University College London

University College London (UCL) has recently announced a partnership with Yale University to improve the human condition through translational medicine.

Translational medicine aims to improve patient treatments using molecular and cellular discoveries. This research focussed approach aims to increase the speed at which discoveries made in the laboratory are turned into remedies that can be used to treat patients.

Initial research will focus on cardiovascular disease, cancer and neurosciences but will also expand into other areas of basic research, including cancer biology, neuroscience and women’s health.

UCL was recently ranked fourth in The Times Higher Education/QS World University Rankings, and Yale ranked third.

Kevin – www.studylondon.ac.uk

Imperial College London

Researchers at Imperial College London have discovered an unusual kind of meteorite in the Western Australian desert and have uncovered where in the Solar System it came from using a new camera network.

Meteorites are the only surviving physical record of the formation of our Solar System. By analysing meteorites, researchers can learn valuable information about the conditions that existed when the Solar System was being formed.

However, information about where individual meteorites originated, and how they were moving around the Solar System prior to falling to Earth, is available for only a dozen of around 1100 documented meteorite falls over the past two hundred years.

The new meteorite, which is about the size of cricket ball, is the first to be retrieved since researchers from Imperial set up their cameras to track meteorites falling in Australia. They hope that their new desert network could yield many more findings.

Kevin – www.studylondon.ac.uk

Outside the stunning new Dawin Centre

The new Darwin Centre, an inspirational new museum collection that will safeguard 17 million insect and three million plant specimens, has been opened at the Natural History Museum by Prince William.

A new state-of-the-art scientific research facility within the Centre will be used by over 200 scientists at a time. Visitors will be allowed to journey deep into the heart of the eight-storey cocoon.

Once inside, visitors can watch scientists at work in laboratories and question them about their cutting-edge research.

Natural history footage is available to visitors in the high-tech Attenborough Studio and curious visitors can interact with the 12-metre Climate Change Wall which opens up a hidden world at the Natural History Museum.

The Natural History Museum is also a world-leading science research centre and was selected by Time Out magazine as one of the Seven Wonders of London.

Kevin – www.studylondon.ac.uk

The Queen Mary Bioenterprises Innovation Centre

A new five storey innovation centre offering 3,900 square metres of laboratory space, plus an auditorium and a café has opened at Queen Mary, University of London.

The laboratory design will allow tenants to specify the internal division of their labs and the ratio of wet-lab to write up space.

The Queen Mary Bioenterprises Innovation Centre is designed for start-ups and more mature companies in the biosciences, environmental, nanotech and clean-tech sectors.

The Centre is part of a new medical district in central London and will be located next to both the Barts and the London School of Medicine & Dentistry and the Royal London Hospital.

Kevin – www.studylondon.ac.uk

Imperial College London

A futuristic £1 million rooftop ‘greenhouse’ has been created at Imperial College London to allow scientists to grow large quantities of plants for experiments ranging from developing new sources of biofuels to helping sequence the tomato genome.

The new Imperial GroDome is the only rooftop facility of its kind in London. It provides plant scientists with over 200 square metres of temperature and light controlled growing space for a variety of plant species, allowing them to carry out large-scale plant experiments.

The GroDome is the part of a development project to support plant science research at Imperial, which has also seen the refurbishment of laboratories and the installation of controlled environment plant growth rooms for smaller plants, as well as imaging labs and mass spectrometry facilities.

Kevin – www.studylondon.ac.uk

The orange pod above Queen Mary's science laboratory

A groundbreaking new science education centre will open at Queen Mary, University of London in September.

Centre of the Cell is the first science education centre in the world to be sited within working biomedical research laboratories.

Over 30,000 people are expected to visit the futuristic orange cell-shaped ‘Pod’ suspended within the award-winning Blizard Building in Whitechapel. Students will be able to watch scientists at work while inside the Pod.

The Centre will also provide students with the opportunity to use a combination of digital interactives, films and high powered microscopes. Students can even grow their own virtual stem cells for research.

Kevin – www.studylondon.ac.uk

Imperial College London

Imperial College London’s new £2 million geochemistry laboratories will help tackle climate change, combat pollution and develop a deeper understanding of Parkinson’s disease.

The Mass Spectrometry and Isotope Geochemistry (MAGIC) facilities boast a newly refurbished geochemistry laboratory, the latest equipment to analyse the chemical content of materials, and a large clean room facility.

Students using the new laboratories will investigate the chemical content of materials to further our understanding of humans, our environment, the Earth and the solar system.

Simon – www.studylondon.ac.uk

Reseachers at St George’s, University of London

The development of gels that can protect people against HIV will receive more than £90 million of funding, following research by British scientists that suggests new medicines have the best chance yet of controlling the spread of Aids.

New research is developing gels that women can apply before having sex to prevent HIV from entering the bloodstream. A number of world-leading British research teams, including those at Imperial College London and St George’s, University of London, will be awarded funding to continue this groundbreaking research.

Funding will be supported by the UK Government and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It is thought that with an Aids vaccine still decades away, such preventative medicines provide the most realistic strategies to protect people against HIV infection, a condition that has claimed more than 25 million lives to date.

Simon – www.studylondon.ac.uk

The London International Youth Science Forum celebrates its 50th anniversary with the launch of brand new website www.liysf.org.uk and plans for its 2009 conference.

There are more than 120,000 students studying science related subjects in London's universities

Over 200 science students from 50 countries will travel to London between 29 July and 12 August 2009 to exchange ideas at the Forum. This year’s keynote speaker is Professor John Ellis, a physicist from the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN).

The theme for 2009 is ‘Science Serving Mankind’ and the conference will explore how science leads to the advancement of humanity. Leading scientists, dignitaries and industry pioneers will give lectures throughout the two weeks and participants have the opportunity to visit pioneering industrial sites, world-renowned scientific institutions and innovative research centres in London.

Kevin – www.studylondon.acuk

University College London (UCL) is opening its first overseas campus in Adelaide, Australia.

University College London

Students will be able to study for a two-year Master’s degree in Energy and Resources at the UCL School of Energy and Resources, Australia. The new campus will also offer executive education programmes to companies across the Asia-Pacific region.

The campus has been created in partnership with the government of South Australia and will receive substantial financial support from Santos, one of Australia’s largest energy companies.

The collaboration will help address the increasingly complex economic, management, legal and engineering challenges arising from the development and use of energy and resources.

Kevin – www.studylondon.ac.uk