Charing Cross Campus celebrates Centenary and Faculty’s tenth birthday

Interactive exhibits teach visitors about research on the campus - News

Tuesday 2 October 2007
By Laura Gallagher

Imperial’s Charing Cross Campus was a hive of activity last week, with people from across the campus taking part in events to celebrate ten years of the formation of the Faculty of Medicine, and the College’s Centenary.

Research activities were showcased with a week of interactive exhibits in Charing Cross Hospital; local school students paid the campus a visit for a special event where they could find out more about studying medicine; and staff were thanked for all their hard work with a celebratory barbecue, complete with birthday cake.

Interactive exhibits

All week, Imperial staff and medical students gave visitors to Charing Cross Hospital the opportunity to take part in various medicine-related activities and to find out about the research that takes place on the Campus.

On Monday, members of the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology talked to visitors about the different elements of their research into the basic science and disease mechanisms of rheumatoid and osteoarthritis, and the effects of rheumatic diseases.

On Tuesday, staff from the National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI) offered passers-by a free test to measure how well their lungs were functioning. Visitors were asked to blow into a tube as hard as possible and a small machine then evaluated the condition of their lungs, based on how fast the person could blow, how long the person could blow for and the volume of their lungs.

The NHLI’s respiratory research interests at Charing Cross are concerned with investigating how to deliver effective healthcare to people with lung disease and how best to deliver care to such people within the community. For example, the Institute has recently finished a large trial which concluded that educating people with asthma about their own condition, so that they can manage it more effectively themselves, had great benefits for their health.

On Wednesday, teachers, researchers and administrators from the Department of Primary Care and Social Medicine chatted to visitors about their work and about how a healthy diet and exercise could improve their health and wellbeing. Visitors could have their blood pressure tested, peak flow measured (a test used to monitor asthma and other lung diseases) and use a breathalyser to test their alcohol levels. Raised blood pressure was found amongst several visitors, allowing the department to make a real contribution to the "silent epidemic" of hypertensive disease.

On Thursday and Friday the Division of Neuroscience and Mental Health organised a variety of interactive exhibits to showcase their work. Two of these allowed visitors to look at how their own eyes move. They could try out a portable eye tracker called a Saccadometer, which measures the timing of fast eye movements and is being used to assess function in Huntington's disease patients.

People were also invited to have their eye movements recorded using a Video Oculography System, which shows very large images of the eye and can track eye movements in all directions. As well as being used to measure eye movements, this technology can also be used to test balance, because human balance relies on reflex connections between the brain, inner ear and the eyes.

Researchers displayed newspaper articles describing Imperial work on areas such as the basis of the 'broken escalator phenomenon,' the strange sensation of losing balance when stepping on to a moving stairway that is not working. They also talked to visitors about the treatments which can be used for patients with balance disorders.

Muscles were under the spotlight an exhibit where people were invited to watch the activity of their own muscles, courtesy of a device which records the electrical activity that takes place when a person’s muscles move. This method can detect abnormalities in patients’ muscles.

In the second, visitors could try a magnetic stimulator, which sends a brief magnetic pulse to the brain in order to make muscles move. This technology is used within the field of Neurology and Neurophysiology to test nerve conduction and nerve velocity in neurodegenerative disease.

In another exhibit, visitors could learn various interesting facts about the brain, where it is, what it does and how to get a look at it or its function - this included "testing" one aspect of their own nervous system's function by eliciting reflexes.

Visitors could also test their cognitive functioning by trying Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB) tests. For these tests, people complete a series of exercises by interacting with different patterns on touch screens, to assess memory, attention, processing speed, visuospatial function and executive function.

Schools event

About 150 secondary school students descended onto the Campus on Tuesday 25 September for an event entitled "The Science of Becoming a Doctor". They watched some fun lectures by Chris Kennard, Professor of Neurology and Deputy Principal of the Faculty of Medicine; Tracy Hussell, Professor of Inflammatory Disease; Jagdeep Nanchahal, Professor of Hand, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery; and John Laycock, Professor of Endocrine Psychology.

After the lectures, the students took part in an interactive session with members of the Students Union. Pupils lay on benches having Doppler ultrasound scans, tried their hand at carrying out suturing procedures on prosthetic models of wounds and had a go on a portable eye movement tracker.

The day also gave the pupils an opportunity to chat to current medical students about their experiences of life at Imperial and studying medicine.

Staff barbecue

Torrential rain did not dampen the enthusiasm of the many members of staff who came together for a celebratory barbecue on the afternoon of Wednesday 26 September.

Sheltering in the Reynolds Bar, specially decked out for the occasion, around 175 staff enjoyed barbecue food and a slice of birthday cake, custom-decorated with the Medical school insignia in honour of ten years of the Faculty.

Entertainment was provided by Professor Adolfo Bronstein from the Division of Neurosciences and Mental Health, a keen flute and saxophone player, who played with his band, Jazz to Go. "The event was a great success despite the weather," said Campus Administrator Kathleen Ellis, who helped organise the afternoon.