eContact
A newsletter for staff of the University of Dundee
Friday 2 December 2011
CONTENTS
- £1m medical training suite opens
- Degree show wins top UK award
- Tattoo appeal by CAHID
- Principal praises winter graduation
- Dementia project wins prize for PhD graduate
- Carols by Candlelight
- Medical researcher shortlisted for award
- Grants for spin out companies
- 'Wild Vision' to be revealed in Dundee
- Good dirt games for children unveiled
- Does Humanitarian Intervention Work?
- Morag takes cross country title
- Arctic images on show
- Research grants news online
- What's On
- Contributing to eContact
1. £1m medical training suite opens
A £1million state-of-the-art facility to train medical, nursing and dental students opened at the University’s School of Medicine last week.
The Dow Clinical Simulation Suite, which is based within the Clinical Skills Centre at Ninewells, was officially opened by Sir Kenneth Calman, the former Chief Medical Officer of Scotland.
The Suite is named in honour of Professor David Dow, former Master of Queen's College, Dundee, and his wife Dr Agnes Dow, both long-standing benefactors of the University. Their philanthropic work is carried on today by the Dow Memorial Trust which has provided £600,000 of funding for the suite. The remaining funding of more than £300,000 came from NHS Tayside.
The suite enables students and healthcare practitioners to rehearse their standards of clinical practice in a realistic environment. It features a six-bed hospital ward, three examination rooms and a High Dependency Unit, all built and equipped to the latest NHS standards.
Specialist IT, audio and visual technologies allows all activity within the suite to be recorded for the review and storage of both individual student and team practice.
Volunteers act as simulated patients on their health journey from initial assessment as an outpatient, through admission and treatment in hospital and on to follow-up care after discharge.
2. Degree show wins top UK award
The Dundee Degree Show 2011 has received a major events industry prize in recognition of the exhibition's success.
The Degree Show, Dundee’s largest annual art exhibition which attracts around 10,000 visitors each year, was named Best Educational Event at this week’s UK Event Awards ceremony at Wembley Stadium.
The week-long exhibition shows off the final-year projects of students at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (DJCAD). Around 300 of the UK’s most talented young artists and designers exhibited at the show, which also saw a special Associates Night attended by gallery owners, private collectors and other industry professionals, take place.
Susan Philipsz, winner of the 2010 Turner Prize and a DJCAD graduate, and Pixar founder Alvy Ray Smith were among the VIP guests at this year’s Degree Show, which was hailed as a 'vintage year' by Professor Tom Inns, Dean of DJCAD.
Professor Inns paid tribute to all students and staff who helped make the exhibition a success, saying, 'I am delighted that DJCAD has won this award. To do this, the quality of the Degree Show had to be outstanding, so this is great recognition for the work of everyone involved.
'The quality of the work exhibited by students stands against any display by graduating students in the UK, while the hard work of so many academic and support staff helped give them the perfect showcase for their talents. Well done to all who helped make this possible.'
This year’s Degree Show was also nominated for a Best Marketing Strategy prize in the Scottish Event Awards. DJCAD’s innovative marketing strategy utilised social media to allow final year students to help design the promotional material for their own Degree Show. The artwork was created by illustrator Johanna Basford, herself a DJCAD graduate, using 'crowd sourced' images.
3. Tattoo appeal by CAHID
The University’s Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification has made an international appeal for people to send them images of their tattoos, piercings and other body modifications.
The appeal is to help establish an image database of body modifications as part of an INTERPOL project which may aid in the identification of missing persons and unidentified bodies.
Professor Sue Black, Director of CAHID, said the database could offer a vital new tool to forensics experts.
'What we are trying to do is create a classification system of body modifications which may aid in describing in the wide variety of modifications seen,' said Professor Black.
'This will help us to establish how common certain body mods - tattoo designs, piercings etc - are in different populations. Perhaps national or regional 'signature' tattoos may be found, e.g. a frequently seen design specific to Scots or even Dundee, for example. If we can do that then identifying such body mods can become a key part in important work such as Disaster Victim Identitication.
'If you look at major incidents such as the Asian tsunami where there are thousands of bodies needing to be identified, investigators are working to narrow down the parameters which can lead to successful identification. This includes race, distinctive marks on the body, what clothing and jewellery may be on the body, and so on.
'If we can add body modifications to that list of parameters that allow us to successfully complete this hugely important process of identification then we will have added another major tool to the investigative process.'
A website has been set up at www.bodymodresearch.com where people can find out more information about the project and send in images of their own tattoos, piercings and other bodymods.
The research is part of CAHID’s wider participation in INTERPOL’S FAST and efficient international disaster victim IDentification (FASTID) project.
4. Principal praises winter graduation
University Principal Professor Pete Downes describes his fondness for graduation in his latest blog. To read the full blog visit: http://blog.dundee.ac.uk/principal/.
5. Dementia project wins prize for PhD graduate
A computing researcher, who graduated with a PhD in last month’s Winter Graduation, has been awarded £10,000 to promote software she developed to help improve the care of people with dementia.
Dr Gemma Webster (25) was one of three winners of the Research Councils UK (RCUK) ‘Telling Tales of Engagement’ competition with her 'Portrait' project which consists of interactive multimedia presentations containing brief biographical and personal information relevant to a particular person with dementia.
The information is available to care staff through a touchscreen terminal and is aimed at bridging the communication gap between patients and carers.
The £10,000 prize will help Dr Webster raise awareness Portrait with the aim of significantly increasing the number of care facilities using the software.
Dr Webster, who has recently taken up a postdoctoral position at Lancaster University, said, 'It’s really good to have won this award and to have the chance to promote and publicise the project more widely. I think it’s very important to encourage care givers to get to know the person they are working with rather than just seeing them through the label of dementia or in terms of the physical needs they have. This prize will help us to get that message across.'
6. Carols by Candlelight
The University’s annual service of Carols by Candlelight will take place next weekend on Sunday, 11th December at 5pm in St Paul’s Cathedral, High Street, Dundee.
The service takes the form of the traditional nine Lessons and Carols. Singing will be led by the University Choirs.
'This is one of the highlights of the academic year,' said University Chaplain, the Rev Dr Fiona Douglas. 'It is a night when members of the local community, the University and their families come together.'
Mince pies and mulled wine will be served after the service. All are welcome.
7. Medical researcher shortlisted for award
A member of a research team at the School of Medicine has been shortlisted for a Young Investigator’s Award by the ERA-EDTA (European Renal Association - European Dialysis and Transplant Association).
Dr Michelle Pei Kao, a Specialist Registrar in Renal Medicine at Ninewells Hospital who graduated with an MD from the University in the summer, has been nominated for the honour as a result of her research into the drug allopurinol and its effects on vascular function in patients with kidney disease.
Her abstract was one of the highest scoring abstracts of the 2010 ERA-EDTA Congress.
The research on allopurinol, which was led by Professor Allan Struthers, Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the School of Medicine, was published in the Journal of American Society of Nephrology, the world’s leading kidney research journal.
It also formed the basis of Dr Kao’s MD thesis.
If she is successful in the Young Investigator’s Award she will receive a medal and an invitation to next year’s ERA-EDTA Congress in Paris.
8. Grants for spin out company
Dundee Cell Products Ltd (DCP), a University spin-out company has attracted two new grants to support its product development and commercialisation activities.
DCP is a supplier of high quality products and innovative tools for biochemistry and molecular and cell biology research. It also offers advanced research services, to facilitate the discovery and development of new and safer medicines against human diseases.
The company was created to exploit technology and expertise in proteomics and RNA biology developed in the University.
DCP has been awarded a SMART: Scotland award from Scottish Enterprise and a BioKT R&D grant by the Innovation Portal Dundee, worth £70,000 and £20,000 respectively. The SMART: Scotland award is a significant part of the overall project investment of £106,378, with DCP contributing £36,378 to the project.
The SMART: Scotland project will support the company's research activities focused on predicting potential toxic liabilities of drugs under development and will take 15 months to complete. The six month BioKT project will allow the company, in collaboration with the University, to initiate the development of new human growth factor products and related services targeting both the academic research and biotech/pharma markets.
DCP also announced that Brenda Reynolds has been appointed as Chairman of the company. She has extensive broad experience in the Life Science sector and was a founder of Convergence Pharmaceuticals Ltd in October 2010 with the raising of £22.4million funding from three international VCs. She was previously a founder of PowderMed Ltd in 2003 with a £20 million fundraising, this company subsequently being sold to Pfizer in 2006.
9. ‘Wild Vision’ to be revealed in Dundee
Acclaimed nature, travel and adventure photographer John Beatty will share images and stories from his 25 years of assignments to 38 different countries at the University next week when he delivers the latest Royal Scottish Geographical Society’s Inspiring People talk.
His audio-visual presentation, entitled ‘Wild Vision,’ will take place at the D’Arcy Thompson Lecture Theatre from 7.30pm on Tuesday (6 December). It will include images and footage from the volcanic eruptions in Iceland, the great migrations of the Serengeti, and the beauty of his native Peak District.
Beatty’s work has been described by mountaineering legend Sir Chris Bonington as 'a superb creative experience', while Outdoor Photography Magazine said his 'photographs are truly outstanding, capturing the natural world in all its beauty and magnificence.'
Tickets for the talk are free for RSGS members, and cost £8 for non-member adults, and £2 for students (redeemable if buying membership), and are available on the night from the venue.
For more information about any of the other Inspiring People talks visit www.rsgs.org/events/
10. Good dirt games for children unveiled
Students from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design this week unveiled a range of children games promoting good nutrition and active lifestyles.
Around 60 Digital Interaction Design and Product Design students worked with schoolchildren at primary school breakfast clubs throughout Dundee to create the awareness-raising games as part of the 'Good Dirt' project which aims to convey the positive associations of soil, mud and farming.
The students interviewed children at the breakfast clubs about their knowledge of food sources and what kind of activities they found most informative and enjoyable. They then returned to their studios to create a variety of games which they took back to the schools to test on the children.
Christine Kingsley, Design Studies lecturer at DJCAD, said the natural honesty of children meant the students received great feedback for their work.
'It’s fair to say they didn’t pull their punches in telling the students what they did and didn’t like, but this proved to be the perfect type of user testing as the children were very specific in their feedback,' she said.
'It’s a good example of what we call 'co-design' - designing with, rather than for, people to improve their lives. In this case, helping children understand where their food comes from and, we hope, encouraging them to think more about what they eat.'
Some of the children who had taken part in the project attended the unveiling of the games at an exhibition in the Dalhousie Building yesterday (December 1).
Partner agencies involved in the project included Dundee City Council, Paediatric Obesity Service Tayside, Home Grown Cereals Authority and the Royal Highland Education Trust Angus Countryside Initiative.
11. Does Humanitarian Intervention Work?
The last Dundee Arts Café session of 2011 will look at humanitarian interventions around the world and whether they actually work.
Dr Norrie MacQueen, senior lecturer in politics and international relations at the School of Humanities, will explore what humanitarian intervention is, what motivates in and whether it serves any useful purpose.
The talk will take place at The McManus Café on Tuesday 6 December at 6pm.
This event is free, open to everyone and will last approximately one hour.
12. Morag takes cross country title
Dentistry student Morag MacLarty regained the Scottish Universities Cross-Country Championship title last month with a win over a challenging three mile course at St Andrews.
The 2009 champion finished this year's race in 23 minutes 36 seconds, a full minute ahead of her nearest rival.
A fourth place finish in 24 minutes 51 seconds for geography PhD student Morgan Windram-Geddes and a 23rd place finish for Julia Orr won a team bronze for the University.
13. Arctic images on show
An exhibition of photographs taken during expeditions to the Arctic in the late-19th century is on display in the University's Tower Building until January.
Alexander Rodger and David Dickson undertook three missions to the Arctic between 1892 and 1894 at the behest of Professor D'Arcy Thompson, who asked them to collect specimens for his Zoology Museum at what was then University College, Dundee.
They also took photographic equipment with them, and managed to capture some fascinating shots of life among the whalers and the native people of some of the northernmost settlements on Earth.
Drawn from three separate collections, these photographs have been brought together for the first time for an exhibition at the Tower Foyer Gallery.
The exhibition has been created by the University's Museum Services in partnership with the University of St Andrews School of Art History, the University of St Andrews Library Special Collections, Dundee Art Galleries & Museums and Perth Museum & Art Gallery.
The exhibition is on display in the Tower Foyer until Thursday, 26th January. It will be closed during University holidays between 23rd December and 3rd January.
For further information contact 01382 384310 or museum@dundee.ac.uk.
14. Research grants information available online
Details of research grants awarded are available on the web at: www.dundee.ac.uk/research/main/fact-file/20070523141349/.
15. What's On?
Find out what's happening around the University at www.dundee.ac.uk/externalrelations/whatson/.
16. Contributing to eContact
The next edition of eContact will be issued on Friday 30 November. Submissions should be emailed to econtact@dundee.ac.uk by midday on Wednesday 14 December 2011. Please include 'item for eContact' in subject heads for all contributions.
There is a 100-200 word limit for items and staff are advised to provide a contact email or website for more information. Contributors must be University staff or students unless in exceptional circumstances.
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