessible format to the public in the relaxed setting of public houses across the world. Well done to all who participated, including Stefan Russo (Our Body Event Manager), Tom Mitchell, Caroline O'Riordan, Jack Tyler (Our Society Event Managers), Edoardo Prediletto, Sara Caxaria, Sara Pagani (Atoms to Galaxies Event Managers), Horeja Njal, Mireya Vazquez and Alice Hamilton (Communication Managers), Samantha Arokiasamy and Giulia De Rossi (QMUL Pint of Science Coordinators).
• Hannah Nicholls attended the AI in Health Care: Making Algorithms That Work (PhDRUK/Wellcome Trust)

April 2019  

• Well done to all who took part in the BHF 4-Year PhD Student Conference on 11th April 2019 at Imperial College London. Presentations were by Eithne Maguire, ‘Linc1290; a novel player in stem cell differentiation and vascular remodelling’ (10-minute presentation); Madeeha Sheikh, ‘Impact of metabolic overload on the structural integrity of the blood-brain-barrier endothelium’ (3-minute thesis); Lauren Callender – ‘Aberrant T cell metabolism in type 2 diabetes’ (poster); Alice Hamilton – ‘The effect of social isolation on atherosclerotic plaque formation’ (poster); Anitha Nair – ‘Functional role of the PD-1/PDL-1 pathway in T-cell: Endothelial cell interactions’ (poster).
• Eithne (Etty) Maguire will be taking part in the British Heart Foundation (BHF) charity run to help raise funds in the fight against heart disease. Etty will be joined by Vanessa (Clinical Pharmacology) and Stefan (Microvascular) on 8 May 2019. If you would like to support this great cause by making a donation please visit Stefan, Vanessa and Etty run for the BHF.
  
• Hannah Nicholls attended Statistical Trends in Personalised Healthcare (The Alan Turing Institute).

March 2019

• Josh Dignam represented the British Pharmacological Society at Voice of the Future 2019. Organised by the Royal Society of Biology, this event allowed young scientists to question MPs on matters relating to policy in parliament.  
• Hannah Nicholls attended Careers in Computational Biology (QMUL).

February 2019

• Michael Preedy gives an Oral Presentation - Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine Cardiovascular Disease Young Investigator of the Year Award – London Cardiovascular Society – The Medical Society of London, Lettsom House, London, UK.

January 2019

•  Kaya Olczak attended the Festival of Genomics.

October 2018

• Kaya Olczak, Hannah Nicholls and Shireen Mohammad attended William Harvey Day.

September 2018

• Congratulations to Claire Macdougall who has recently secured a position at Cancer Research UK Therapeutical Innovation.
• Alice Hamilton presented a poster titled 'Social Isolation Primes the Immune System for Bacterial Infections’ at the 5th European Conference of Immunology.

June 2018

• Olga Giannakopolou receives a 'Young Investigator Award' nomination for a presentation at the European Society of Human Genetics Conference. 

April 2018

• Congratulations to Michael Preedy on being awarded the Best Poster prize at the British Heart Foundation Student Conference, Edinburgh 2018. Michael's winning poster was titled 'Inhibition of phosphodiesterase (PDE) 2 reverses the development of experimental heart failure'.
• Olga Giannakopoulou has been invited to present a poster at the European Society of Human Genetics Conference, June 2018. Olga's poster is titled, Genome-wide association analysis of recurrent myocardial infarction in UK Biobank identifies suggestive evidence for association to twenty-seven loci.
• Alice Hamilton gave an oral presentation titled 'Modelling the Effect of Social Isolation on the Development of Atherosclerosis in ApoE^-/- Mice’ at the BHF Student Conference.  

November 2017

• Well done to Madeeha Sheikh for winning a travel grant from the Guarantors of Brain and Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry. Using the grant Madeeha was able to attend the Cerebrovascular Biology (CVB) Conference in Melbourne from 28 November - 1 December 2017 where she also presented a poster titled 'Effect of metabolic overload on the endothelial cytoskeleton of the blood-brain barrier’. 
• Congratulations to Lorna Gee who won an abstract travel award and an international travel grant from the American Heart Association to fund a trip to the AHA Scientific Sessions Conference in Anaheim, California where she presented a poster titled 'Effects of dietary nitrate on blood pressure-dependent and independent cardiac dysfunction' (Poster).
• Olga Giannakopolou attends the Human Genome in Healthcare Conference hosted by The Genetics Society.   

April 2017

• Alice Hamilton presented a poster titled 'Modelling the Effect of Social Isolation on Susceptibility to Sepsis: A Murine Model’ at the BHF Student Conference.

September 2016

• Well done to Olga Giannakopoulou for her contribution to the study just published in Nature Genetics, 'Trans-ancestry meta-analyses identify rare and common variants associated with blood pressure and hypertension'. The study was led by Olga's supervisor, Prof Munroe.  
• Many congratulations to Mel Hayman for winning the poster prize at EUPLAN. The prize was given to Mel at the European Platelet Network (EUPLAN) meeting at Bad Homburg for her work entitled, 'Tracking and functional analysis of reticulated platelets'.   
• Well done to our third intake of students who have passed their MRes degrees with great success and are moving on to their PhD projects. 

September 2015 

• Well done to our second intake of students who have passed their MRes degrees with great success and are moving on to their PhD projects.

October 2014

• Melissa Hayman with presenter Dr Michael Mosley during BBC4's visit to film the documentary 'Blood'.

September 2014

• Well done to our first intake of students who have passed their MRes degrees with great success. 5 with distinctions and 1 with merit.
  

April 2014

• Students attend BHF student conference in Manchester.

October 2013

• Our first students commence their MRes studies.