Featherstone High Students Win Medical Research Contest
Idea for battling heart disease judged best in national competition
Teacher Ms Jeyachandran (centre) flanked by the winning team of Year 13 students: Alafiya, Amitoj, Maryam, Zarifah, Amsha and Dania
A team of students from Featherstone High School have beaten competition from schools across the country to win a national medical research contest.
The sixth formers triumphed in the Science at Heart competition which was held to find ideas for tackling heart disease and also inspire scientists of the future. It was run by the British Heart Foundation Centre of Research Excellence at Imperial College London.
The six-strong team of sixth form students worked together to design a health product and submit an e-poster advertising its benefits. The aim of the competition was for each school team to illustrate a strategy for bringing hard sciences and biomedicine together to reduce the number of deaths and disabilities caused by heart and circulatory disease.
In total, 50 schools from across the country entered, many of them private. Featherstone High’s team devised a proposal for a statin patch and had to run a presentation of their e-poster and the method behind it to a panel of judges from the British Heart Foundation and Imperial College London. They were one of only two state schools to be shortlisted in the top 10, before eventually being declared the overall winners.
The first prize was £3,000 for the school, which will be spent on a STEM-related activity (science, technology, engineering and maths). The students will be meeting with Imperial College faculty members to discuss the issues raised by the poster and their presentation in more detail and will receive mentoring from them. In addition, the team will be invited to contribute to the British Heart Foundation blog.
Headteacher Gerry Wadwa said, “We were delighted to receive another national recognition of excellence. Teams of sixth form students were required to design an innovative health product which could reduce the prevalence of heart disease seen in this country. In the finals, we were up against a field of 10 schools dominated by leading independent schools and grammar schools but, nevertheless, secured first prize of £3,000 for the design and presentation of our product to improve heart health – a statin patch. Many congratulations to the sixth form team for coming up with such a great idea and delivering an outstanding presentation and also to Ms Jeyachandran, who led this initiative.”
Professor Dorian Haskard at Imperial College London’s British Heart Foundation Centre of Research Excellence said, “This is a great opportunity for sixth form students to come together, think creatively, and put forward scientific solutions that could protect people from the devastation of heart and circulatory disease.”
Professor Metin Avkiran, British Heart Foundation’s associate medical director, said, “Despite the immense and complex challenges presented by the pandemic, COVID-19 has shone a bright light on the value of medical research. Science has the power to save and improve lives and it is vital that we inspire and nurture the next generation of cardiovascular researchers. We hope this competition will ignite a fire in students and encourage them to embark on a scientific career.”
Like Reading Articles Like This? Help Us Produce More This site remains committed to providing local community news and public interest journalism. Articles such as the one above are integral to what we do. We aim to feature as much as possible on local societies, charities based in the area, fundraising efforts by residents, community-based initiatives and even helping people find missing pets. We’ve always done that and won’t be changing, in fact we’d like to do more. However, the readership that these stories generates is often below that needed to cover the cost of producing them. Our financial resources are limited and the local media environment is intensely competitive so there is a constraint on what we can do. We are therefore asking our readers to consider offering financial support to these efforts. Any money given will help support community and public interest news and the expansion of our coverage in this area. A suggested monthly payment is £8 but we would be grateful for any amount for instance if you think this site offers the equivalent value of a subscription to a daily printed newspaper you may wish to consider £20 per month. If neither of these amounts is suitable for you then contact info@neighbournet.com and we can set up an alternative. All payments are made through a secure web site. One-off donations are also appreciated. Choose The Amount You Wish To Contribute. If you do support us in this way we’d be interested to hear what kind of articles you would like to see more of on the site – send your suggestions to the editor. For businesses we offer the chance to be a corporate sponsor of community content on the site. For £30 plus VAT per month you will be the designated sponsor of at least one article a month with your logo appearing if supplied. If there is a specific community group or initiative you’d like to support we can make sure your sponsorship is featured on related content for a one off payment of £50 plus VAT. All payments are made through a secure web site. |
December 2, 2021
