The Institute of Global Health Innovation announces the winner of its first Student Challenge - News

By John-Paul Jones
Friday 23 March 2012

The Institute of Global Health Innovation hosted its first ever Student Challenge awards this week, in which five different projects addressing international health challenges were pitched to a panel of judges, with a prize of £2000 of development money up for grabs.

The five entrants, combinations of individual students and teams, were grilled on Wednesday evening by a panel consisting of Sir Liam Donaldson, former Chief Medical Officer and Chair in Health Policy at the Institute of Global Health Innovation, Jane Dreaper, BBC health correspondent and Sarah Brown,  Founder and President of PiggyBankKids and Global Patron of the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood.  

The Challenge’s winner was John Chetwood, a fifth year medical student at the College, for his project looking at how urinary biomarkers can be used to create a new diagnostic tool to detect Cholangiocarcinoma, an aggressive form of cancer that affects the bile ducts and is caused by a parasitic worm.

John, who will be using the money to develop his project further, said:

“I’m extremely pleased to win, particularly as I had to rush back from playing hockey at Varsity to compete for the prize. It was very exciting to present my project to such high-profile judges, and the award validates the emerging role global health is playing in international research.”

Another finalist, medical student, Yu-Jeat Chong, was highly commended for his project which used satellite technology to monitor salinity in drinking water.

 The challenge’s aim is to broaden students’ awareness of how research can be applied to tackling global heath problems, and to give them the opportunity to communicate their own work to the public. It was open to students studying for a BSc, MSc, MEng, MBA, MPH or MRes with students’ final-year projects being the basis for their entries.

John with the judging panel

Sir Liam Donaldson announced the winners after he delivered the Institute of Global Health Innovation’s Annual Lecture on Wednesday evening. He commended all five projects, saying: “The competition was a fantastic opportunity for Imperial students to showcase their research more widely. As chair of the judge’s panel, I thought the quality and range of the projects were of a very high standard. It was a difficult decision for us to choose a winner as all the projects offered innovative approaches to tackling important global health issues.”

Judge Sarah Brown added: “I loved the energy of each presentation, the breadth of research topic from cancer clusters to river salinity to the hip topic of frugal innovation, and the individuality of each set of PowerPoint images.  I think we identified the right winner but truthfully every one of the students should persevere with their worthwhile and fascinating topics.”

Next year’s competition is already open for submission, with the Institute hoping it will become an annual event.

Professor Guang-Zhong Yang, Deputy Chair of the Institute said:

“We have a wealth of talented students who are passionate about improving the health of people around the world. The competition not only gives them a chance to improve their communications skills but also present their work to a wider audience. We look forward to seeing how John’s project develops further, and to receiving the submissions for next year’s competition.”

 For more information see:

//www3.imperial.ac.uk/global-health-innovation/studentinitiatives

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