Researchers engaging with local communities
This film captures a sample of those activities, featuring the Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology in Edinburgh, the Structural Genomics Consortium in Oxford and the Children of the 90s study in Bristol.
It also features cameos from Sir Mark Walport, Sir Paul Nurse and Anne Johnson, who give their unique perspectives on what public engagement means to them.
Running time: 11m 32s
The film was conceived and commissioned by Chris Stock and Kirsty Jones of the Wellcome Trust. It was directed and edited by freelance film maker Keira Freeman, filmed by camera operator David Chavannes and executive produced by Sara Cropley.
Timings of sections - skip to these points for specific centres:
- 02’05: Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology, Edinburgh
- 05’36: Structural Genomics Consortium, Oxford
- 07’40: Children of the 90s, Bristol
The diverse range of activities, from school visits and A-level study days to panel discussions and exhibitions are listed below.
ALSPAC, Bristol
The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) was launched in 1991 to help understand the genetic and environmental factors involved in the development of particular diseases. The participants and researchers involved in the study each have their own unique perspective on what the study means to them; in 2011 they worked together to tell the story of ALSPAC from its inception, to their current involvement, to the direction of future research.
Everyone involved in ALSPAC was invited to say, in their own words and images, what ALSPAC means to them. This could have been a midwife’s account of delivering one of the first babies, a participant’s full-body scan or a researcher recalling their first major breakthrough using our data. The collection was uploaded to a website and curated by a local artist who used the material to create an artwork, which in turn was presented back to the local community at an event in early December.
Wellcome Trust Centre for Gene Regulation and Expression, Dundee
The Wellcome Trust Centre for Gene Regulation and Expression in Dundee is a world-leading research centre studying the cell biology of gene expression and chromosome biology. At the beginning of the 20th century, Dundee's economy was dominated by the jute industry; 100 years later, the city has been transformed and biomedical research has an increasing role within the city. The centre explored the impact of the growing biomedical sector in Dundee, and brought together both Dundee-based scientists and Dundee residents with a connection to the city’s textiles past.
Shared Imagination
Speakers included:
- Rob LaFrenais, Director of The Arts Catalyst, London
- Martha Fleming, Centre for Arts and Humanities Research at the Natural History Museum, London
- Angus Lamond, Director of Centre for Gene Regulation and Expression
Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology, Edinburgh
‘Life Through a Lens’ is a project to engage schoolchildren and young families with the discoveries of early scientists and how they used microscopes to advance our understanding of living systems. Based at the John Hope Gateway, Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh, scientists from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology presented a series of sessions over 14 days, to the public (at weekends) and to school classes (on weekdays). Using a mixture of experimentation, drama, microscopes and art, the project recreated and explored the endeavours of early scientists such as Robert Hooke and Louis Pasteur. This took participants on a journey of scientific discovery through the past and to an appreciation of the frontiers modern-day scientists at the Centre are working on.
Life Through a Lens
View the website
Wellcome Trust Centre for Molecular Parasitology, Glasgow
The Wellcome Trust Centre for Molecular Parasitology aims to develop new approaches to the control of parasites and the diseases they cause. The Centre plans to create a series of comics to show the inherent beauty of parasites and will be looking to engage the wider Glasgow public with parasitology research.
The Centre for Molecular Parasitology presented an exhibition at the Glasgow Science Centre. This exhibition explored the deadly mission of parasites as they invade the human body and evade our potent immune responses. The achievements of the Centre’s research into these diseases was highlighted and the exhibition was accompanied by expert public lectures and a website.
London Pain Consortium
The London Pain Consortium undertakes internationally competitive research into pain and is committed to training scientists in the integrative physiology and genomics of pain. The Consortium developed two events for the anniversary celebrations.
In November, the Consortium created a series of practical experiments that could be recreated in the classroom and will complement the A-level curriculum. There was also laboratory-based workshops on the biology of touch and pain for groups of up to 60 sixth-form pupils in the London area. The emphasis was on practical demonstrations and experimentation by the pupils.
A-level practical workshops
In December, the Consortium presented a small art exhibition containing collaborative art work from chronic pain patients and researchers from the consortium. The art created during workshops brought patients and researchers together to share their understanding of pain. At the private viewing, patients and researchers shared their experiences of the workshop.
Exhibition
Pain INSight: Illustrating pain; from the scientific to the artistic, visible to the invisible
Wellcome Trust Tropical Centre, Liverpool
The Wellcome Trust Tropical Centre supports research in the tropics by providing support for ongoing international research in a wide range of specialist areas. In the autumn, the Centre carried out a project with Key Stage 3 (KS3) schoolchildren on Merseyside and similarly aged schoolchildren in Blantyre, Malawi, to raise awareness of global health issues and highlight the work done by research teams in Malawi. Pupils from both countries had the opportunity to ask researchers about research into the key topic of malaria. Schoolchildren on Merseyside visited World Museum, Liverpool. They then undertook four lessons to learn about the disease and its treatment and prevention, and asked questions that were sent to the Malawi-based researchers, a celebration evening was held at World Museum.
Wellcome Trust Strategic Programme in the Human Body, its Scope, Limits and Future, Manchester
The Wellcome Trust Strategic Programme in the Human Body, its Scope, Limits and Future is a multidisciplinary bioethics programme that combines philosophical, legal and sociological research. To celebrate the Wellcome Trust’s anniversary, the Programme asked: how have developments in science and medicine over the past 75 years changed our ideas about the body, and even the body itself? What changes might there be over the next 75 years?
The project aimed to engage a range of publics in the Manchester area in thinking about these important questions. In collaboration with local partners such as museums, the Programme organised a range of activities targeted at different audiences, encouraging them to reflect on relationships between the body and biomedical technology, and to contribute their ideas and opinions on the ethical and social implications of these.
The Human Body Trail
Evening public debate on human-animal hybrid, transgenic and chimera research
Speakers included:
- Professor Martin Bobrow CBE FRS FMedSci, Professor Emeritus of Medical Genetics, University of Cambridge
- Professor John Harris FMedSci, Lord Alliance Professor of Bioethics, University of Manchester, and Co-Director, iSEI
- Professor Nikolas Rose, Martin White Professor of Sociology, London School of Economics
- Professor Veronica van Heyningen CBE FRS FRSE FMedSci, Group Leader/Joint Section Head, Medical and Developmental Genetics Section, MRC Human Genetics Unit, Edinburgh
Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridgeshire
The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute focuses on understanding the role of genetics in health and disease. In collaboration with I’m a Scientist, Get me out of Here!, the Institute gave local students the opportunity to explore genome research and how it may affect them in the future. They quizzed a panel of Sanger Institute researchers in a live webchat, at which they asked anything about the research at the Institute or how understanding the information held in the human genome may affect their future lives.
The events were followed on sanger.imascientist.org.uk
Structural Genomics Consortium, Oxford
The Structural Genomics Consortium in Oxford has a mandate to place protein structures of relevance to human health into the public domain. To celebrate the Wellcome Trust anniversary, researchers from the SGC (working with the Department of Zoology, the University Museum of Natural History and the Museum of History of Science at the University of Oxford) presented a series of events. These covered the way in which form and function are inextricably linked at the macroscopic, microscopic and molecular level and its implications in biomedicine. They also explored the revolution of open access science in drug discovery and the history of X-ray crystallography in Oxford - a groundbreaking technique that enabled scientists to look into a protein at the atomic level.
Public lecture
Discovering Drugs Without Patents: An open access revolution in progress
Life Form and Function A-Level student study day
Talks and interactive activities explored how form and function are inextricably linked at the macroscopic, microscopic and molecular level.
Proteins Revealed: Oxford's protein X-ray crystallography, then and now
An exhibition that explored the history of protein X-ray crystallography in Oxford.