Despite the logistical challenges of a global pandemic, the Workshop Organizing Committee, comprised of current Scholars in the NIH Oxford-Cambridge/Wellcome Trust Program, worked diligently to plan the 2021 Annual NIH Global Doctoral Partnerships Research Workshop. This year the Workshop, entitled Celebrating Science: Looking Back and Looking Forward, was held virtually from July 13-15, 2021. Building around this theme, the Committee sought to unite Scholars, faculty mentors, program leadership, and invited speakers with a goal to enrich the training experience of the Scholars. The Workshop included keynote lectures and student oral presentations, elevator pitches, poster sessions, and long talks. To celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program, the organizing committee invited keynote speakers, Scholar research presentations, elevator pitch competitions, poster sessions, and extended research talks. Additionally, they hosted a Founders Panel, along with Alumni reunion rooms for alumni and Scholars to connect. Members of the Board of Directors of the International Biomedical Research Alliance served among the faculty as moderators, judges, and elevator pitch team coaches throughout the Workshop.
Opening the 2021 Workshop, Workshop Organizing Committee Chair, and 2020 NIH Gates Cambridge M.D./Ph.D. Scholar Yasemin Cole welcomed the participants and introduced Professor Mihaela van der Schaar, Ph.D. as the Keynote Speaker (Looking Forward). Professor van der Schaar is the John Humphrey Plummer Professor of Machine Learning, AI, and Medicine at the University of Cambridge. Her lecture “Moving Medicine from Art Towards Science Using ML” invited Scholars to engage in and co-develop Machine Learning tools. She shared how Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning have been essential in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. This included managing limiting resources, developing personalized and effective treatment courses for each patient, informing policies and improving collaboration, clinical trials, and managing uncertainty. Closing the lecture, Professor van der Schaar encouraged the audience to join Revolutionizing Healthcare, an ongoing series of engagement sessions for clinicians to tackle a wide variety of topics, including interpretability, personalized therapeutics, early diagnosis, and more.
Following Professor van der Schaar’s lecture, Alliance Chairman Stephen McLean served as the moderator of the NIH OxCam Founders Panel. The Workshop Organizing Committee invited the individuals essential to the development and evolution of the Scholars Program, including Dr. Michael Lenardo, Dr. Richard Siegel, Professor Gavin Screaton, Dr. Daniel Douek, and Professor Sir Keith Peters to celebrate the Program’s 20th Anniversary. Panelists shared their experiences from the early days of the Program’s inception and noted the challenges they faced. They credited the early Scholars who took a chance on a new and unique graduate program that paved the path for current and future Scholars. They shared their thoughts about how they saw the Program evolving moving forward.
The Class of 2018 Long Talks were broken up into three sessions, Students Room 1/Infectious Disease, Students, Room 2/Neurology & Cancer, and Students, and Room 3/Developmental Biology, Genetics, & Immunology. The Class of 2018 Outstanding Speaker Presentation Award was presented to Scholar NIH-Oxford Scholar Taylor Farley and the Outstanding Speaker Honorable Mention was presented to NIH-Cambridge Scholar Mehdi Seif Hamouda. After the 2018 Long Talks, Scholars in their final years led the OxCam Reflections Journey panel discussion. Panelists took questions from the audience and shared their experiences in the Program. Day one closed with a virtual showing of the documentary Picture A Scientist, a stirring personal account of brutal and subtle harassment as told by female researchers bravely sharing their own experiences. The film is meant to provide new enlightened perspectives on how to make science more diverse, equitable, and open to all
On day two of the Workshop, Organizing Committee Vice-Chair and 2020 NIH-Oxford M.D./Ph.D. Scholar Sahba Seddighi welcomed back attendees and introduced Keynote Speaker (Looking Back) Dr. Vivian Lee. Dr. Lee is the author of The Long Fix: Solving America’s Health Care Crisis with Strategies that Work for Everyone (Norton) and President of Health Platforms at Verily Life Sciences. A physician and health care executive, Dr. Lee also serves as a senior lecturer at Harvard Medical School. In her talk entitled “Lessons from The Long Fix: Coproducing Health” Dr. Lee shared the importance of better data and analytics, partnerships between employers and health systems, and leveraging the emerging digital health space to transform consumers into “prosumers.”
Always a highlight of the Workshop, the Elevator Pitch Team Competition challenge is comprised of three teams, consisting of 6-7 first-year students and led by coaches consisting of an upperclassman Scholar, Alliance Director, and an OxCam Executive Committee faculty member. The teams are required to execute condensed research talks as part of the Class of 2020 Elevator Pitch Team Competition. The much-anticipated team competition yielded spirited research presentations, woven into creative formats, geared toward engaging the audience – all in an effort to hone science communication skills. The OxCam in Wonderland team stole the show and were named the 2021 Elevator Pitch Team winners. 2020 NIH-Oxford Scholar Hannah Dada and 2020 NIH-Cambridge Scholar Jacob Gordon were named the Class of 2020 Outstanding Speaker Presentation Award recipients.
The Class of 2019 presented posters with topics including cancer, neurodegeneration, cellular biology, genetics, physiology, and imaging. Class of 2019 Scholars uploaded their posters and interacted with attendees and judges at the Poster Hall. NIH-Cambridge Scholar Abigail Giles was named the Class of 2019 Outstanding Speaker Presentation Award recipient and NIH Gates Cambridge M.D./Ph.D. Scholar Stephen Gadomski was named the Outstanding Speaker Honorable Mention recipient.
NIH OxCam Alumna Dr. Bhooma Aravamuthan opened the Women in STEM discussion with her talk “Women in STEM – Data-based gaps and possible solutions” and was joined by fellow Alumni Drs. Adjoa Smalls-Mantey and Molly Perkins, along with, NIH Senior Investigator Dr. Judith Walters for a panel conversation.
Day 3 began with concurrent Alumni Panel Sessions and Alumni Reunion Rooms to connect Scholars and Alumni. The Academia/Physician-Scientist Panelists were Dr. Madhvi Venkatesh, Professor Elizabeth Brickley, Professor Aaron Alexander-Bloch, Dr. Madhav Sukumaran, and moderated by Alliance Director Dr. Kathy Zoon. The Government & Industry Panelists were Dr. Katie Warner, Dr. Tamara Litwin, and Dr. Tracy Yuen and moderated by Dr. Adam Knight. To conclude the Workshop, the Annual Research Awards Ceremony announced eight Alliance Sponsored Awards, along with, Outstanding Speaker Presentation Awards and Honorable Mentions for each class year (noted above in the order they appeared in the agenda), and the winning team for the Elevator Pitch Competition (also noted above). Details on the winners can be found in a separate article on this page.
To welcome the Class of 2021, the Workshop Organizing Committee stitched together a video of the new Scholars introducing themselves to the audience, opening with a Star Wars-themed presentation. Scholars were invited to participate in a Town Hall discussion and concluded with a Pub Quiz night.
Congratulations to Scholars Alex Waldman, Emily Kolyvas, Stewart Humble, and Stephen Gadomski for being named the 2021 Photo Contest Winners for their My Cool Science and/orMy OxCam Experience submissions. Please find these photos in the 2021 Alliance Journal, which can be found alongside the Program Agenda here.
The Board of Directors of the International Biomedical Alliance would like to acknowledge the following individuals and organizations whose steadfast support makes a meaningful difference for the next generation of scientists: Arsenal Capital Partners, AuerbachSchrot, LLC, BioHealth Innovation, Bluestreet Productions, Certara, Emergent BioSolutions, FAES, Institute for the Future of Medical Education, Lasker Foundation, MacroGenics, Michael Lenardo, M.D., National Institutes of Health, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Richard Siegel, M.D. and Vera Siegel, University of Cambridge, University of Oxford and WCG.
In the midst of a global pandemic, the NIH Oxford-Cambridge (OxCam)/Wellcome Trust (WT) Scholars rallied together to execute the Annual NIH Global Doctoral Partnerships Research Workshop (Workshop). The student-led Workshop Planning Committee (Committee) researched venues, engaged keynote speakers, invited guests, and arranged student talks and team competitions intended to be hosted at American University. Unfortunately, due to Covid-19, the Committee had to quickly pivot from an in-person event to hosting on a virtual platform. While months of planning went into the in-person Workshop, the Committee took on the challenges of creating not only the first student-run event, but also the first virtual event, finding creative ways to engage the student body and allowing Scholars to present their research.
Opening the 2020 Workshop, Committee Chair and ’19 NIH-Oxford Scholar, Marya Sabir, introduced NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins and welcomed the Scholars and participants. Dr. Collins addressed global cooperation in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and importance of global collaboration. “Science is necessary for the future of the world,” stated Dr. Collins.
Following Dr. Collins’ welcome address, Keynote Speaker Madhukar Pai discussed “Reimagining Global Health in the Post-Pandemic World.” Key take-aways included the ability to “reflect on our privilege and spend the privilege to serve as allies in the quest for a more diverse and equitable global health.” He also stated, “we need to address health inequities within high-income countries. GLOBAL health is also and just as much LOCAL health.” This discussion prompted the audience to zoom out and discuss diversity and inclusion within their institutions and research partnerships.
Scholars Lynda Truong, Hannah Mason, and Marya Sabir served as moderators for concurrent sessions featuring Scholar oral presentations spanning Cellular and Molecular Biology, Immunology and Neuroscience respectively. For the first- and second-year Scholars, the Workshop Planning Committee took a unique spin on traditional “elevator pitches” and created a team competition. Four teams, consisting of 6-7 students and led by a Scholar and an OxCam Executive Committee Captains, battled for bragging rights in executing condensed research talks. The much-anticipated team competition yielded spirited research presentations, woven into creative formats, geared toward engaging the audience – all in an effort to hone science communication skills.
On day two of the Workshop, ’18 NIH-Oxford Scholar Lauren Wedekind welcomed back Workshop attendees and introduced Keynote Speaker Ms. Krystal Tsosie. Ms. Tsosie, a PhD Candidate at Vanderbilt University, presented “Our Genomes, Our Health: Empowering Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Precision Medicine for US Tribes.” In her talk, she surveyed her work in bioethics as an Indigenous scientist, training of young Indigenous scientists with the Summer internship for Indigenous peoples in Genomics (SING) Consortium and discussed the problems of institutions’ engagement with tribal communities. Ms. Tsosie recommended the audience to read a perspective published in Nature called “A framework for enhancing ethical genomic research with Indigenous communities.”
Scholars Audrey Winkelsas, Lauren Wedekind and Katherine Masih served as moderators for consecutive Scholar oral presentations around Neuroscience and Neuroimmunology, Cancer and Genetics, and Infectious Disease and Vaccine Research.
To welcome the Class of 2020, Student Leadership Board member Boya Wang stitched together a video of the new Scholars introducing themselves and sharing fun facts. We learned that there are three sets of twins among the new class and heard that a newly married Scholar is hiking thousands of miles across the US prior to orientation week!
Due to time constraints in transitioning from an in person event to a virtual event, the Committee decided to reorganize alumni presentations via a bi-monthly Alumni Social Hour as part of a new initiative called the Career Development Seminar Series. They designed these webinars to engage with alumni of the NIH OxCam/WT Program. Hosted on the Alliance’s Zoom Platform, the Committee invited Program Alumni to talk about their careers in industry, consulting, academia, medicine, start-ups, and more and “met” alumni from around the world. The Committee has scheduled these webinars until mid-September and are looking forward to continuing this series.
Keynote Speaker Drs. L. Michelle Bennett and Michele Hu graciously agreed to serve as presenters for the Zoom Career Development Seminar Series. Dr. Bennett presented “Collaboration and Team Science for Research Success” on July 13, 2020 and shared insights on Disciplinary Continuum, the Three Pillars (Trust, Vision and Setting Expectations) and Stages of Team Development. Dr. Michele Hu, a Professor of Clinical Neuroscience and Honorary Consultant Neurologist at the University of Oxford, will present on July 29, 2020. Dr. Hu leads the clinical research program on the Oxford Parkinson’s Disease Centre Discovery cohort and her team facilitates translational research in the field of longitudinal cohort studies and biomarkers for early and prodromal Parkinson’s disease, with particular focus on REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD), and how sleep affects neurodegeneration.
Dr. L. Michelle BennettDr. Michele Hu
To conclude the Workshop, the Annual Research Awards Ceremony announced eight Alliance Sponsored Awards, along with, Outstanding Speaker Presentation Awards and Honorable Mentions for each class year, and winning team for the Elevator Pitch Competition. Details on the winners can be found in a separate article on this page. To learn more about the Workshop, the Program Agenda can be found here.
The Board of Directors of the International Biomedical Alliance would like to acknowledge the following individuals and organizations whose steadfast support makes a meaningful difference for the next generation of scientists: Arsenal Capital Partners, AuerbachSchrot, LLC, BioHealth Innovation, Certara, Cozzi Family Clinical Case Conferences/Mrs. Margaret Cozzi-Hamilton, Emergent BioSolutions, Institute for the Future of Medical Education, Lasker Foundation, MacroGenics, Margaret Bearn, Michael Lenardo, M.D., National Institutes of Health, NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars/Wellcome Trust Alumni, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Richard Siegel, M.D. and Vera Siegel, University of Cambridge, University of Oxford and WCG.
With a backdrop steeped in history at the oldest English-speaking university, the Annual Research Workshop for the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars and Wellcome Trust Programme was held at Keble College, at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom, June 25-27th, 2019. This year over 120 students, alumni, faculty mentors, administrators, and Alliance Directors traveled to Oxford to attend the Workshop.
On the morning of June 25th, the Workshop opened with keynote Prof. Anna Gloyn, who presented her work on Genetics, Diabetes, and Metabolism. Prof. Gloyn is internationally known for her collaborative work leading multiple consortia involved in genetic and target discovery for Type 2 diabetes, working closely with academia, pharma, and SMEs. While Prof. Gloyn’s work itself was fascinating, her generous sharing and personal commentary truly struck a chord with the Scholars. She spoke candidly about how to be a good collaborator, finding a “champion,” striving to enjoy your life inside and outside of the lab, and selecting high impact/high reward tasks.
The Workshop communicated a continuous theme of meeting challenges as opportunities with talks on impactful research and career pathways from invited guest speakers. In a session entitled “Career Pathways and Career Breaks,” Dr. Cynthia Wright Drakesmith, a data scientist at the University of Oxford, detailed her seven-year hiatus from the lab in order to raise her two children and her triumphant return as a Daphne Jackson Fellow to retrain as a computational biologist. Dr. Charvy Narain introduced a session on science communication, describing her career from Nature journal editor to managing media coverage and public engagement for a variety of scientific research.
Special attention was given to Alumna Dr. Melody Duvall, Class of ’03, when she shared with the audience her ever-evolving career as a physician-scientist working at the intersection of pediatric critical care and research on lung inflammation in children. She shared her tips for the journey and highlighted the importance of mentorship, listening to your heart (and gut), and surrounding yourself with “people you would like to be” in ten plus years. The Scholars were enamored with the very accomplished Dr. Duvall, and scheduled follow-up meetings to talk to her further about her advice and to learn from her experience in the program. Another program alumnus, Dr. Andrew Ishizuka, Class of ’14, discussed his career path from academia to founding a spin-out, highlighting his biotech company Avidea Technologies and speaking about how he became interested in pursuing a career in science. The last talk in the career pathway series was delivered by Dr. Andrew Jermy, a former Nature Chief Editor, who highlighted careers in publishing. He provided the pros and cons of being a publisher including these pros: traveling, being family friendly, having job security, and establishing connections.
As is customary, the centerpiece of the Annual Research Workshop is highlighting student research projects. Over the course of the Workshop, fourteen students in advanced stages of their research, gave formal presentations on their work, followed by a question and answer period. Poster sessions provided yet another opportunity for students to interact around their research and to welcome the new members of the Class of 2019 on their first Workshop experience.
On the final day of the workshop, the morning session was kicked off by Prof. Maureen Kelley who discussed ethical research in developing countries. Later in the day, Alliance Director Tom Heyman chaired the Entrepreneurship and Business Spinouts panel. The panel featured topics across transitioning from academia to becoming an entrepreneur, as well as, learning about the Oxford Foundry and programs they support. Zoologist Dr. Manuel Berdoy discussed the design of experiments in his talk: “How NOT to Ruin a Perfectly Good Idea.” The final talk of the workshop was given by Prof. Richard Wade-Martins who presented: “Parkinsons in a Dish – from Molecular Mechanisms to Target Discovery.” The Annual Workshop concluded with a final poster session and a lively, well-attended Town Hall Meeting for all students and faculty in the program.
In the evening, before the formal gala dinner, students assembled for the traditional photograph of the full cohort on the Keble lawn, as well as some less than serious group shots. Students, mentors, administrators, as well as, members of the Alliance Board of Directors and guests were treated to an elegant dinner reception opened with a warm welcome from Prof. Gavin Screaton, Head of the Medical Sciences Division at the University of Oxford. Prof. Screaton recognized and thanked Prof. Sarah Rowland Jones for her many years of leadership as the Program Director at Oxford. Prof. Michael Dustin was officially welcomed, taking up the leadership mantel at Oxford. Awards were presented with Scholars Taylor Farley and Zinan Zhang recognized as delivering the best poster and best research talk awards, respectively. The much-anticipated annual science recognition awards were announced. Details on the winners can be found in a separate article on this page.
On behalf of the Alliance, the University of Oxford and the Scholars Program, we extend our thanks to Celgene and WCG for their generosity in supporting the Workshop.
The January 14, 2016 Lasker Lessons in Leadership featured Linda Fried, dean of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. She addressed the importance of leadership and communication in science and health. This event took place on the main campus of the NIH and was available to the public via live webcast.
The second Lasker Lessons in Leadership lecture, with keynote speaker Dr. Dan Littman and discussion panelists Dr. Alan Sher, Dr. Beverly Purnell, and Dr. Enrique Schisterman will take place on August 4th on the NIH main campus in Bethesda, Maryland. This lecture and panel discussion will focus upon providing experienced advice on how successful leaders communicate and publish their science. Some of the questions to be covered will be knowing when to publish and when a story is complete, common mistakes made in writing papers, and why papers are most often rejected. Writing is hard – come learn how to become a better writer and communicator of your science.
A series of one-day lectures, the Lasker Lessons in Leadership was developed by the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation in collaboration with the International Biomedical Research Alliance and the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program to help postgraduate medical research students navigate their careers and develop critical leadership skills. The Scholars Program has revolutionized the way in which the most talented students receive accelerated training on collaborative projects performed between laboratories in the US and EU. Lasker Foundation President Claire Pomeroy, MD, MBA, said “The next generation of physicians and scientists is key to ensuring that biomedical research flourishes into the future. In addition to scientific knowledge, these young researchers must have the leadership skills necessary to guide innovation and scientific discovery. The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation is pleased to partner to create the Lasker Lessons in Leadership program to address this need.”
WIRB-Copernicus Group (WCG), the world’s largest provider of regulatory and ethical review services and software to support clinical research, and Certara, the global biosimulation technology-enabled drug development consultancy, are co-sponsoring several of the lectures.
The NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program will hold the 2015 Annual Research Colloquium June 22-24th, 2015. This year the Colloquium will be hosted by the University of Cambridge at Downing College. In addition to a number of student presentations showcasing their extraordinary work, a stellar line-up of talks and workshops will be delivered by senior and leading academics including Publishing Science, Molecular Biology, Genetics, Big Data, Working in Industry, Clinical and Translational Immunology, and Protein Biosynthesis. Sponsors of this year’s Colloquium include WIRB-Copernicus Group (WCG), the world’s largest provider of regulatory and ethical review services and software to support clinical research, and Certara®, the global biosimulation technology-enabled drug development consultancy, and the International Biomedical Research Alliance.
