Podcasts about sussex medical school

Full Episode available: 5/3/2025 This Airing Pain episode explores how neurodivergent individuals experience pain, potential links to hypermobility, and the need for better education to support conditions like autism and ADHD.  Neurodiversity refers to the different ways a person's brain processes information.  It is an umbrella term used to describe a number of conditions including Autism or Autism Spectrum Conditions; ADHD; Dyscalculia; Dyslexia; Dyspraxia, or Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD), and more. In this episode:  Dr. Clive Kelly discusses research on co-occurring conditions in neurodivergence, highlighting varied symptoms and how pain perception differs among individuals. Dr Jessica Eccles talks about her research into the relationship between joint hypermobility and neurodevelopmental conditions like ADHD and autism.  We hear from Ren Martin, an autistic learning disability nurse and mother of three neurodivergent children, and Ceri Reid of Parents Voices in Wales, advocating for better neurodiversity and mental health services. Throughout the episode, we hear from Imogen Warner, whose writings are featured in the Autistic Girls Network, and who highlights the reality of being a young autistic person. Contributors:  Dr. Clive Kelly, Consultant Physician and Rheumatologist, James Cook University Hospital and University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.  Dr Jessica Eccles, Reader in Brain-Body Medicine at Brighton and Sussex Medical School.  Ren Martin, neurodevelopmental specialist.  Ceri Reid, neurodivergent mother and founder of Parents Voices in Wales. Imogen Warner, student with lived experience of autism and chronic pain.  Jane Green MBE, founder of SEDSConnective We are immensely grateful to The British Humane Association and The Heather Hoy Charitable Trust whose generous grants made this podcast possible.

In this episode of Behind the Genes, we explore how ethical preparedness can offer a more compassionate and collaborative approach to genomic medicine. Drawing on insights from the EPPiGen Project, our guests discuss how creative storytelling methods, like poetry, have helped families and professionals navigate the complex emotional, ethical and practical realities of genomics. Our guests reflect on the power of involving patients and families as equal partners in research, and how this can lead to more inclusive, empathetic, and effective care. The conversation explores how ethics can be a tool for support, not just regulation, and how creating space for people to share their stories can have a lasting impact on healthcare delivery. Our host for this episode, Dr Natalie Banner, Director of Ethics at Genomics England is joined by Professor Bobbie Farsides, Professor of Clinical and Biomedical Ethics and Dr Richard Gorman, Senior Research Fellow, both at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, and Paul Arvidson, member of the Genomics England Participant Panel and the Dad's Representative for SWAN UK. Paul shares his poem 'Tap tap tap' from the Helix of Love poetry book and we also hear from Lisa Beaton and Jo Wright, both members of the Participant Panel. "The project gave us the tools to find a different way to get at all of those things inside of all of us who were going through that experience... It's almost like a different lens or a different filter to give us a way to look at all those things, almost like a magnifying lens; you can either hold it really close to your eye and it gives you like a blurry view of the world that goes on and you can relax behind that and find a way to explore things in a funny way or an interesting way, but you can also go really close into the subject and then you've got to deal with the things that are painful and the things that are difficult and the things that have had an impact." You can download the transcript, or read it below. Natalie: Welcome to Behind the Genes. Bobbie: In an earlier conversation with Paul, he used the word ‘extractive,' and he said that he's been involved in research before, and looking back on it he had felt at times it could be a little bit extractive. You come in, you ask questions, you take the data away and analyse it, and it might only be by chance that the participants ever know what became of things next. One of the real principles of this project was always going to be co-production and true collaboration with our participants. Our participants now have a variety of ways in which they can transport their voices into spaces that they previously found maybe alienating, challenging, and not particularly welcoming. Natalie: My name is Natalie Banner, I'm the Director of Ethics at Genomics England and your host on today's episode of Behind the Genes. Today I'll be joined by Paul Arvidson, a member of the participant panel at Genomics England, Professor Bobbie Farsides, Professor of Clinical and Biomedical Ethics at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, and Dr Rich Gorman, Senior Research Fellow, also at Bright and Sussex Medical School.  Today, we'll be exploring the ethical preparedness in genomic medicine or EPPiGen Project. This project examined how the promise and challenges of genomic medicine are understood and experienced by the people at the heart of it, both the clinicians providing care and the patients and families involved.  A big part of the EPPiGen Project explored using creative methods of storytelling and poetry to explore the experiences of parents of children with rare genetic conditions.  We'll discuss why the idea of ethical preparedness is crucial in genomic medicine to acknowledge the challenges and uncertainties that often accompany the search for knowledge and treatment in genomic healthcare, and to help professionals develop the skills to navigate the complex ethical considerations.    If you enjoy today's episode we'd love your support. Please like, share and rate us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Is there a guest you'd really like to hear on a future episode?  Get in touch at podcast@genomicsengland.co.uk. So, I'm going to ask our fantastic guests to introduce themselves.  Paul, would you like to go first? Paul: Hi, I'm Paul Arvidson. As well as my Genomics England hat, I've got a SWAN hat as well, I'm the dads' rep for SWAN UK, and I'm on the poets from the EPPiGen Project.  Natalie: Brilliant to have you hear today. Thanks, Paul. Rich?  Rich: Hi, I'm Rich Gorman, I'm a Senior Research Fellow at Brighton and Sussex Medical School and I've been working on some of the research on the EPPiGen Project that looks at people's social and ethical experiences of genomic medicine, and particularly families' lived experiences of genomics.  Natalie: Brilliant. Really looking forward to hearing from you. And Bobbie?  Bobbie: Hello, I'm Bobbie Farsides, I'm Professor of Clinical and Biomedical Ethics at Brighton and Sussex Medical School and co-PI with Professor Anneke Lucasson of the Wellcome Trust funded EPPiGen Project, and it's been my pleasure and privilege to be involved in the work that we're going to talk about today.  Natalie: Really fantastic to have the 3 of you here today. So, we're going to take a slightly unusual approach to starting the podcast today and we're going to begin with Paul who's going to read us a poem from the book Helix of Love. Paul, over to you.  Paul: This is called Tap, Tap, Tap.  ‘Tap, tap, tap, I hold the egg to my ear. There it is again, tap, tap, tap. Run to get a torch and light through the shell, to see who's tapping from within. Chicken's home from work these days just for fun and the odd egg. Market stalls swapped for medicines, cash boxes for cough machines. We kept the apron though. Profound learning disability is our life now, most of it, learning about it, learning from it, surviving with it, despite. It's a subtle egg though, this. The shell is there, invisible, but there's a person inside, tap, tap, tap.  What are you trying to tell us about what the world's like for you? Are you bored? Do you hurt? Is your sister a love or a pain? Tap, tap, tap. I wish I could set you free.'  Natalie: Thank you, Paul. Such beautiful and powerful words. I wonder if you wouldn't mind telling us a little bit about that poem and your journey and maybe touch on what the EPPiGen Project has meant for you.  Paul: Wow, that's a lot to unpack in one go. I suppose the oddness of the metaphor is probably worth a mention. The way the project worked is that Bobbie and Rich collected together a proper poet, Dawn Gorman, and she led us through the process of kind of, she basically taught us all to be poets from scratch, it was… When you say it like that it was a hugely audacious project really to just collect all these randoms together in a room and throw a poet at them and see what happened.   And they trusted us, I suppose, and trusted Dawn that there was going to be something came out of this. But one of Dawn's techniques was that like each week we did… I think we did… Did we do 6 weeks, chaps? Which felt like a huge amount of time, but it went in milliseconds. But what she did every week was that she gave us either a poetic form to work with, like, you know, “This week we're going to learn how to do a haiku, or a sonnet,” or whatever, or she'd gone away and thought of a particular poem that she thought might resonate with us and then she'd bring that to the session. And she'd read a poem out and then say, “Right, what did you make of this? Go away and write what it inspires you to write.”    So, the poem that I wrote was, the inspiration for that session was a poem called The Egg by Richard Skinner. His poem was more about the form of the object itself, so, although that sounds really abstract, it really, really helped. So, every week it would be like Dawn threw this object into the group and said, “Right, okay, here's your new prompt, bosh, off you go.” And although that sounds like the most obscure way to deal with anything, because you get a structure around which to organise your thoughts it was just this like hugely powerful thing for everybody.    And so, the thing that came to mind for me was the metaphor of the egg rather than the egg itself and it just kind of chimed with all of us. Like we used to run the egg stall in Minehead farmers' market and so, I married into a country girl and so she had like 200 laying hens at one point, and so we had this whole market stall antics but also it spoke to so many things in one hit. So we gave up that part of our lives as our daughter Nenah's condition became more and more complex.    She was always, once we knew what her genetic condition was one of the few things that we knew from the get-go was that it was progressive. So we knew in advance that that was the case, but we didn't know what that meant. And so slowly but surely one of the things we had to do was give up our working life, you know, one week and one hour at a time, it felt. So part of the poem's about that as well, the shift in the poem from the comedy bit to the beginning to the more serious bits at the end, and it kind of felt like we gave those things up day by day but the poem kind of got to speak to that.   And then there's also the metaphor. Once you've got a good metaphor it's always good to run with it, you know? And so the idea of the metaphor of somebody who's got profound learning disabilities and can't speak being inside this shell and as parents you're always kind of peeking in from the outside to see what's going on within or to try and find ways, the idea of when you're checking to see if you've got a chick inside your shell, and you do this thing called ‘candle' where you hold the light to it, that I describe in the poem, and you like hold it to your ear and hear if there's movement going on inside. And you kind of, I don't know, I felt with a profoundly learning-disabled child that you always feel like you're doing that as a parent as well to see if what you're doing is, you know, if you're still communicating while you're trying to be a parent.  Natalie: Fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing that with us, Paul, both the poem and also your exploration of how you got to that point in writing that poem.  Tremendously powerful to kind of understand and hear about that experience.  Bobbie, if I can come to you. Paul referred to that project as kind of audacious, can you tell us a little bit about the origins of the Helix of Love but also why storytelling, especially through poetry, was so important for the EPPiGen Project?  Bobbie: Yes, of course, Natalie. But can I start by saying I was so pleased that you got Paul to speak for a while after because I always have to compose myself after hearing these poems because they really do hit so powerfully, however many times you hear them. And I think that is part of what we wanted to achieve with this project, we wanted to use innovative research methods, we wanted to be…  I love the word ‘audacious'; I'm going to borrow that.  We wanted to be audacious; we wanted to be courageous, and let me tell you, our Ethics Committee were a little bit worried about the sorts of things we told them we wanted to do. But we knew because we live and work in Brighton that the world is full of creative people and we'd already had such wonderful partnerships with people over the years, we knew that we could draw people into this project who would help us to work with this fabulous group of parents ,in a way that would give them, as Paul says, an opportunity to explore their own feelings and their own experience and share it as they wished.    In an earlier conversation with Paul, which he might find surprising that it's stuck with me so much, he used the word ‘extractive' and he said that he'd been involved in research before and looking back on it he had felt at times it could be a little bit extractive. You come in, you ask questions, you take the data away and analyse it and it might only be by chance that the participants ever know what became of things next. One of the real principles of this project was always going to be co-production and true collaboration with our participants, and the poetry project probably wouldn't have come about if it hadn't been for the passion of one of our participants who was sort of finding a love for poetry herself and said, “Can we try this next?” So, you know, it means so much to Rich and I that we ended up with this amazing book, but it's not our book, it's our poets', as we like to refer to them, book.   So, one of the things that we are so pleased about in this project is that our participants now have a variety of ways in which they can transport their voices into spaces that they previously found maybe alienating, challenging, and not particularly welcoming. And I think another wonderful upshot from this project has been how receptive people have been to the work. And it's a sort of commonly held myth that your average philosophy article has a readership of 3.4 people. Rich created a wonderful map to show how Helix has travelled round the world and touched thousands of people – I don't think that's an exaggeration – and we couldn't be more grateful for that as researchers because we feel as passionately about these subjects as our participants and it is they who have really got this project on the map. Paul, you were going to come in, I hope.  Paul: I feel like the one thing that this project really did was, I know PPIE is a phrase that's bandied round but this project kind of stripped that theme apart and took the ‘I' bit, this project is like built around inclusion and because it felt like, if we'd have just been jumping in a room with Dawn and told to get on with it, I don't think it would've worked as well. The idea that it was kind of curated by Bobbie and Rich, we very much felt like our hands were held through the process, and after them having had to kick down doors in the Ethics Department to be able to get the project through at all, it's like “What are you going to do to these poor parents?” having gone through that process themselves behind the scenes, then to kind of feel like we were guided through this process. And we were guided and held, and they were super-aware of all of us. And the fact that every time you tell these stories as a parent who's gone through them there's a cost. And we've had this discussion with the panel before and the communication group, about the fact that every time you come to a parent and say, “Tell us your story” there's a cost.   And so, they were aware of that, and they held that in both of their hands and so it couldn't have been anything other than this collaborative project by the time we'd finished.  Advert: The Genomics England Research Summit is fast approaching and registration is now open! Join us for this one day in-person event on Tuesday 17 June 2025. This year's agenda dives into rare condition diagnosis, cancer genomics, pharmacogenomics, therapeutic trials, and the impact of emerging technologies. Hear from leading experts and inspirational speakers as we explore the present and future of genomics and the latest research and technology from the Genomics England research community. Keep an eye on the website, genomicsresearchsummit.co.uk for all the details and to secure your spot. Spaces are limited, so don't miss out. We'll see you at the summit! Natalie: We're going to hear a clip from Lisa Beaton, a member of the participant panel at Genomics England, who shares what it has meant for her to take part in the project.  Lisa: It was an amazing opportunity. I had a huge sense of imposter syndrome actually when I as invited to join, because I was aware of some of the people who'd already taken part in the project and although I can bring lived experience to the table I don't really consider myself as a creative writer or anything like that, although I do enjoy it. When I first started in the group, we were just doing free-flowing writing. It was really cathartic, and I didn't expect that in any way, shape or form. To put pen to paper without necessarily having any strategy in mind, just letting the thoughts come out and ramble away, I didn't really know what was going to come blurting out onto my notepad, and reading some of it back was moving but it was frustrating. It was moving, it was everything really, that opportunity just as a safe space, knowing I didn't have to share it with anybody if I didn't want to but I could, and I could just, I suppose I would call it almost like a brain fart, it just rambled away and maybe it was a way of downloading some of the emotions that I was carrying.   As the project went on and we explored different creative mediums I really enjoyed that and found different skills that I wouldn't have thought about. And it was very thought-provoking, being able to go back and think about some of our very early experiences, which is, not that I've buried them but it's just you move on to deal with the here and now, and it brought me back to some of those very raw emotions of the first days which I think are, I hope, helpful to certainly the medical community in terms of thinking about how they talk to new parents going through similar situations. I was very grateful.  Natalie: Rich, I'd like to come to you now. As Bobbie and Paul have both mentioned, the outputs for this project have really spread far and wide and maybe beyond the kind of academic circles that you might typically think. I'd really like to hear from you about how you think the project has helped healthcare professionals, particularly really enabling them to understand a little bit more about what it means to be part of a genomic healthcare service and the journey that patients and families go through. Would you share a little bit about your experience in the project, particularly for healthcare professionals?  Rich: Yeah, I mean, that was one of the things that when Bobbie and I set out to do this, that was one of the real aims, was to sort of help healthcare professionals have a bit more of an insight into what it means to access genomic medicine services from a patient or family perspective. And, as Bobbie said, there were 2 ways we could have gone and done this; we could've done some sort of conventional social science interviews, written that up in a lovely social science or philosophy journal article and no one would've probably read it, but instead we thought about the power of the arts to actually change in terms of how we were sort of collecting and collating people's stories and then how we were sharing and disseminating those stories as well. And I think the medium by which stories are told affect the kind of stories that get told, as Paul was sort of hinting at earlier.    When we ask patients to tell us their story, you know, there's a level of expectation there about what people are being asked to say in a form in a way, and certainly we didn't get people in a room and say, “You must write about genomics.” So many of the poems in the collection aren't really about sequencing or big data, they're about these kind of much wider themes of everyday life. And I think that's been really powerful in allowing healthcare professionals to sort of understand for patients obviously genomics is really important but it's not the be all and end all of everything that's going on in their lives, you know, there are so many other pressures, so many other hopes and desires, and people want an opportunity to express some of those positive aspects of their life with their loved ones and it not just be medicalised all of the time.    Again, as Bobbie said, it's also opened up our research travelling really well and just become something that's really accessible for people to pick up and read through, and I've had conversations with healthcare professionals that have said, “Oh I read through the book of poetry and it's made me realise all of these things.” Language particularly has been a really prominent theme that people have reported, telling us they've learnt a lot about it, and thinking about how they write their letters and how they communicate with people. And obviously this isn't new, you know, bioethicists for years have been talking about the need to communicate very carefully, very precisely and in a caring way, but I think there's something about communicating those messages through a really powerful art form like poetry through patients' own words that allows clinicians and healthcare professionals to sort of really get the impact of that in a very, very powerful way.  Natalie: Thanks, Rich, really helpful insights there. I really want to pick up on your point about language and come back to Paul on that because I know that's a topic area that can often be, you know, hugely sensitive to families that the medicalisation, the terminology that's used, especially, you know, complex areas like genomics, coming back to this term we mentioned earlier about being sort of alienating. How have you found that the work through the EpiGen project and Helix of Love, has it potentially helped the way that families can think about the right sorts of language and enable health professionals to sort of approach some of these questions in a slightly more human way? Paul: Difficult to say. It's a very, very live topic all the time. There's like a backchat communications channel with the Genomics England panel where, because we all go along and do this thing, but we all share that genomics common thread in our lives. One parent was breaking their heart about the fact that they'd had sight of genetic science reports that basically described their child, and children like them as ‘lumped together' in a project, and she was gutted about it. And we all were as well, and we were all open-mouthed about it. The whole idea of kind of separating the science and the science language out from the people who are involved, it is our job, isn't it, you know, our job as the panel members is to remind people that those are people, not statistics. But it's a really live subject and the more people, the more professionals who can be reminded of that on a daily basis and the more we can find kind and open ways to deliver that message to professionals, and every single day that we do that makes a difference, I think. If one parent has to get less of a letter like that or one professional thinks more carefully about how they phrase stuff before it goes out the door, then that's one less parent who's got to go through that.  Natalie: Absolutely. And I'm thinking about that insight. I suppose the anticipation and the realisation to healthcare professionals about the impact of the way they approach things, the language they use, the kind of mindset they might adopt with parents and families, one really important aspect of the project was to do sort of preparedness and the idea that you should be able to anticipate and plan for and acknowledge some of the ethical challenges that might come through when you're dealing with questions of genomic healthcare where there may be lots of uncertainty, there may be a long journey to go through.   Bobbie, can I come to you to help us unpack this notion of ethical preparedness as a core theme for EPPiGen? Help us understand what that means in kind of simple terms and why does it matter for those who are working in the genomic medicine and healthcare space.  Bobbie: I think the way in which most people will have heard of this concept of preparedness is in relation to disaster planning. We know that some of the good things we try and do in life are also potentially fraught with challenges and difficulties just because of their complexity and because of the wide range of people and organisations that will be involved. Can we take this idea of preparedness and almost say, “You have a moral responsibility to be ethically prepared when, for example, you embark upon a really dramatic change in healthcare delivery or an introduction of fantastic new healthcare innovation”?    And genomics seemed to be the perfect case study for this. We then had to say, “What does that actually mean in practice?” And I think here we wanted to move away from the idea that you can ethically prepare people by putting a small albeit very expert and clever group of people in a room to write guidance and regulations, those things are needed and they're useful. But it's actually much more important to almost recruit everybody, to bring everybody up to speed, so that the ethical challenges aren't a complete shock to those who are delivering the service in the frontline, so that those who plan systems actually think whilst doing so of the ethical challenges that can be posed by the tasks they're attempting to achieve.    And I was a sort of founder member of the Ethics Advisory Committee at Genomics England, and it was so interesting in those early days because there were no patients, there were no participants. We were sitting alongside people whilst they designed and put in place basic processes, strategies and ethics was a part of that. And a really important part of that to me, at those meetings, was hearing what the potential participants had to say about it because, again, the Participant Panel was involved. And I found that those were my people, those were the people who were worrying about, concerned about the same things as I was.  So, I think to be prepared we have to take on the responsibility of giving people who work in ethically challenging areas opportunities to come together to acknowledge the complexity of the task, to share strategies and tools, but also, very importantly, to not become divorced from the people that they are attempting to serve, because in fact we feel that this part of our project, and our project is much bigger than this and we've done some fantastic things working with healthcare professionals, medical scientists, etc, etc, but this part of the project is an attempt to say, “We can better prepare families as well by ensuring that we tell them that their voices are valuable, that they're important, and they help rather than hinder healthcare professionals in doing their jobs.”  Natalie: That's a really important point around the idea that this approach can help, can be positive. Because I think sometimes you think about preparedness and, and quite often with ethics it's about risk, it's about, you know, “How do we avoid the risks?” but there's a very positive story to tell about taking a more preparedness-type approach to thinking through ethical complexities, challenges and so on, both for health professionals and, as you say, for families. I wonder if you could just talk a little bit more about the kind of positive aspects that that can bring to everyone in that genomics healthcare journey, both the health professionals and the families.  Because I think sometimes it's easy just to think that it's mostly about sort of avoiding the risks and the pitfalls, and that might be harder to engage with people if you take that sort of risk-based approach.  Bobbie: Yeah, it's an interesting one. I think the ability to confront risk and uncertainty is a sign of maturity. And we find medical students, for example, hate any sense of uncertainty; they want to be told how to do something and they want to know that they'll be able to do that thing and get it right. And our job is often to say, “Well it's not going to be as easy as that, in fact it might be impossible, and here's what you have to do instead and here's how you allow yourself to fail or to not achieve in the way that you want but still do something really meaningful for the people that you're caring for.”  So, I think there's that aspect of saying, “It's part of medical education, it's part of how we should think in organisations that wherever you take risks, wherever you try to push frontiers, blur boundaries…”  I mean, genomic medicine has done something really interesting in terms of blurring the boundary between scientific research and clinical care. Wherever you do these things there are going to be challenges but those challenges, they're fascinating, they're interesting, they can bring us together. If we've got a shared will to get through them, you know, to make things work, then it's enlivens what you're doing; it's not a barrier.   I sort of began teaching and working in the space of bioethics right back in the ‘80s, which is a shock to you, I'm sure, but in those days I'm afraid that ethics was seen as a block, a barrier, a hurdle that people had to get over or through. And I think there's still a sensitivity, and certainly, I myself have been sort of challenged on critiques that I have offered to say, “Oh that's a bit harsh.” But I think what ethics attempts to do now, and certainly through really putting a positive spin on this idea of working together to establish ethical preparedness in important spaces, is to show that actually ethics can be very facilitative, it can be very supportive, and it can help people. It's not a surveillance mechanism, it's actually another clinical tool and something that, you know, people should seek support around.  Advert: If you're enjoying what you've heard today and you'd like to hear some more great tales from the genomics coalface, why don't you join us on the Road to Genome podcast, where our host, Helen Bethell, chats to the professionals, experts and patients involved in genomics today. In our new series, Helen talks to a fantastic array of guests including the rapping consultant, clinical geneticist Professor Julian Barwell about Fragile X Syndrome, cancer genomics and the holistic approach to his practice. A genuine mic-drop of an interview. The Road to Genome is available wherever you get your podcasts. Natalie: Rich, if I could come to you thinking about that reframing, I suppose, in your own research practice as an early career researcher, whether you're seeing that maturity in approach in thinking about some of these really complex, knotty ethical questions in genomics, are you seeing a greater appreciation for those?  And where do you think you're going to take your research as a result of this project in that space?  Rich: Yeah, thanks, that's a great question. Yeah, I think so, and I think one of the things that's really been revealing in this is the appetite for this kind of work in the sort of genomics sector, an appetite for thinking about the sort of complex ethical issues, for engaging with kind of arts-based research, for sort of finding new language and new spaces to involve patient and family perspectives and stories and think about how we can learn from them.    I think in the highly scientific, highly technical space of genomics we often assume that everyone wants numbers and hard data but actually I think the way that this work has travelled, the amount of invitations we've had to sort of exhibit this work and talk to healthcare professionals and scientists about this work shows that there's this really rich appetite for thinking about this complexity and doing that work of ethical preparedness, as Bobbie's talked about, and I think it's fascinating. And I know a lot of the participants who joined in our project have also sort of had opportunities from being involved in our work and found that there are people that want to listen to their voices and hear from them and learn from them as well. So that's been really exciting, and I hope it will continue and I hope there's opportunities for much more interdisciplinary collaboration in the genomics space with philosophers, with social scientists with ethicists, with artists and, importantly, with patients.    Paul: You mentioned the idea that certainly the poetry at the very least has allowed those voices to get into different spaces, and I think when those things first started happening it was when we at least as the people who'd written the poems felt that there was a huge big impact from this stuff. And I wasn't the first one to read one of these poems out loud, and in a way the collection of poetry became bigger than the sum of its parts in a funny kind of a way. And I can't remember but somebody read one of the poems at a conference somewhere and they said at the end of it that you could've heard a pin drop, and it was just that thought that actually with a big audience expecting kind of quite dry subject matter about genetics, to have felt that moment where the poem got launched off the stage and then it impacted on the audience and then, the way they described it, you could almost kind of feel them describing the ripples of the poem just like spreading out amongst this kind of silent audience and everyone kind of taking this kind of mental sigh of like “Oh that's what it feels like.” And the idea of that happening was when, for me anyway, when we knew that what we'd created was bigger than the sum of its parts and had its own legs, Bobbie and Rich had been the Dr Frankensteins of this kind of amazing, beautiful monster. Natalie: Obviously the poetry's got into your soul, Paul, the metaphors are fantastic. But just to make sure we bring in even more participant voices and perspectives into this we're just going to hear now from Jo Wright, who's another member of the participant panel, who's going to share what the project and the participant in it has meant for her.  Jo: So being part of the EPPiGen Project, it helped me to find my voice in an area that was relatively new to me, and also it was a way to take control of my own experiences rather than feel like I'm being swept along by a lot of systems.    And there were things that I really value that I thought contributed to making the project so successful. One was that they asked the question “What is this experience like for you, the experience of being part of a research project, the 100,000 Genomes experience of waiting, the experience of having your data in the library?” And no one had asked that before. You go to your appointments and you're in the system and, you know, it's kind of, everyone was finding their way to some extent because it was new for all the clinicians as well, but the fact that they asked, because no one asked that before, I don't have an outlet for that.     And then the other thing was that it was completely open so there was no research interview or questionnaire to answer, no expectation about what it was going to look like at the end. And I think working that way really strengthened the connection between us as parents of children with rare conditions and then also our relationships with Bobbie and Rich as the researchers and with the wider clinical community when they started to see our work and respond to it. So it was a way to understand people's individual experiences but it also made us feel connected and empowered through sort of like shared human experience, and that could be between us as the participants but also shared experiences between us and the researchers or us and clinicians and scientists that were looking at what we've done.  Natalie: So we've heard lots about the experience of participating in this fantastic EPPiGen Project, the kind of creative storytelling methods, the audacious methods that have been used, and some fantastic impacts beyond the kind of typical what could be quite dry sort of academic circles that this kind of work has spread out to.  I'd be really interested to hear from each of you about the takeaways, what you've learned, what's changed for you and what you'd like our listeners to really understand about this project and the work, and the sort of outputs from it and the ways it might continue to have resonance and impact going into the future, so whether people are patients, families, clinicians, researchers. What would you like people to remember and what's affected you most about the project?    Bobbie, I might start with you.  Bobbie: I think we have to always be very careful when we get excited about something - and the ‘we' here are the people in the health community, the education community, etc - to remember. As Rich said earlier, that this is only ever going to be quite a small part of other people's lives. You know, we've all devoted big parts of our careers, our enthusiasm, to thinking about genomics, to working in this space. I would really like people to pick up the book and work to understand a bit better about the everyday lives, the hopes, the expectations, the fears of the families who may or may not get a diagnosis, may or may not get on a good treatment path, all of whom want the best for themselves and everybody else from this venture.    But, as Paul knows better than most, it won't come to everybody, and we don't want anybody to be forgotten along the way. The people that signed up for Genomics England as participants were pioneers alongside medics and the scientists, and in these early years we want their experience to be recognised, and their experience goes much beyond their interaction with Genomics England and, unfortunately, all the work that we've produced shows how many challenges families have to face to secure a good life for their children, and I just want us all to just keep that in mind.    Natalie: Incredibly important to maintain that focus, that awareness. And, as you say, Bobbie, there's an interesting balance where there is a need for the drive and the innovation and the ambition to help ensure that we are pushing at the forefront of medical research but not leaving people behind and not ever forgetting, as you say, the experience of people who are actually at the forefront of this research and of genomic healthcare.   Paul, could I ask for your perspectives on this, and particularly how you see patient voices being involved in the future of genomic medicine, especially in light of your experience in the EPPiGen Project?  Paul: I think the biggest surprise and biggest takeaway for me was the project gave me, I mean, I can't speak necessarily for all the other poets, but you only need the evidence in the book itself. They gave us the tools, the project gave us the tools to find a different way to get at all of those things inside of all of us who were going through that experience. So it gave us a way to talk about all of those things and a way that was I suppose slightly removed to start with. It's almost like a different lens or a different filter to give us a way to look at all those things, almost like a magnifying lens; you can either hold it really close to your eye and it gives you like a blurry view of the world that goes on and you can relax behind that and find a way to explore things in a funny way or an interesting way, but you can also go really close into the subject and then you've got to deal with the things that are painful and the things that are difficult and the things that have had an impact.    But, because you've got that tool and you're used to using it or you're familiar with using it, it then gives you that safety. That's how I felt about it anyway, it was a massive tool to be able to get behind all of these things that I didn't even know I was feeling, or I knew they were making me uncomfortable, but I didn't know what they were or what name to give them. So the poetry gave us a chance to get behind all of that. Having read the poems, it feels like it's that for everybody but obviously you'd have to speak to them to know, but it certainly felt like that for me.  Natalie: And, Rich, your perspective.  What are you taking forward from the project, so what would your sort of key takeaway be?  Rich: I think it shows what is possible under that PPIE acronym. And there are many ways to do that involvement and engagement, it doesn't have to be a sort of dry tick-box exercise, there are much more creative ways to bring people's lived experiences and perspectives into conversations with genomics. So really, I suppose it's a call for other people to explore working in this way as well and think about what other kind of creative outputs could work here. I mean, we've had huge success, and I think a really interesting impact from working in this way.    And certainly as an early career researcher it's been really formative in my sort of academic journey, you know, reaffirmed that this is the kind of work that I want to do, working in this really co-productive way. And I think it's possible, it can be done, and, you know, ultimately it's just been a real privilege to do this kind of research, to sort of be trusted to sort of hold a space together for sharing people's stories and give people a platform to share some really powerful profound stories. And going back to what Paul was saying earlier, I think he hit the nail on the head, as he very often does, this is about evoking people's experiences, not just explaining people's experiences, and allowing those stories to travel.  And we don't know where stories will travel, we don't know how stories will travel, we don't know how stories will be received, but we know that they do sort of travel and they do have legacy and they stay memorable to people, they have emotional resonance. So, the impact of this work can often be hard to sort of pin down really specifically, but we know those stories are out there and people are listening and changing their practice as a result.  Natalie: We'll wrap up there. I'd like to thank our guests, Paul Arvidson, Professor Bobbie Farsides and Dr Rich Gorman, for joining me today as we discuss the EPPiGen Project. We heard some powerful insights from patients and families about their experiences, and why ethical preparedness is so important in the context of genomic medicine. If you would like to hear more like this, please subscribe to Behind the Genes on your favourite podcast app. Thank you for listening. I've been your host, Natalie Banner. This podcast was edited by Bill Griffin at Ventoux Digital and produced by Naimah Callachand. 

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rethinkingwellness.substack.comPhilosopher and medical ethics professor Arianne Shavisi joins us to discuss why alternative medicine isn't the answer to a patriarchal healthcare system—and why in many ways it's even worse. We get into the common misconception that alternative medicine is feminist, how alternative medicine differs from scientific medicine, the role of values in people's attraction to alternative medicine, and more. Behind the paywall, we discuss why true patient autonomy and informed consent are impossible in alternative medicine, her thoughts on how to improve scientific medicine so that people aren't drawn to worse alternatives, how she responds to claims that criticizing alternative medicine means discounting “non-Western” cultural knowledge, and more. Paid subscribers can hear the full interview, and the first half is available to all listeners. To upgrade to paid, go to rethinkingwellness.substack.com. Arianne Shahvisi is a Kurdish-British writer and academic philosopher. She studied astrophysics and then philosophy at the universities of Cambridge and Oxford, and now teaches applied philosophy at the Brighton and Sussex Medical School, where her research focusses on gender, race, migration, and health. She writes regularly for the London Review of Books, and her essays have also appeared in the Guardian, the Independent, and the Economist. Her first book, Arguing for a Better World: How Philosophy Can Help Us Fight for Social Justice, was published by Penguin in 2023.If you like this conversation, subscribe to hear lots more like it! Support the podcast by becoming a paid subscriber, and unlock great perks like extended interviews, subscriber-only Q&As, full access to our archives, commenting privileges and subscriber threads where you can connect with other listeners, and more. Learn more and sign up at rethinkingwellness.substack.com.Christy's second book, The Wellness Trap, is available wherever books are sold! Order it here, or ask for it in your favorite local bookstore. If you're looking to make peace with food and break free from diet and wellness culture, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course.

 Airing Pain 148: Links between hypermobility and neurodivergence Released on: 5/3/2025 This Airing Pain episode explores how neurodivergent individuals experience pain, potential links to hypermobility, and the need for better education to support conditions like autism and ADHD.  Neurodiversity refers to the different ways a person's brain processes information.  It is an umbrella term used to describe a number of conditions including Autism or Autism Spectrum Conditions; ADHD; Dyscalculia; Dyslexia; Dyspraxia, or Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD), and more. In this episode:  Dr. Clive Kelly discusses research on co-occurring conditions in neurodivergence, highlighting varied symptoms and how pain perception differs among individuals. Dr Jessica Eccles talks about her research into the relationship between joint hypermobility and neurodevelopmental conditions like ADHD and autism.  We hear from Ren Martin, an autistic learning disability nurse and mother of three neurodivergent children, and Ceri Reid of Parents Voices in Wales, advocating for better neurodiversity and mental health services. Throughout the episode, we hear from Imogen Warner, whose writings are featured in the Autistic Girls Network, and who highlights the reality of being a young autistic person. Contributors:  Dr. Clive Kelly, Consultant Physician and Rheumatologist, James Cook University Hospital and University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.  Dr Jessica Eccles, Reader in Brain-Body Medicine at Brighton and Sussex Medical School.  Ren Martin, neurodevelopmental specialist.  Ceri Reid, neurodivergent mother and founder of Parents Voices in Wales. Imogen Warner, student with lived experience of autism and chronic pain.  Jane Green MBE, founder of SEDSConnective We are immensely grateful to The British Humane Association and The Heather Hoy Charitable Trust whose generous grants made this podcast possible. Time Stamps:  00:43 Understanding Neurodivergence and Pain 04:46 The Relationship between Hypermobility and Neurodivergence 12:06 Gender Differences in Diagnosis and Pain 13:49 Ren Martin's Personal Experience 32:27 Diagnosis for Neurodivergent Individuals 35:18 Challenges in Education for Neurodivergent Children 42:40 Training for Educators and Healthcare Workers Links Referred to in this Episode:     School toolkit for JHS and EDS - School Toolkit for EDS and JHS Parents Voices in Wales: Resources & Key Documents – Parents Voices in Wales CIC Autistic Girls Network: https://autisticgirlsnetwork.org/ Ehlers-Danloss Society: https://www.ehlers-danlos.com Hypermobility Syndrome Association. - The HMSA | The Hypermobility Syndromes Association Healios: https://healios.org.uk/ SEDSConnective: https://www.sedsconnective.org/  If you have any feedback about Airing Pain, you can leave us a review via our Airing Pain survey                                                                                                                                                                    

Welcome back to a newly relaunched ADHD Women's Wisdom episode! These are snippets from previous guests, bringing back their wisdom from the conversation so you can re-process their fascinating insights and essential knowledge to empower you with more awareness and support. If you've had ongoing and unexplained chronic pain, fatigue, gut issues, dizziness, anxiety, dislocations, sprains or aching joints, you may be interested in this week's episode discussing the intersection of Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes, Hypermobility and neurodivergence. This week's Wisdom guest is Dr Jessica Eccles, a Clinical Senior Lecturer at Brighton and Sussex Medical School in the Department of Neuroscience. Her research is on brain-body interactions, particularly related to joint hypermobility. She is an adult liaison psychiatrist and consultant in the Sussex Neurodevelopmental Service and co-lead of their Neurodivergent Brain Body Clinic.Dr. Eccles highlights the prevalence of hypermobility and its association with various symptoms, including chronic pain and fatigue, which can significantly impact individuals' quality of life. Furthermore, she emphasizes the importance of understanding these interconnections, particularly as they relate to neurodivergent individuals who may experience compounded difficulties. On today's ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast, Kate Moryoussef and Dr Jessica Eccles talk about: The intricate relationship between neurodivergence and hypermobility. The complexities surrounding hypermobility, including its diagnosis and associated symptoms. Resources that can facilitate understanding and management of hypermobility symptoms. The prevalence of hypermobility in neurodivergent populations emphasises the need for further research. Individuals with hypermobility may experience a spectrum of symptoms requiring tailored management strategies. Advocating for increased awareness and education among healthcare providers regarding hypermobility and its implications. What is Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS)The symptoms, challenges and advantages of hypermobilityThe link between (H)EDS, hypermobility and ADHD/neurodivergenceSide effects of hypermobilityThe interlinks of hypermobility and neurodivergenceHormones, EDS and hypermobility frequency in women and how it presents differently in menFibromyalgia, hypermobility and ADHD connectionsLooking for support? Join my brand-new online coaching programme, From Burnout to Activating Your ADHD Brilliance. Starting on 3rd March, this will be an intimate and personalised coaching experience for only 10 women. Find Kate's popular online workshops and free resources here.Kate Moryoussef is a women's ADHD lifestyle and wellbeing coach and EFT practitioner who helps overwhelmed and unfulfilled newly diagnosed ADHD women find more calm, balance, hope, health, compassion, creativity and clarity. Follow the podcast on Instagram.Follow Kate on Instagram.Companies mentioned in this episode: EDS UK EDS Society SEDS Connective Links referenced in this episode:

La depressione nelle persone anziane sembra associarsi a un declino della memoria più rapido. È la conclusione cui è giunto lo studio di un team dell’University College di Londra (UCL) e della Brighton and Sussex Medical School pubblicato su JAMA Network Open 2024. A Obiettivo Salute il commento del dottor Renzo Rozzini, direttore del dipartimento geriatrico dell’istituto ospedaliero Fondazione Poliambulanza di Brescia.

Join Imran Akram and Talib Man for Monday's show from 4-6pm where we will be discussing: ‘UK Diseases' and ‘Debt' UK Diseases We'll delve into the resurgence of diseases from the Victorian era and explore the implications of this phenomenon. Our discussion aims to uncover the root causes behind this resurgence and evaluate its potential impact. Furthermore, we'll examine strategies to mitigate or stop this concerning trend. Debt With the UK currently suffering from major inflation and cost of living crisis. Those who are fortunate have been able to cut-back on their spending. But a lot of low-income families have been struggling. Online financial support services have reported a 37% increase in people seeking help on their finances. Join us as we discuss ways to cut back on spending and the support available for people struggling with debt. Guests include: Mazz Malik (Final year medical student at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, Bsc in Neuroscience) Basma Ikram (Training to be a GP in West-Midlands, student of Master's degree in Global health) Simon Trevethick (Head of Communications at the charity Step Change) Helen Webb (Relationship Manager at Christians Against Poverty)   Producers: Mutbashra Ahmed, Manahil Khalid, Prevish Huma and Nadia Shamas

We're back for episode 3 of The Paeds Round with special guest Dr Katy Fidler joining our hosts Emma Lim and Christo Tsilifis to talk about the management of herpes simplex virus. We discuss stigma, when to worry about HSV, the importance of early detection and what to look out for. Katy is a Paediatric Infectious Diseases Consultant in Brighton and a Reader in Paediatrics at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. She also currently runs the national study on neonatal herpes through the British Paediatric Surveillance Unit. This is the final episode in our three-part mini-series on HSV. We'll return in the new year to discuss fever. Download transcript: https://www.rcpch.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2023-12/The-paeds-round-transcript-HSV-management.pdf  This podcast is a collaboration between the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (https://www.rcpch.ac.uk) and Medisense (https://www.medisense.org.uk). Subscribe to The paeds round for more educational episodes! And, you can find more RCPCH educational resources on RCPCH Learning (https://learning.rcpch.ac.uk).  Want to hear more from RCPCH? Search for and subscribe to RCPCH Podcasts, our main channel.

If you've had ongoing and unexplained chronic pain, fatigue, gut issues, dizziness, anxiety, dislocations, sprains or aching joints, you may be interested in this week's episode discussing the intersection of Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes, Hypermobility and neurodivergence. This week's ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast guest is Dr Jessica Eccles, a Clinical Senior Lecturer at Brighton and Sussex Medical School in the Department of Neuroscience. Her research is on brain-body interactions, particularly related to joint hypermobility. She is an adult liaison psychiatrist and consultant in the Sussex Neurodevelopmental Service and co-lead of their Neurodivergent Brain Body Clinic.On today's ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast, Kate Moryoussef and Dr Jessica Eccles talk about:What is Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS)The symptoms, challenges and advantages of hypermobility The link between (H)EDS, hypermobility and ADHD/neurodivergence Side effects of hypermobility The interlinks of hypermobility and neurodivergence Hormones, EDS and hypermobility frequency in women and how it presents differently in men Fibromyalgia, hypermobility and ADHD connectionsPregnancy and hypermobility Diagnosing neurodivergence and hypermobility Making daily tasks and exercises more mindful to improve chronic painLong covid, fatigue and hypermobility Using pilates to build a stable core to help with hypermobility Protecting ourselves from burnout You can find Dr Eccles here on Instagram.Try Get Dopa here with a 10% discount: https://bit.ly/adhdwomenswellbeing10Additional resources to support you:Claire Smith's bookhttps://gptoolkit.ehlers-danlos.org/https://www.potsuk.org/https://www.sedsconnective.org/Kate Moryoussef is a women's ADHD Lifestyle & Wellbeing coach and EFT practitioner helping overwhelmed yet unfulfilled (many with ADHD like her) women find more calm, balance, health, compassion, creativity and clarity. Have a look at some of Kate's workshops and free resources here.Follow the podcast on Instagram hereFollow Kate on Instagram hereHave a read of Kate's articles in ADDitude magazine here

Arianne Shahvisi joins us to discuss Arguing for a Better World: How Philosophy Can Help Us Fight for Social Justice (Penguin, July 18). Using the tools of philosophy, Shahvisi, a senior lecturer in ethics at the Brighton and Sussex Medical School, shows readers how to contemplate, comprehend, and substantiate their moral positions, with the express purpose of fostering understanding in divisive political conversations. Then our editors share their top picks in books for the week.

Chatting to me today is Dr Ben Hicks, Research Fellow at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. I first met Ben 5 years ago and invited him to be on the panel of one of our first Retirement Café events. Back then he was working hard to change the perception that dementia is no longer a death sentence in his role as psychologist and researcher with Bournemouth University Dementia Institute. Although dementia is one of the most common and serious conditions society faces today with more than 800,000 people affected in the UK, Ben believes that with the right research technology and care, dementia sufferers can live well with the disease for many years. As Co-ordinator of the DETERMIND research programme, Ben explains how the project looks at why care for dementia patients is unequal and the impact this has upon people's health, level of comfort and happiness. Ben also shares some of his research findings and what this could mean for the future of care. USEFUL LINKS Find out about the DETERMIND study: https://determind.org.uk/ Take part in the DETERMIND study: https://determind.org.uk/take-part/ Listen to Ben's first podcast: 005 The Big D – Why Dementia is not a death sentence: 005 The Big D – Why Dementia is not a death sentence Email us for a copy of Ben's latest research findings.   ✔️ Subscribe to my Channel here https://www.youtube.com/c/JustinKingMFP/?sub_confirmation=1

Qualitative research is increasingly challenged to think creatively and critically about how accounts of lived experience might be collected, curated, and shared. Historically it could be said that qualitative research has been somewhat disregarded and undervalued. However, in recent years the potential of qualitative research in helping to better understand the lived experience of those with rare diseases has grown. As specialists in this form of research, the Haemnet team have championed these approaches through many of our studies and projects in hemophilia and bleeding disorders. We remain curious about how this field continues to evolve and adapt. In this episode, Haemnet's Director of Community Engagement, Luke Pembroke discusses the creative approaches to qualitative research Dr Rich Gorman (Research Fellow and Social Scientist, Brighton and Sussex Medical School) as and his colleagues experimented with in recent years, employing the power of the arts to uncover unique insights in to the lived experiences of those affected by rare genetic conditions. Show notes: "Writing the worlds of genomic medicine: experiences of using participatory-writing to understand life with rare conditions" - https://mh.bmj.com/content/48/2/e4 "Stop-motion storytelling: Exploring methods for animating the worlds of rare genetic disease" - https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941221110168 Capturing Quality of Life after Gene Therapy - https://www.haemnet.com/blog/quality-of-life-after-hemophilia-gene-therapy/ Rich on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SustainableRich

I'm your host, psychotherapist Christina Crowe, and I love making invisible things visible. Today I have the privilege of speaking with global hyper-mobility experts Dr. Nimish Mittal and Dr. Jessica Eccles, and we break down some of the mystery behind the connections between hyper-mobility syndromes, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome(s) and neurodivergent conditions like ADHD, Autism and Tourette's. Stay tuned for an information packed episode today that will help so many people living with connective tissue and sensory disorders,  find both validation and direction. Today we: We define what EDS is and isn't, Talk about how it's different from 'hyper-mobility'?, Learn about the connection between EDS, ADHD and Autism, and Learn from the doc's how can patients talk to their doctors effectively about the symptoms they are experiencing. Resources mentioned in the show:  Learn more about Dr. Nimish Mittal's GoodHope Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome Clinic in Toronto, Dr. Eccles recent research: Joint Hypermobility Links Neurodivergence to Dysautonomia and Pain, Free Downloadable Symptom Tracker from Dig a Little Deeper, to help share information with your primary care practitioner. The EDS Society website Resources, and Understanding Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder', a new book by Claire Smith Learn about the presentation, symptoms and how to check if you might have a Hypermobility Spectrum Disorders (HSD) , Learn about the 13 subtypes of Ehlers-Danlos syndromes (EDS), Use the discount code ‘PEBBLE' at checkout, for 15% off on DIY*ADHD:Couples. About our guests:   Dr. Nimish Mittal is an Assistant Professor at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Division of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Dr. Mittal holds a cross-appointment in the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine and the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education. He holds a Master's in Health Research Methodology. Dr Jessica Eccles is a Clinical Senior Lecturer at Brighton and Sussex Medical School in the Department of Neuroscience.  Her research is in brain-body interactions, particularly related to joint hypermobility.  She is an adult liaison psychiatrist and consultant in the Sussex Neurodevelopmental Service and co-lead of their Neurodivergent Brain Body Clinic.  Find Christina (CRPO #003908): Website | Meet the Team | DIY*ADHD course | Instagram | TikTok A gentle reminder that this is not therapy, and Christina is not your therapist. If you need more one on one support or treatment, please check out the links posted in the Show info and episode notes on the main podcast webpage.  LISTEN OR SUBSCRIBE for free in your favourite podcast app: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Overcast | Stitcher | RSS --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/christinacrowe/message

After the excess of the holidays, Dry January is a popular way for people to experiment with sobriety and reset their habits. Richard De Visser, Reader in Psychology at Brighton & Sussex Medical School and the School of Psychology at the University of Sussex, joins host Krys Boyd to discuss the benefits of abstaining from alcohol, who participates and why, and if the practice really produces a healthier relationship with drinking in the long run.

Medical Educatalks is a podcast created by the Developing Medical Educators Group (DMEG) at the Academy of Medical Educators. In this episode we're in conversation with Dr Gaurish Chawla, senior lecturer at Brighton & Sussex Medical School, to discuss anti-racist practice in medical education. Following this, our 10th podcast release, Medical Educatalks shall be taking a break for the winter. We hope you have enjoyed listening so far and we hope to see you back in the Spring for more great content! If you have any questions, comments or suggestions for the topic of future episodes please get in touch. To find out more about the Developing Medical Educators Group, check out our website: DMEG (medicaleducators.org)

So good to have you back with us for Episode 6 of Gastro News. And we've got a real treat in store for you this time. If you can remember back to Episode 1, you'll know that we've already dipped our toes in the world of viral hepatitis with Dr Matthew Cowan. And if you missed that one, please go back and have a listen to it! But now we're going to take that topic one step further, and look at the cutting-edge research being done into hepatitis today.It's such a privilege to have an expert in this field join us today, to help us grasp more of why research into viral hepatitis is so important and so relevant for the patients we might encounter in our outpatient clinics and on our wards. Prof Sumita Verma is a hepatologist and clinical academic at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. She has a real passion for seeing better, broader research done into viral hepatitis, and she firmly believes that with active case-finding in vulnerable people groups hepatitis C can be eliminated within our lifetime.During our chat we touch on everything from Professor Verma's university days in India, to her thoughts on the pros and cons of the American Health system, as well as hearing her hopes for the future of hepatology. If you have any questions or comments after listening, please drop us an email at medregnews@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @medregnews. It's been great having your company throughout this series, and we hope to see you soon!

How can we listen well when we have limited time and high demands? This is an important question across all types of organizations.  And especially in the medical environment, have a potential life and death answer. The ability of health providers to listen is key to enhancing the patient experience and giving quality health care.   Dr.  Krishna Naineni (Nigh- Nay- Knee) is a General Practitioner (GP) in the southeast of England. He is a Member of the Royal College of General Practitioners and a faculty at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. He is a passionate medical educator with interest in listening-centered clinical communication.  Currently, he is serving as a Chair of International Listening Association's Healthcare team. As a Certified ECHO Listening Practitioner, Krishna is encouraging healthcare professionals to establish intelligent listening units in their respective workplaces.  He is a co-founder of Glocal Academy which has been instrumental in delivering custom-made listening-centered clinical communication skills training programs to healthcare professionals and organizations India and UK. In this episode, Dr. Naineni unravels his own discoveries, difficulties, and experiences in clinical listening. He shares how transformative it is to truly listen to patients and colleagues despite the constraints of time. He also shares the techniques he uses to reframe his thinking for effective diagnosis' and a better doctor-patient relationships.   “We all have the capacity to listen well. Believe in the magic of listening. The act of listening is the greatest gift that you can give.”  - Dr. Krishna Naineni   Listen In Notes 00:00 -  The power of listening. Dr. Krishna Shares how his communication struggles propelled him to  work on his listening skills.  05:10 -  The role of listening in the medical healthcare system. 06:42 -  The constraints of time vs. the optimized listening. Dr. Krishna shares how one mindset shift can make it possible to provide a better patient experience. 09:35 -  The journey for self-improvement and internal work. 16:24 -  The hunger to learn. Dr. Krishna reveals how teaching in the medical industry made him see the new generation of doctors' tenacity to improve on listening. 19:04 -  Cultivating doctor-patient relationships through listening. Dr. Krishna reveals the effects of letting the patients share more during the consultation. 33:00 -  Team Rambo Journal Club. Dr. Krishna shares the group that they made to support medical students in healthcare communication or listening.   39:00 -  “Negation” as a tool. Dr. Krishna shares one of his learnings from J. Krishnamurti, “Through NEGATION, that thing which alone is the positive comes into being."  Key Takeaways: (on the impact of slowing down) “When I slowed down, I was more present. And people were more forthcoming with their concerns…with the real problems and real issues. And they were more engaging with the things that I was sharing with them."- Dr. Krishna Naineni  "To work in 21st, dynamic healthcare setting…you need to have an element of bravery. You need to be courageous to defy the challenges. And most importantly, the openness. So R-esponsibility, A-daptability, M-otivation, B-ravery, and O-penness becomes RAMBO."- Dr. Krishna Naineni “If you want to listen to the person in front of you, you must stop listening to you.”- Dr. Krishna Naineni   Resources and People Mentioned: On God by J. Krishnamurti https://store.kfoundation.org/books/books-by-j-krishnamurti/series-theme-books/on-god The Awakening of Intelligence by J. Krishnamurti https://www.amazon.com/Awakening-Intelligence-Jiddu-Krishnamurti/dp/0060648341   Connect with Dr. Krishna Naineni E-mail: glocalacademyuk@gmail.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/glocalacademyuk/  Connect with Raquel Ark: https://listeningalchemy.com/  Mobile: + 491732340722 contact@listeningalchemy.com LinkedIn: Raquel Ark     

Videos: stunning AI show how it will kill 90 % VACCINE DAMAGED HEALTHCARE WORKER TO UNVACCINATED FRIENDS: “I COMMEND YOU: I WISH I WERE ONE OF YOU” FATHER OF CHILD WITH MYOCARDITIS RECORDS PHARMACIST ADMIT PARENTS' AREN'T WARNED ABOUT SIDE EFFECTS WHISTLEBLOWER NURSE IN WASHINGTON DESCRIBES VACCINE INJURIES FROM EMPLOYMENT MANDATE Higher vitamin C levels associated with lower mortality risk during 16-year period Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, August 20 2022 A study reported in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health has uncovered an association between higher plasma vitamin C levels and a lower risk of mortality during more than 16 years of follow-up. The study included 473 men and 475 women between the ages of 53 and 84. Among subjects whose plasma vitamin C concentrations were among the top 25%, the adjusted risk of dying from any cause during follow-up was 25% lower than the risk experienced by subjects whose vitamin C levels were among the lowest quarter. Those whose plasma vitamin C levels were among the highest 25% had an adjusted risk of dying from cancer or stroke that was 28% lower and a risk of dying from heart disease that was 35% lower than subjects whose levels were lowest. When subjects with low vitamin C levels (defined as 28 micromoles per liter or below) and normal levels (greater than 28 micromoles per liter) were compared, a normal level was associated with a 23% lower risk of premature mortality and a 38% lower risk of dying from heart disease, in comparison with low levels. As a possible reason for their findings, Shao-Ming Wang and colleagues note that oxidative stress is lowered by vitamin C. Oxidative stress can promote endothelial dysfunction that underlies heart disease by increasing inflammation and lipid peroxidation and decreasing nitric oxide availability. Oxidative stress also causes DNA damage associated with cancer. Pomegranate-cocoa blend helps improve aging men's symptoms Shetty Hospital (India), August 19 2022. A study published in the International Journal of Medical Science found benefits for supplementing with a combination of extracts of Punica granatum (pomegranate) fruit rind and Theobroma cocoa seed extracts in middle-aged men. Previous research that investigated the effects of a blend of extracts of pomegranate fruit rind and cocoa seed in young men resulted in increases in serum and free testosterone levels as well as muscle strength and size. The current study included 120 men between the ages of 36 to 55 years who received 200 mg or 400 mg of pomegranate-cocoa extract or a placebo for 8 weeks. All participants were assigned to a program consisting of 30 minutes of walking per day for 5 days per week. At the end of the 7-week period, both doses of pomegranate-cocoa extracts were associated with significant improvement in aging males' symptom scores, free and total testosterone levels, strength and perceived stress compared to the beginning of the study and to the placebo group. The authors concluded that pomegranate-cocoa “is a well-tolerated, safe, and effective nutraceutical blend that boosts sexual function, testosterone level, and psychological and general well-being in aging males.” Placebo effect demonstrates healing power of the mind Harvard Medical School, August 13, 2022 Experts at Harvard Medical School advocate that the placebo effect be received with more positivity, rather than viewed as a deceptive or inaccurate measure designed to test health. They conclude that the power of thought can be extremely effective in helping people heal, focusing on physiological changes that have been linked to the placebo effect. The placebo effect involves someone being given medicine that is actually typically nothing more than a sugar pill which does not contain active ingredients. Many times, patients receiving a placebo who are in need of healing a certain condition report feeling significantly better, if not altogether healed. The experts at Harvard explain that improvements may take place because of the anticipated response that a person expects when given medication. The university's literature says that there is “evidence that some of the placebo effect is a favorable reaction to care and attention from people who patients believe can help ease their suffering and distress.” It goes on to say that the placebo effect “may be an integral part of good medical care and an ally that should be embraced by doctors and patients alike.” This paves the way for potential changes in how health is handled and, furthermore, reinforces the strength of the human mind to bring about healing and desired outcomes, health or otherwise. Awake within a dream: Lucid dreamers show greater insight in waking life University of Lincoln (UK), August 12, 2022 People who are aware they are asleep when they are dreaming have better than average problem-solving abilities, new research has discovered. Experts from the University of Lincoln, UK, say that those who experience ‘lucid dreaming' — a phenomena where someone who is asleep can recognise that they are dreaming — can solve problems in the waking world better than those who remain unaware of the dream until they wake up. It is thought some people are able to do this because of a higher level of insight, meaning their brains detect they are in a dream because events would not make sense otherwise. This cognitive ability translates to the waking world when it comes to finding the solution to a problem by spotting hidden connections or inconsistencies, researchers say. The research by Dr Patrick Bourke, Senior Lecturer at the Lincoln School of Psychology, is the first empirical study demonstrating the relationship between lucid dreaming and insight. The study examined 68 participants aged between 18 and 25 who had experienced different levels of lucid dreaming, from never to several times a month. They were asked to solve 30 problems designed to test insight. Each problem consisted of three words and a solution word. Results showed that frequent lucid dreamers solved 25 per cent more of the insight problems than the non-lucid dreamers. The role of dietary coconut for the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's disease Curtin University (Australia), August 12, 2022 According to news reporting originating in Bentley, Australia, research stated, “Coconut oil, derived from the coconut fruit, has been recognised historically as containing high levels of saturated fat; however, closer scrutiny suggests that coconut should be regarded more favourably.” The news reporters obtained a quote from the research from Curtin University, “Unlike most other dietary fats that are high in long-chain fatty acids, coconut oil comprises medium-chain fatty acids (MCFA). MCFA are unique in that they are easily absorbed and metabolised by the liver, and can be converted to ketones. Ketone bodies are an important alternative energy source in the brain, and may be beneficial to people developing or already with memory impairment, as in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Coconut is classified as a highly nutritious ‘functional food'. It is rich in dietary fibre, vitamins and minerals; however, notably, evidence is mounting to support the concept that coconut may be beneficial in the treatment of obesity, dyslipidaemia, elevated LDL, insulin resistance and hypertension – these are the risk factors for CVD and type 2 diabetes, and also for AD. In addition, phenolic compounds and hormones (cytokinins) found in coconut may assist in preventing the aggregation of amyloid-beta peptide, potentially inhibiting a key step in the pathogenesis of AD.” According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “The purpose of the present review was to explore the literature related to coconut, outlining the known mechanistic physiology, and to discuss the potential role of coconut supplementation as a therapeutic option in the prevention and management of AD.” Cold sores virus, cardiovascular damage linked in study Brighton and Sussex Medical School, August 14, 2022 A herpes virus similar to the one that causes cold sores has been linked to immune cells that can damage cardiovascular tissue, according to a study. Researchers at the Brighton and Sussex Medical School in England found that a relevant number of a specific type of immune cells arise when infection with cytomegalovirus is present. Their findings were published in the journal Theranostics. The virus, which is frequently associated with the salivary glands, has been considered harmless because the immune system usually controls it. But the CD28null CD4 T-cells have been known to be involved in damaging the arteries around the heart. Cytomegalovirus infection increases the risk of cardiovascular death by over 20 percent, according to a study published last year in the Journal of the American Heart Association, but the effect wasn't identified. One theory was they were a natural consequence of aging. “While we had previously been aware of a link between these immune cells and cardiovascular damage, this study is the first to show that sufficient numbers to be damaging only occur in the presence of this infection,” lead author Dr. Alejandra Pera, a researcher at BSMS, said in a press release. They found that certain tissue types, which are determined genetically, make individuals more susceptible to large numbers of these cells. With this discovery researchers believe heart disease can be controlled by treating the virus.

Last week we attended the Alzheimer's Disease International Conference in London. We took time out from the programme to talk with early career dementia researchers to ask them about their work, the challenges they have faced and how they overcame them. In this short interview we talk with Esra Hassan, PhD Student from Brighton and Sussex Medical School. During her MSc Esra completed research in the areas of neuroimaging to detect cognitive biomarkers in anxiety disorders, molecular cancer biology working on Glioblastoma multiforme cells, looking at the endocannabinoid system in Parkinson's disease and research positions in cognitive neuropsychology. Now she is currently working to establish the drivers and determinants of dementia attitudes in adolescents and understanding how these attitudes form and change over time. Find out more about Esra and her work on our website: https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/profile-esra-hassan-brighton-and-sussex-medical-school If you would like to join us and add your profile and short interview to our researchers profile, drop us a line to dementiaresearcher@nihr.ac.uk

In this episode, I chat with PA Karen Roberts - who is the Head of the Brighton and Sussex Medical School's Physician Associate course.Karen talks me through what makes a good application to PA courses, how to get through the interviews and whether its possible to work whilst being a PA student. You can get in contact with Karen here and find out more about the profession from the FPARCP's website You can connect with the Physician Associate PodcastTwitter - @PApodcastUKFacebook - @PApodcastUKInstagram - @PApodcastUK

Madeleine Olding, Freya Rhodes, Phoebe Ross, Catherine McGarry and John Humm are five prospective doctors at five different medical schools across the UK. In 2020 they interrupted their medical studies to complete a one-year (intercalated) degree in medical humanities. In March 2021 they published a collaborative piece titled “Black, White & Gray: Student Perspectives on Medical Humanities and Medical Education”. This article explores the student experience of medical humanities education and the subsequent impact on the practice of future doctors. Madeleine Olding, from Winchester, Hampshire, studies Medicine at Kings College London. In 2019, she intercalated at University College London in Medical Anthropology (BSc). Madeleine has a special interest in sexual health and psychiatry and has completed projects on the impact of ballroom culture as a therapeutic practice during the 1980s HIV/AIDs crisis. Madeleine has also published work in the British Journal of General Practice titled ‘Society, Sexuality and Medicine in Hogarth's Marriage A-la-Mode' as well as a systematic review on access to healthcare for transgender patients in Obstetrics and Gynaecology (American Journal of Internal Medicine). Also from Winchester, Hampshire, Freya Rhodes studies Medicine at Sheffield University. In 2019, she intercalated in Humanities, Philosophy and Law (BSc) at Imperial College London. Freya has a special interest in Medical Ethics and is currently a member of the Institute of Medical Ethics Student Council as Education and Debate Lead. She has completed research projects on ethical issues surrounding student volunteering during the covid-19 pandemic and published work in the BMJ on the equity of UK medical training programmes. She has also volunteered as the Student Representative for the Doctors' Association UK, an advocacy group campaigning for better working rights for doctors and other healthcare professionals. Phoebe Ross is from Brighton, East Sussex and currently studies at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. Phoebe also studied Humanities, Philosophy and Law (BSc) at Imperial College London where she explored her interest in medical history and feminist theory, completing projects on the sexualisation and objectification of women during the teaching of female anatomy in the 1800s. In 2017, Phoebe founded the ‘Brighton and Sussex Medical Feminist Society', a group hosting social and academic events in support of women's rights within medicine. She is currently secretary for the Institute of Medical Ethics Student Council.  In August 2022, Madeleine, Freya and Phoebe will start working as Foundation doctors for the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.   Christine Todd is Professor of Clinical Internal Medicine and Chair, Department of Medical Humanities at Southern Illinois School of Medicine in Springfield, IL. Christine's undergraduate degree is in English Language and Literature from the University of Chicago, and my MD is from SIUSOM.  Her interests in Med Hum are narrative medicine, and using the arts to develop visual literacy. Mario Veen (@MarioVeen) is Assistant Professor Educational Research at the Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam in The Netherlands. Mario is action editor for the Philosophy in Medical Education series of the journal Teaching & Learning in Medicine and co-editor of the first two books about philosophy and medical education: Applied Philosophy for Health Professions Education: A Journey Towards Mutual Understanding (Springer, 2022) and Helping a Field See Itself: Envisioning a Philosophy of Medical Education (Taylor & Francis, forthcoming 2022). He hosts the podcasts Let Me Ask You Something, and Life From Plato's Cave. If you have any questions about this episode, let me know! https://twitter.com/MarioVeen and https://marioveen.com/  Mario

In this episode we are joined by Dr Jessica Eccles an neuroscientist at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. Dr Eccles is a specialists in neurodiversity and supports neurodivergent adults. Jhinuk talks to Dr Eccles about her work, getting a diagnosis and what is literally happening in the mind of a neurodiverse individual. Follow updates from us on Instagram. Our Creators: LORNA ALLAN INSTA: @lornaallanad & @hwodesign TWITTER: @hwodesign WEB: https://www.lornaallan.com/ JHINUK SARKAR INSTA: @paperfig TWITTER: @paperfig WEB: https://paperfigillustration.com/ Our Narrator: SAZZIE KLUVITSE INSTA: @sazziewho TWITTER: @BiBiVirtue Our Editor: ADE BAMGBALA TWITTER: @Blacticulate Our Producer: CARRIE MORRISON INSTA: @carriejmo TWITTER: @carriejomo https://carriemorrison.co.uk/ Our Contributors: DR JESSICA ECLES https://www.bsms.ac.uk/about/contact-us/staff/dr-jessica-eccles.aspx INSTA: @drbendybrain TWITTER: @bendybrain

Candice Carty-Williams described her very successful first novel Queenie as 'the black Bridget Jones'. In the opening chapter of her new novel People Person absent father Cyril climbs into his gold jeep and drives around London collecting the five half-siblings he has sired, introduces them all for the first time and buys them an ice-cream. Candice has called this her ‘daddy issues' book and in it she celebrates families of all sorts. Her aim, she says, is to make visible the people she knows and the experiences she has had. She joins Emma in the studio. Overnight - according to a leaked draft of a court document - we learnt that the US Supreme Court could be about to overturn the nationwide right to an abortion. The New York Times writer Amanda Taub tells us what this means for women in America. Despite laws preventing protest or even coverage of the war, many women and female-led groups in Russia have found a way to express their opposition to the invasion of Ukraine. One of them is the Feminist Anti-War Resistance, which has over 32,000 followers on the social media app Telegram. We're joined by one of their founders, Ella Rossman, who also researches Russian feminist activism at UCL. The latest in our series 'Threads' about the feelings and memories associated with the clothes we just can't part with. Listener Vanessa joins Emma to tell her story. A new 3D female anatomy model is being used to better treat women. The new digital tool will provide a better understanding of the female anatomy and help to prevent women getting incorrectly diagnosed. Professor Claire Smith is using it with her students at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. Presenter: Emma Barnett Producer: Emma Pearce

Evidence shows that neurodivergency occurs at a higher rate amongst people with hypermobility disorders. And we know that anxiety is also prevalent in the hypermobile population. When we look at neurodivergency, hypermobility, anxiety, and dysautonomia, we see hints of lines drawn between them. Might science soon be able to connect the dots? Jessica Eccles, senior clinical academic psychiatrist at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, and specialist in brain-body neuroscience, returns to speak with Bendy Bodies about neurodivergency, hypermobility, and possible links with anxiety and the autonomic nervous system. In February 2022, Dr. Eccles published the peer reviewed journal article, "Joint hypermobility links neurodivergence to dysautonomia and pain". She discusses the fascinating results of her research, and explains why neurodivergency, dysautonomia, and pain appear to be connected via joint hypermobility. Dr. Eccles shares her findings of higher levels of musculoskeletal symptoms in the study's neurodivergent population vs the comparison group, and wonders if this may be a potential reason why people with neurodivergency experience more health symptoms. She explains the importance of raising awareness of the link between joint hypermobility and neurodivergency in the medical community, and discusses how anxiety is linked to joint hypermobility and possibly autonomic nervous system dysfunction. Dr. Eccles shares her work on the ADAPT program, a program aimed at reducing anxiety with a combined brain-body approach in hypermobile people. Still in its early stages, the program (Altering Dynamics of Autonomic Processing Therapy) has fascinating implications. Finally, Dr. Eccles reveals her current research projects and shares her hopes for future research. An incredible, accessible discussion by one of the top researchers in this field, this is an episode not to be missed. #neurodivergency #BendyBrain #dysautonomia #AutonomicNervousSystem #anxiety #ActuallyAutistic #adhd #ADHDAwareness #ASD #AutisticPride #DisabilityInclusion #RedInstead #AutismAcceptance #AutismAwareness #neurodivergent #AutisticAdults #neurodiversity #autistic #autism #BendyBodies #BendyBodiesPodcast #JenniferMilner #ZebraStrong #hypermobility #HypermobilityDisorders

Evidence shows that neurodivergency occurs at a higher rate amongst people with hypermobility disorders.  And we know that anxiety is also prevalent in the hypermobile population. When we look at neurodivergency, hypermobility, anxiety, and dysautonomia, we see hints of lines drawn between them.  Might science soon be able to connect the dots?Jessica Eccles, senior clinical academic psychiatrist at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, and specialist in brain-body neuroscience, returns to speak with Bendy Bodies about neurodivergency, hypermobility, and possible links with anxiety and the autonomic nervous system.In February 2022, Dr. Eccles published the peer reviewed journal article,  "Joint hypermobility links neurodivergence to dysautonomia and pain".  She discusses the fascinating results of her research, and explains why neurodivergency, dysautonomia, and pain appear to be connected via joint hypermobility.Dr. Eccles shares her findings of higher levels of musculoskeletal symptoms in the study's neurodivergent population vs the comparison group, and wonders if this may be a potential reason why people with neurodivergency experience more health symptoms.She explains the importance of raising awareness of the link between joint hypermobility and neurodivergency in the medical community, and discusses how anxiety is linked to joint hypermobility and possibly autonomic nervous system dysfunction.Dr. Eccles shares her work on the ADAPT program, a program aimed at reducing anxiety with a combined brain-body approach in hypermobile people. Still in its early stages, the program (Altering Dynamics of Autonomic Processing Therapy) has fascinating implications.Finally, Dr. Eccles reveals her current research projects and shares her hopes for future research.An incredible, accessible discussion by one of the top researchers in this field, this is an episode not to be missed.#neurodivergency #BendyBrain #dysautonomia #AutonomicNervousSystem #anxiety #ActuallyAutistic #adhd #ADHDAwareness #ASD #AutisticPride #DisabilityInclusion #RedInstead #AutismAcceptance #AutismAwareness #neurodivergent #AutisticAdults #neurodiversity #autistic #autism #BendyBodies #BendyBodiesPodcast #JenniferMilner #ZebraStrong #hypermobility #HypermobilityDisorders --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bendy-bodies/message

Curcumin: modulator of key molecular signaling pathways in hormone-independent breast cancer Monash University Malaysia, August 10, 2021 According to news reporting originating from Selangor, Malaysia,  research stated, “Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer and the leading cause of cancer death among women worldwide.” Our news correspondents obtained a quote from the research from Monash University Malaysia: “Despite the overall successes in breast cancer therapy, hormone-independent HER2 negative breast cancer, also known as triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), lacking estrogens and progesterone receptors and with an excessive expression of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), along with the hormone-independent HER2 positive subtype, still remain major challenges in breast cancer treatment. Due to their poor prognoses, aggressive phenotype, and highly metastasis features, new alternative therapies have become an urgent clinical need. One of the most noteworthy phytochemicals, curcumin, has attracted enormous attention as a promising drug candidate in breast cancer prevention and treatment due to its multi-targeting effect. Curcumin interrupts major stages of tumorigenesis including cell proliferation, survival, angiogenesis, and metastasis in hormone-independent breast cancer through the modulation of multiple signaling pathways. The current review has highlighted the anticancer activity of curcumin in hormone-independent breast cancer via focusing on its impact on key signaling pathways including the PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway, JAK/STAT pathway, MAPK pathway, NF-qB pathway, p53 pathway, and Wnt/b-catenin, as well as apoptotic and cell cycle pathways.” According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “Besides, its therapeutic implications in clinical trials are here presented.”     Ultrasound remotely triggers immune cells to attack tumors in mice without toxic side effects University of California San Diego, August 11, 2021   Bioengineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a cancer immunotherapy that pairs ultrasound with cancer-killing immune cells to destroy malignant tumors while sparing normal tissue. The new experimental therapy significantly slowed down the growth of solid cancerous tumors in mice. The team, led by the labs of UC San Diego bioengineering professor Peter Yingxiao Wang and bioengineering professor emeritus Shu Chien, detailed their work in a paper published Aug. 12 in Nature Biomedical Engineering. The work addresses a longstanding problem in the field of cancer immunotherapy: how to make chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy safe and effective at treating solid tumors.   CAR T-cell therapy is a promising new approach to treat cancer. It involves collecting a patient's T cells and genetically engineering them to express special receptors, called CAR, on their surface that recognize specific antigens on cancer cells. The resulting CAR T cells are then infused back into the patient to find and attack cells that have the cancer antigens on their surface. This therapy has worked well for the treatment of some blood cancers and lymphoma, but not against solid tumors. That's because many of the target antigens on these tumors are also expressed on normal tissues and organs. This can cause toxic side effects that can kills cells—these effects are known as on-target, off-tumor toxicity. “CAR T cells are so potent that they may also attack normal tissues that are expressing the target antigens at low levels,” said first author Yiqian (Shirley) Wu, a project scientist in Wang's lab. “The problem with standard CAR T cells is that they are always on—they are always expressing the CAR protein, so you cannot control their activation,” explained Wu. To combat this issue, the team took standard CAR T cells and re-engineered them so that they only express the CAR protein when ultrasound energy is applied. This allowed the researchers to choose where and when the genes of CAR T cells get switched on. “We use ultrasound to successfully control CAR T cells directly in vivo for cancer immunotherapy,” said Wang, who is a faculty member of the Institute of Engineering in Medicine and the Center for Nano-ImmunoEngineering, both at UC San Diego. What's exciting about the use of ultrasound, noted Wang, is that it can penetrate tens of centimeters beneath the skin, so this type of therapy has the potential to non-invasively treat tumors that are buried deep inside the body. The team's approach involves injecting the re-engineered CAR T cells into tumors in mice and then placing a small ultrasound transducer on an area of the skin that's on top of the tumor to activate the CAR T cells. The transducer uses what's called focused ultrasound beams to focus or concentrate short pulses of ultrasound energy at the tumor. This causes the tumor to heat up moderately—in this case, to a temperature of 43 degrees Celsius (109 degrees Fahrenheit)—without affecting the surrounding tissue. The CAR T cells in this study are equipped with a gene that produces the CAR protein only when exposed to heat. As a result, the CAR T cells only switch on where ultrasound is applied. The researchers put their CAR T cells to the test against standard CAR T cells. In mice that were treated with the new CAR T cells, only the tumors that were exposed to ultrasound were attacked, while other tissues in the body were left alone. But in mice that were treated with the standard CAR T cells, all tumors and tissue expressing the target antigen were attacked. “This shows our CAR T-cell therapy is not only effective, but also safer,” said Wu. “It has minimal on-target, off-tumor side effects.” The work is still in the early stages. The team will be performing more preclinical tests and toxicity studies before it can reach clinical trials.     Lycopene ameliorates diabetic osteoporosis via anti-inflammatory, antioxidation  Shaanxi University of Technology (China), August 10, 2021 According to news originating from Shaanxi University of Technology research stated, “Diabetic osteoporosis (DOP) is one of the complications of diabetes, with high morbidity, and high disability rate. Here, we established a diabetic rat model and administered lycopene to observe its effect on DOP.” Our news editors obtained a quote from the research from Shaanxi University of Technology: “Our results showed that ten weeks lycopene treatment lowered blood glucose, improved diabetic induced polydipsia, overeating and body weight loss. Lycopene treatment also enhanced bone mineral density, restored bone mechanical and bone Micro-CT parameters of diabetic rats. Subsequently, lycopene decreased serum inflammatory cytokines levels and increased serum anti-oxidant indicators levels. Moreover, lycopene reduced the number of bone marrow adipocytes, and osteoclasts numbers of diabetic rats. The serum bone turnover markers levels were down-regulated after lycopene treatment. Meanwhile, the bone and serum OPG, RUNX 2 expression levels were up-regulated by lycopene in diabetic rats, and the OPG/RANKL ratio was also up-regulated.” According to the news editors, the research concluded: “This study showed that lycopene could ameliorate diabetic induced bone loss via anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidation, and increasing OPG/RANKL ratio in diabetic rats. Lycopene could be used for nutritional intervention in patients with diabetic osteoporosis.”     Research shows just 8 weeks of meditation studies can make your brain quicker Birmingham University (UK), August 12, 2021 Researchers at Binghamton University scanned students' brains before and after eight weeks of meditation training. Credit: Binghamton University Millions of people around the world seek mental clarity through meditation, most of them following or inspired by the centuries-old practices of Buddhism. Anecdotally, those who meditate say it helps to calm their minds, recenter their thoughts and cut through the "noise" to show what really matters. Scientifically, though, showing the effects of meditation on the human brainhave proved to be tricky. A new study from Binghamton University's Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science tracked how practicing meditation for just a couple of months changed the brain patterns of 10 students in the University's Scholars Program. The seed for the research came from a casual chat between Assistant Professor Weiying Dai and lecturer George Weinschenk, MA '01, Ph.D. '07, both from the Department of Computer Science. Weinschenk is a longtime meditation practitioner whose wife worked as an administrator at the Namgyal Monastery in Ithaca, which is the North American seat of the Dalai Lama's personal monastery. "I developed very close friendships with several of the monks," he said. "We would hang out together, and I even received instruction from some of the Dalai Lama's teachers. I took classes there, I read a lot and I earned a three-year certificate in Buddhist studies." Dai has studied brain mapping and biomedical image processing, and while earning her Ph.D. at the University of Pittsburgh, she tracked Alzheimer's disease patients using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. "I'm interested in brain research to see how our brains are really functioning and how all different kinds of disease affect our brain," she said. "I really have zero medical training, but I pick up all this knowledge or background from reading the literature and talking with the experts." The two faculty members had neighboring offices and shared a conversation one day about their backgrounds. Weinschenk mentioned that he had been asked to teach a semester-long class for the Scholars Program on meditation. "I told Weiying, 'Yeah, meditation really can have a transformative effect on the brain,'" Weinschenk said. "She was a little skeptical, especially about whether such a short amount of time spent learning how to meditate, whether that would make any difference. She suggested we might be able to quantify such a thing with modern technology." For the fall 2017 semester, Dai secured grant funding, and their collaboration began. Near the beginning of the semester, she took the participants to Cornell University for MRI scans of their brains. Weinschenk taught students how to meditate, told them to practice five times a week for 10 or 15 minutes, and asked them to keep a journal record of their practice. (The syllabus also included other lessons about the cultural transmissions of meditation and its applications for wellness.) "Binghamton University Scholars are high achievers who want to do the things they are assigned and do well on them, so they didn't require much prompting to maintain a regular meditation routine," he said. "To guarantee objective reporting, they would relate their experiences directly to Weiying about how frequently they practiced." The results, recently published in the journal Scientific Reports, show that meditation training led to faster switching between the brain's two general states of consciousness. One is called the default mode network, which is active when the brain is at wakeful rest and not focused on the outside world, such as during daydreaming and mind-wandering. The other is the dorsal attention network, which engages for attention-demanding tasks. The findings of the study demonstrate that meditation can enhance the brain connection among and within these two brain networks, indicating the effect of meditation on fast switching between the mind wandering and focusing its attention as well as maintaining attention once in the attentive state. "Tibetans have a term for that ease of switching between states—they call it mental pliancy, an ability that allows you to shape and mold your mind," Weinschenk said. "They also consider the goal of concentration one of the fundamental principles of self-growth." Dai and Weinschenk are still parsing through the data taken from the 2017 MRI scans, so they have yet to test other Scholars Program students. Because Alzheimer's disease and autism could be caused by problems with the dorsal attention network, Dai is making plans for future research that could use meditation to mitigate those problems. "I'm thinking about an elderly study, because this population was young students," she said. "I want to get a healthy elderly group, and then another group with early Alzheimer's disease or mild cognitive impairment. I want to see whether the changes in the brain from meditation can enhance cognitive performance. I'm writing the proposal and trying to attract the funds in that direction." Though once skeptical about the subject, "I'm pretty convinced about the scientific basis of meditation after doing this study," she added. "Maybe I'll just go to George's class when he teaches it so that I can benefit, too!"   Study shows how food preservatives may disrupt human hormones and promote obesity Cedars-Sinai Medicine Institute, August 9, 2021  Can chemicals that are added to breakfast cereals and other everyday products make you obese? Growing evidence from animal experiments suggests the answer may be "yes." But confirming these findings in humans has faced formidable obstacles - until now. A study published in Nature Communications details how Cedars-Sinai investigators developed a novel platform and protocol for testing the effects of chemicals known as endocrine disruptors on humans. The three chemicals tested in this study are abundant in modern life. Butylhydroxytoluene (BHT) is an antioxidant commonly added to breakfast cereals and other foods to protect nutrients and keep fats from turning rancid; perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) is a polymer found in some cookware, carpeting and other products; and tributyltin (TBT) is a compound in paints that can make its way into water and accumulate in seafood. The investigators used hormone-producing tissues grown from human stem cells to demonstrate how chronic exposure to these chemicals can interfere with signals sent from the digestive system to the brain that let people know when they are "full" during meals. When this signaling system breaks down, people often may continue eating, causing them to gain weight. "We discovered that each of these chemicals damaged hormones that communicate between the gut and the brain," said Dhruv Sareen, PhD, assistant professor of Biomedical Sciences and director of the Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Core Facility at the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute. "When we tested the three together, the combined stress was more robust." Of the three chemicals tested, BHT produced some of the strongest detrimental effects, Sareen said. While other scientists have shown these compounds can disrupt hormone systems in laboratory animals, the new study is the first to use human pluripotent stem cells and tissues to document how the compounds may disrupt hormones that are critical to gut-to-brain signaling and preventing obesity in people, Sareen said. "This is a landmark study that substantially improves our understanding of how endocrine disruptors may damage human hormonal systems and contribute to the obesity epidemic in the U.S.," said Clive Svendsen, PhD, director of the institute and the Kerry and Simone Vickar Family Foundation Distinguished Chair in Regenerative Medicine. More than one-third of U.S. adults are considered to be obese, according to federal statistics. The new testing system developed for the study has the potential to provide a much-needed, safe and cost-effective method that can be used to evaluate the health effects of thousands of existing and new chemicals in the environment, the investigators say. For their experiments, Sareen and his team first obtained blood samples from adults, and then, by introducing reprogramming genes, converted the cells into induced pluripotent stem cells. Then, using these stem cells, the investigators grew human epithelium tissue, which lines the gut, and neuronal tissues of the brain's hypothalamus region, which regulates appetite and metabolism. The investigators then exposed the tissues to BHT, PFOA and TBT, one by one and also in combination, and observed what happened inside the cells. They found that the chemicals disrupted networks that prepare signaling hormones to maintain their structure and be transported out of the cells, thus making them ineffective. The chemicals also damaged mitochondria - cellular structures that convert food and oxygen into energy and drive the body's metabolism. Because the chemical damage occurred in early-stage "young" cells, the findings suggest that a defective hormone system potentially could impact a pregnant mother as well as her fetus in the womb, Sareen said. While other scientists have found, in animal studies, that effects of endocrine disruptors can be passed down to future generations, this process has not been proved to occur in humans, he explained. More than 80,000 chemicals are registered for use in the U.S. in everyday items such as foods, personal care products, household cleaners and lawn-care products, according to the National Toxicology Program of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. While the program states on its website that relatively few chemicals are thought to pose a significant risk to human health, it also states: "We do not know the effects of many of these chemicals on our health." Cost and ethical issues, including the health risk of exposing human subjects to possibly harmful substances, are among the barriers to testing the safety of many chemicals. As a result, numerous widely used compounds remain unevaluated in humans for their health effects, especially to the hormone system. "By testing these chemicals on actual human tissues in the lab, we potentially could make these evaluations easier to conduct and more cost-effective," Sareen said.   Social activities help dementia patients stay sharp, avoid depression University of Sheffield (UK), August 12, 2021 Approximately 6 million people in the U.S. are suffering from dementia, as well 50 million people worldwide. There is currently no cure for the degenerative condition and medical treatments often have side effects such as vomiting, loss of appetite, and muscle pains. Now, researchers say patients can greatly benefit from a type of treatment that doesn't come with such downsides and helps their brain avoid additional decline. A new study suggests that mixing with other people helps dementia patients stay sharp and fend off depression. Scientists say the type of treatment known as “cognitive stimulation” could make living with dementia easier for hundreds of thousands of people. “Dementia is one of the biggest global challenges that we face,” says senior author Dr. Claudia von Bastian, of the University of Sheffield, in a statement. “Our research highlights that cognitive stimulation can be a safe, relatively cheap, and accessible treatment to help reduce some of the core symptoms of dementia and may even alleviate symptoms of depression.” The researchers analyzed the use of cognitive stimulation as an effective treatment for people with dementia. They found that getting patients involved in social and group activities helped combat depression and boost global cognition. Global cognition refers to five types of brain function: attention, memory, verbal fluency, language, and awareness. “It's great that governments now recognize the importance for people to live well with dementia. We've seen far more energy and resources put into developing initiatives to support this, such as cognitive stimulation, which is now used widely across the world,” notes co-author Dr. Ben Hicks, of Brighton and Sussex Medical School. “We still need to learn more about the key ingredients of cognitive stimulation which lead to these benefits and how they influence the progression of dementia. However, the absence of negative side-effects and the low costs of this treatment means the benefits are clear,” adds Dr. von Bastian. More research is needed to determine whether cognitive stimulation and other non-pharmaceutical treatments could help the growing number of people who suffer fromdementia.    “Our research is the first to comprehensively interrogate the evidence base for its effectiveness, using the most up-to-date statistical techniques. While early signs are positive, there's an urgent need to improve the rigor of evaluative research and better assess the long-term benefits of cognitive stimulation. People with dementia need effective treatments, and, as a research community, this is what we must deliver,” added Dr. Hicks.     Resveratrol supplementation improves arterial stiffness in type 2 diabetics Toho University (Japan), August 18 2021 A randomized, double-blind study reported on in the International Heart journal found improvements in arterial stiffness and oxidative stress among type 2 diabetics who were supplemented with resveratrol. The trial included 50 diabetic men and women who received 100 milligrams resveratrol or a placebo daily for 12 weeks. Cardio-ankle vascular index (CAVI, a novel diagnostic measure of arterial stiffness that is a marker of atherosclerosis) and blood pressure were assessed at the beginning and end of the study, in addition to blood assessments of oxidative stress and other factors. At the end of the study, subjects who received resveratrol had significantly lower blood pressure, less oxidative stress and decreased arterial stiffness in comparison with values obtained at the beginning of the study.  Participants who received a placebo experienced no significant changes in these areas. “The primary finding in the present study was that oral supplementation of resveratrol for 12 weeks decreased CAVI in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus,” authors Haruki Imamura, MD, and colleagues at Toho University Sakura Medical Center in Japan write. “Many previous studies have demonstrated increased CAVI in atherosclerotic diseases such as acute coronary syndrome and stroke, and these reports indicate that CAVI reflects organic atherosclerosis.” They suggest that a reduction in oxidative stress may be one mechanism involved in the improvement in arterial stiffness observed in this study among participants who received resveratrol. Improved endothelial function via increased nitric oxide production may be another mechanism.

In today's episode, we interview Dr. Hao-Ting Wang. She is a Postdoc Fellow at University of Sussex and Brighton and Sussex Medical School. Originally from Taiwan, she completed her BSc in Psychology in National Chengchi University, and then a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience at University of York, UK. Her work involves brain-behavioral phenotypes discovery using functional MRI in large open access datasets. Working with large neuroimaging datasets ignited her interests in computation reproducibility. She is an active contributor of Python libraries Nilearn, Nibabel and Pydra. We discuss her career path and recent research, as well as how she gained her interest in machine learning throughout her research. We get an insight in her findings on what our brain does while our mind is wandering.The main topic of today's episode is how to finance PhD studies, and the government loan that Hao-Ting used for this purpose. We also discuss the long-term implications of taking a loan for studies, and how this choice influenced the daily life and activities available to Hao-Ting.Finally, we round off with our standard questions on boundary settings, day in the life, impact of COVID-19 and best advice.References Hao-Ting's githubHao-Ting's TwitterHao-Ting's Google ScholarPythonBored and Brilliant Default mode network Task negativeBrainhack collaborativeERC grants

Neurodivergency occurs at a much higher rate amongst people with hypermobility disorders like Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes and hypermobility spectrum disorders. What's the connection? Jessica Eccles, MD, senior clinical academic psychiatrist at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, and specialist in brain-body neuroscience, recently spoke with Bendy Bodies about these neurological conditions that include dyslexia, autism, ADHD, dyspraxia, and dyscalculia. Dr. Eccles led the first neuroimaging study of hypermobility and her work has focused on neuropsychiatric manifestations of connective tissue disorders. Dr. Eccles stresses that neurodivergency isn't a disability or disorder, but a different way of neurological processing. She explains surprising findings of her research including possible explanations for the link between hypermobility and anxiety. Dr. Eccles reveals that people with EDS (Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes) are seven times more likely to be autistic, and six times more likely to have ADHD, compared to the general population. She stresses the importance of recognizing the link between hypermobility and neurodivergency and dives into proprioceptive issues and dyspraxia. Dr. Eccles offers suggestions for seeking help if you suspect you are neurodivergent. She also provides advice for teachers and parents to be more effective in their roles with neurdivergent artists. As Dr. Eccles states, “Neurodivergency shouldn't be thought of as something to hold you back, but something to embrace.” If you or someone you know may be neurodivergent, this is an episode not to be missed. Find Dr. Eccles: https://www.bsms.ac.uk/about/contact-us/staff/dr-jessica-eccles.aspx @BendyBrain https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jessica_Eccles Suggested reading: "The Relationship between Autism and Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes/Hypermobility Spectrum Disorders" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7711487/ #autismacceptence #autismawareness #neurodivergent #autisticadults #neurodiversity #autistic #autimstruth #redinstead #bendybodies #bendybodiespodcast #lindabluesteinmd #jennifermilner #zebrastrong #hypermobility #hypermobilitydisorders

Neurodivergency occurs at a much higher rate amongst people with hypermobility disorders like Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes and hypermobility spectrum disorders. What's the connection? Jessica Eccles, MD, senior clinical academic psychiatrist at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, and specialist in brain-body neuroscience, recently spoke with Bendy Bodies about these neurological conditions that include dyslexia, autism, ADHD, dyspraxia, and dyscalculia. Dr. Eccles led the first neuroimaging study of hypermobility and her work has focused on neuropsychiatric manifestations of connective tissue disorders. Dr. Eccles stresses that neurodivergency isn't a disability or disorder, but a different way of neurological processing. She explains surprising findings of her research including possible explanations for the link between hypermobility and anxiety. Dr. Eccles reveals that people with EDS (Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes) are seven times more likely to be autistic, and six times more likely to have ADHD, compared to the general population. She stresses the importance of recognizing the link between hypermobility and neurodivergency and dives into proprioceptive issues and dyspraxia. Dr. Eccles offers suggestions for seeking help if you suspect you are neurodivergent. She also provides advice for teachers and parents to be more effective in their roles with neurdivergent artists. As Dr. Eccles states, “Neurodivergency shouldn't be thought of as something to hold you back, but something to embrace.” If you or someone you know may be neurodivergent, this is an episode not to be missed. Find Dr. Eccles: https://www.bsms.ac.uk/about/contact-us/staff/dr-jessica-eccles.aspx @BendyBrain https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jessica_Eccles Suggested reading: "The Relationship between Autism and Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes/Hypermobility Spectrum Disorders" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7711487/ #autismacceptence #autismawareness #neurodivergent #autisticadults #neurodiversity #autistic #autimstruth #redinstead #bendybodies #bendybodiespodcast #lindabluesteinmd #jennifermilner #zebrastrong #hypermobility #hypermobilitydisorders 

Professor Sube Banerjee is that rare beast: an esteemed clinician and academic with a tremendous way with words and bucketloads of empathy.Last year he was appointed Executive Dean of Plymouth University’s cross-disciplinary Health Faculty, where along with his many other responsibilities, he jointly heads up Radio Me, a ground-breaking project that uses artificial intelligence to tailor live radio to an individual’s needs. Previously, while Professor of Dementia and Associate Dean at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, he led research into the quality of life and care of those with dementia. “We have to focus on what individuals can do”, he says, “not what they can’t. Kindness is the core. And hope. I sell hope”. Professor Banerjee also pioneered a world-leading education programme in which healthcare students regularly visit and talk to families of people with dementia to gain a deeper understanding of the long-term impact of the care that they themselves – as future doctors, nurses, occupational therapists, physios – will deliver. In 2008, he led the development of the country’s first national dementia strategy – a huge step towards changing the way the condition is viewed, by both Government and public. The professor was determined that it should be crafted and informed by those who really understand dementia, that is the people living with, and affected by it. Today, this approach is becoming more common. In 2008-2009, it was nye on revolutionary. Professor Banerjee describes dementia as the prime exemplar, globally, of the complexity of challenges facing health services of all sorts. I totally agree, which is why I was so keen to talk to this warm, articulate professional. I hope you enjoy listening to him as much as I enjoyed (virtually) meeting him. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Did someone say 2 universities for the price of one? Make sure to listen to this episode to learn all about BSMS from 4th year medical student Eleanor! - Early clinical placements – with 1 whole clinical day per week - Dissection and clinical anatomy teaching from 1st year - Lecture based and small group teaching Make sure to find out more by listening to the full episode now!

Claudia Hammond and experts from around the world consider the evidence behind schools, colleges and coronavirus spread. Listeners from India, Cuba, Italy, Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, France, the USA pitch their questions to the specialists. Research so far shows a low risk of transmission but as children and young people return to classrooms across the globe, will that remain the case? And Claudia and the team look at that vital role of “test, trace and isolate” when it comes to SARS-CoV-2, something the World Health Organisation describes as the backbone of any Covid-19 response. Which countries are getting this right and what can others learn from the best? New research comparing six countries from Europe, Africa and Asia highlights the successes and the failures. Plus Kat, a nurse from Kansas City, Missouri gives a first hand account of pandemic response in the USA and then, when she moved to Germany in the summer, from Stuttgart. On the panel are Dr Regina Osih, an infectious disease and public health specialist from the Aurum Institute in South Africa who’s working on the country’s Covid response, Dr Young June Choe, paediatrician and assistant professor at Hallym University in South Korea, Gail Davey, Professor of Global Health Epidemiology at Brighton and Sussex Medical School in England, David Heymann, Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine from France and Dr Margaret Harris from the WHO in Geneva. The Evidence is produced in association with Wellcome Collection. Production team: Fiona Hill, Samara Linton and Maria Simons Studio engineers: Matilda Macari and Tim Heffer Editor: Deborah Cohen

**DISCLAIMER: Please note that the views of our podcast guests may not always align with the views of Nutritank** On last week’s episode of the podcast, we discussed some of the barriers and facilitators to increasing nutrition education in the medical curriculum as well as the role of nutrition in the healthcare environment. This week we focus on nutrition research projects carried out by medical students that focus on student perceptions regarding nutrition education, such as the implementation of ‘Culinary Medicine’ at UCL medical school and data surveying medical students attitudes and perceptions of nutrition education across all year groups. We also discuss community driven initiatives such as An Apple A Day - a programme in which medical students go into local schools to provide young people with the tools to lead healthy lives, founded by medical students at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. Tune in to listen to 5 fantastic medical students: Jessica Xie, Joe Tan, Robyn Creeden, Megan Harrison and Zoe Rubins discuss the research that they have conducted related to nutrition. We guarantee an informative episode showcasing inspiring and motivated medical students and public health advocates who want to make a change to medical training and the wider healthcare system! We hope that you enjoyed the episode! Please spread the word about Nutritank by giving the podcast a 5 star rating and leave a review! Don’t forget to check us out on social media (Instagram: @nutritank_official ; Twitter: @nutritank_info) and on our website: https://nutritank.com Podcast Show notes: An Apple a day: http://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/anappleaday/?fbclid=IwAR2BamiDmd5mQSfanXAQvBqdBouhcMubcWlllW_FYjmCfUmLXuQlutTeUhI An Apple a day instagram: @aaadbrighton Culinary Medicine: https://culinarymedicineuk.org/

Catherine Hennessy is a Lecturer in Anatomy at Brighton and Sussex Medical School in the United Kingdom. Catherine joins me for a catch up on her PhD studies and the recent publication of Social Media Guidelines for Anatomists, available here. You can follow Catherine on Twitter using the Twitter handle: @CathHennessy and #chphd   To continue the conversation use: #AnatPodcast Follow: @AnatEducPodcast Visit: anatomypodcast.co.uk for more information   This episode is sponsored by: The American Association for Anatomy. For information about upcoming events, membership details and much more, visit www.anatomy.org and @anatomyorg The International Association of Medical Science Education (IAMSE). For more information on meetings, membership options and funding, visit www.iamse.org and @iamse. Adam Rouilly. For information on their wide range of products to support all aspects of healthcare education, visit www.adam-rouilly.co.uk and @AdamRouilly.  

------------------Support the channel------------ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter SubscribeStar: https://www.subscribestar.com/the-dissenter PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao ------------------Follow me on--------------------- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT Dr. Sarah Garfinkel is Professor of neuroscience and psychiatry based at the University of Sussex and the Brighton and Sussex Medical School. Her research is focused on the link between interoception and emotion and memory. In 2018, she was selected as one of 11 researchers on the Nature Index 2018 Rising Stars. Dr. Garfinkel's research focuses on interoception, the ability to sense one's own body, and the link between interoception and the brain. She specifically focuses on the heartbeat, and has shown that the heartbeat, and perception thereof, influences the way people process fear. Her research has furthermore shown that autistic people experience difficulty judging their heartbeat, causing anxiety and stress. This research has led to the development of a new therapy technique called interoception-directed therapy, which aims to reduce anxiety in autistic individuals. In this episode, we talk about interoception, and how it connects with emotion, cognition, and mental health. We first answer what interoception is about, and how it connects with how the brain works. We also discuss how emotions work, and connect them with decision-making, and refer to memory and cognition. We then get into the association between interoception and mental health and psychiatry, and we go through several examples of mental disorder, like PTSD, addiction, autism, depression, and anxiety. -- Follow Dr. Garfinkel's work: Faculty page: http://bit.ly/37fSwju ResearchGate profile: http://bit.ly/2Qqr9fU How the body and mind talk to one another to understand the world (Aeon): http://bit.ly/38Mh3xA Can You Feel Your Heartbeat? The Answer Says a Lot About You: http://bit.ly/37LGhea -- A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS/SUPPORTERS: KARIN LIETZCKE, ANN BLANCHETTE, PER HELGE LARSEN, LAU GUERREIRO, JERRY MULLER, HANS FREDRIK SUNDE, BERNARDO SEIXAS, HERBERT GINTIS, RUTGER VOS, RICARDO VLADIMIRO, BO WINEGARD, VEGA GIDEY, CRAIG HEALY, OLAF ALEX, PHILIP KURIAN, JONATHAN VISSER, DAVID DIAS, ANJAN KATTA, JAKOB KLINKBY, ADAM KESSEL, MATTHEW WHITINGBIRD, ARNAUD WOLFF, TIM HOLLOSY, HENRIK AHLENIUS, JOHN CONNORS, PAULINA BARREN, FILIP FORS CONNOLLY, DAN DEMETRIOU, ROBERT WINDHAGER, RUI INACIO, ARTHUR KOH, ZOOP, MARCO NEVES, MAX BEILBY, COLIN HOLBROOK, SUSAN PINKER, THOMAS TRUMBLE, PABLO SANTURBANO, SIMON COLUMBUS, PHIL KAVANAGH, JORGE ESPINHA, AND CORY CLARK! A SPECIAL THANKS TO MY PRODUCERS, YZAR WEHBE, ROSEY, JIM FRANK, ŁUKASZ STAFINIAK, IAN GILLIGAN, SERGIU CODREANU, AND LUIS CAYETANO! AND TO MY EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, MICHAL RUSIECKI!

In this week's podcast, we ran the second of our coronavirus Q&A specials, with Dr Chi Eziefula taking your questions on Covid-19. Dr Chi is Senior Lecturer in Infection at Brighton and Sussex Medical School (run jointly by the Universities of Brighton and Sussex) and an Honorary Consultant in Infectious Diseases and Microbiology at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust. You can subscribe to this podcast via Spotify, Apple Podcasts, TuneIn and most other podcast apps - just search University of Brighton. If you want to get in touch, email podcasts@brighton.ac.uk.

In the latest podcast, Professor Verma, of Brighton and Sussex Medical School, discusses the ongoing push to eliminate hepatitis C. This is a preview of Professor Verma's upcoming (free) inaugural lecture, entitled 'Making Dreams a Reality: Eliminating Hepatitis C Virus and Improving Symptom Burden in Cirrhosis', which takes place on October 23 at the Chowen Lecture Theatre in Falmer.

Gail Davey, a Professor of Global Health Epidemiology at the Brighton and Sussex Medical School, initiated a research programme into podoconiosis (podo), a form of elephantiasis or swelling of the lower leg in 2005 and helped lead efforts to have the World Health Organisation add podo to the list of neglected tropical diseases in 2011. Prof Melanie Newport is a Professor of Infectious Diseases and Global Health researching the genetic susceptibility to infection and to tropical diseases. Hear how their genetic, public-health and social-science research work has had had a significant impact on tropical societies and economies where podoconiosis is endemic.

In this episode we have podcasts made during an SSC at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. This episode covers: Diabetes, Electroconvulsive therapy, 'the 5 minute medic'.For show notes etc head to: http://thehearingaidpodcasts.org.uk/bsms-student-ssc-podcasts/​

In this episode we have podcasts made during an SSC at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. This episode covers: Hypertension, Denge Fever and tips for students on the wards.For show notes etc head to: http://thehearingaidpodcasts.org.uk/bsms-student-ssc-podcasts/​

Ahead of his inaugural lecture: How to reinvent primary care from the bottom up: engaging communities, we've been speaking to the professor in general practice at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. To book your ticket, click here.

Time for Dementia is an exciting, innovative and award-winning educational programme. Funded by Health Education Kent, Surrey and Sussex it provides undergraduate healthcare professionals with on-going, regular contact with a person with dementia and their carer, designed to create a new generation of healthcare professionals who are more aware and understanding of dementia Due to the success of the programme, Time for Dementia has been embedded as a mandatory part of the curriculum for 1st year nursing and paramedics students at the University of Surrey and 2nd year medical students @ Brighton and Sussex Medical School. In this podcast Dr Lakshini Mendis welcomes three guests to discuss the programme and its success: Dr Stephanie Daley, a clinical research fellow at the centre for dementia studies at the Brighton and Sussex Medical School – Stephanie works at the programme and evaluation lead for Time for Dementia programme Gina Sherlock, a research assistant on the Time for Dementia programme also at the centre for dementia studies Ellen Jones, a carer for her mother who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease and Vascular Dementia 9 years ago. Ellen and her mother were amongst the 1st cohort of families to be involved in Time for Dementia. If you know a family who might be interested in taking part in Time for Dementia, please contact the following number or email address for more information Telephone: 07713 779582 Timefordementia@alzhiemers.org.uk

I chat with Sophie Betka (Brighton and Sussex Medical School, UK) about her new study on how oxytocin influences attention to internal cues in social drinkers.You can watch the video version of this interview on Instagram TV or YouTube.LinksThe paperSophie on TwitterDan on TwitterDan on InstagramDan on YouTube See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Bobbie Farsides is professor of clinical and biomedical ethics at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. She's been described as one of the few people that is acceptable to “both sides” of the assisted dying debate. This week she joins us to talk about the way in which the debate on euthanasia has played out in the UK - and hear why she thinks it's now time for all individual doctors to make up their own mind, and not let either camp own the argument for them. Read her commentary on the debate: http://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.k544

Catherine Hennessy is a Teaching Fellow in Anatomy at Brighton and Sussex Medical School in the United Kingdom. Catherine joins me for a wider ranging conversation on anatomy education, social media and her PhD area of study on professionalism. Here are the links to some recent papers, including the Twitter paper in ASE we discussed: Social media and anatomy education: Using twitter to enhance the student learning experience in anatomy Lifting the negative cloud of social media use within medical education   You can follow Catherine on Twitter using the Twitter handle: @CathHennessy and #chphd   To continue the conversation use: #AnatPodcast Follow: @AnatEducPodcast Visit: anatomypodcast.co.uk for more information   The Anatomy Education Podcast is supported by the American Association of Anatomists. For information about upcoming events, membership details and much more, visit www.anatomy.org.  

In July, The BMJ published an analysis article called “The Antibiotic Course has had it's day” - a provocative title that turned out the garner a lot of debate on our site. The article said that the convention for the length of a course of antibiotics was set by Flemming, in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech - “If you use penicillin, use enough!” - and that the evidence base hasn't moved on since then. The article has had over 40 substantive responses, both agreeing and vehemently not - and so we thought it worth revisiting that argument, now the dust has settled. Discussing that are Martin Llewellyn, professor of infectious disease at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, and Paul Little, professor of primary care at the University of Southampton. Read the original analysis: http://www.bmj.com/content/358/bmj.j3418

Dr Claire Smith is Head of Anatomy at Brighton and Sussex Medical School in the United Kingdom Claire joins me for a chat about her anatomy scholarship detailing her latest textbook on Surface Anatomy and Ultrasound, the Core Regional Anatomy Syllabus, the Anatomical Society and her latest paper on 3D printing anatomy specimens for student education.   Here are some links to the books and papers we discussed: Gray's Surface Anatomy and Ultrasound: A Foundation for Clinical Practice  Take away body parts! an investigation into the use of 3D-printed anatomical models in undergraduate anatomy education The Anatomical Society core regional anatomy syllabus for undergraduate medicine   You can follow Claire using the twitter handle: @An040my To continue the conversation use: #AnatPodcast Follow: @AnatEducPodcast Visit: anatomypodcast.co.uk for more information   The Anatomy Education Podcast is supported by the American Association of Anatomists. For information about upcoming events, membership details and much more, visit www.anatomy.org.

In a major advance in the field of embryology, scientists this week have kept human embryos alive in petri dishes for record amounts of time. The legal limit for keeping fertilised human embryos in the lab is 14 days, a cut-off point set in 1979. Back then, scientists were able to keep embryos alive for only a few days, meaning the limit was only a theoretical one. Advances mean that this week, in 2 papers, researchers have reached that limit. Professor Ali Brivanlou, Robert and Harriet Heilbrunn Professor of Stem Cell biology and molecular embryology at Rockefeller University is lead author on one of the papers, and Professor Bobbie Farsides is a clinical and biomedical ethicist at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. They join Adam to discuss the next steps for embryology. Should this limit curtail research? Next Monday is the transit of Mercury. 13 times a century, Mercury passes directly between us and the Sun, and creates a pinprick shadow, a pixel of black for about 8 hours. This strange planet has no atmosphere, but a lot explosive volcanic activity. It has an eccentric orbit - meaning its distance from the sun fluctuates wildly. A Mercury year is 88 Earth days, but a Mercury day lasts almost two mercury years. David Rothery is a professor of Planetary Sciences at the Open University. He reveals how scientists study this planet and explains how, and how not to view the transit of Mercury. Overfishing is one of the biggest threats to the health of our oceans. According to the UN, up to a third of the world's fisheries are overexploited or depleted. It is a huge complex problem with many inputs and outputs to compute. So who better to tackle it than a team of hackers? Recently, coders around the globe gathered to take on the challenge, in a 48-hour Fishackathon. Reporter Anand Jagatia went along and reports back to Adam Most dog lovers will know that Labradors are particularly keen to eat anything, all the time, at any time. As a result, some are a bit corpulent, even obese. The cause is likely to be in their genes. A new study in the current issue of Cell Metabolism has identified that genetic basis for the perpetual hunger. Eleanor Raffan from Cambridge University, geneticist and vet, led the study. She explains to Adam how she gathered a cohort of dogs.

A lot has changed since the last study among shipboard populations has been conducted, about 20 years ago. What is the health of shipboard military personnel and why is it important to study their sexual health? How is life in a deployment? How can the findings of this study apply to civilian populations? In this podcast, Judith Harbertson of San Diego State University and US Military HIV Research Program talks to Tom Nadarzynski, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, about these questions and the main conclusions of the study. Read the related article: Sexually transmitted infections and sexual behaviour of deploying shipboard US military personnel: a cross-sectional analysis goo.gl/5GPm2D

Stephen Young is a Senior Lecturer at Brighton Business School and is subject leader for behavioural economics.   He is also Visiting Lecturer at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, where he teaches Behavioural Economics to health professionals, including commissioners, public health practitioners and GPs.    As an independent consultant and trainer, Stephen also provides client workshops and presentations on behavioural economics and behaviour change.   Stephen is widely published and his research interests include behaviour change, climate change, health, sustainability, and Information and Communications Technology.   Stephen does not own a car and is so passionate about being car free that he writes regularly on his blog livingthecarfreelife.blogspot.com. Other writings from Stephen can be found at www.stephenyoung.org.uk. In this episode, find out: why Stephen decided to become an academic. about the Northern Rock bank run in the UK in 2007. why universities need to adapt or die when it comes to addressing relevant content. what Stephen is doing to reduce his carbon footprint in college and how he’s responding to the digital needs of his students. why health professionals are interested in behavioral economics. about the Irish government’s fight against obesity. how Stephen is encouraging a town in the UK to become pedestrian friendly. about framing car ownership - status and perception of rank. how by ditching your car you can burn calories. how the average person is working two days a week to pay for their car. about the emotional attachment that a car represents. what major cities across Europe are doing to make them more pedestrian and bike-friendly. about peak car ownership. some advice from Stephen on how to give your car. about the pluralist approach to embracing economics. Subscribe on iTunes or visit www.economicrockstar.com to access previous episodes.

Chis Butler, MRC Clinician Scientist and Honorary Consultant Neurologist at the University of Oxford, talks to Jessica Eccles, MRC Clinical Research Training Fellow, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, about her work into joint hypermobilty and autonomic hyperactivity, and their relevance to neurodevelopmental disorders. Read the abstract: http://jnnp.bmj.com/content/85/8/e3.40.abstract This podcast was recorded at the 2014 British NeuroPsychiatry Association AGM.