Inspiring the scientists of tomorrow

Vasculitis UK is so pleased to announce that we have co-sponsored the Fourth Annual “Science in Medicine School Teams Prize” to engage sixth-form school students with science in medicine. The National Heart and Lung Institute, the British Heart Foundation’s Centre of Research Excellence at Imperial College London, offers the annual prize, and we are so glad to be involved in the 2024 competition. The deadline for submissions is 1st July 2024.

The aims are to encourage students to:

• stretch beyond the school curriculum, think outside the bubble of traditional biomedical fields, and learn about the excitement of research.
• consider how trends in science and engineering will impact on health and medicine in the future.
• understand the importance of a multidisciplinary approach and teamwork to effective research and development for improvements in public and individual health.
• forward think realistically by realising the importance of affordability, availability and acceptability in translating inventions towards a reduction in inequality-related poor health outcomes.
• appreciate the importance of effective communication in rolling out scientific developments, with an emphasis on art and design.

We are proud to be involved with this amazing challenge to spread the word and encourage new ideas in vasculitis research.

The Vasculitis UK prize. The challenge is to provide a novel vision of how science can improve the health and wellbeing of patients with vasculitis. The focus can be on a particular subtype of vasculitis or on vasculitis in general. There is no fixed topic, but suggestions include: 

• helping earlier diagnosis
• providing effective disease monitoring
• managing the problem of physical and mental fatigue
• reducing infections and/or improve patient response to vaccines whilst on drugs that suppress the immune system

Teams should research the disease using reliable sources. Help understanding the patient’s perspective can be gained by visiting Vasculitis UK. This prize is supported by the Immunology Theme of the Imperial NIHR Biomedical Research Centre and sponsored by Vasculitis UK.

For more information, please follow this link. We would love it if you could share with any contacts who have school connections and would be interested in joining a team.

If you have any questions, please email [email protected]