Podcast: COVID-19 vaccine trials, neurodiversity in focus, and poet in residence

In this edition: A participant in Imperial’s COVID-19 vaccine trial, a professor who set up a neurodiversity network, and our new poet in residence.

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News: AI and COVID-19 treatments, plus extreme driving – We find out about a new trial using artificial intelligence to improve ventilation for very ill COVID-19 patients, and what tracking the body and eye movements and brain waves of a Formula E driver can tell us about expertise.

Taking part in a COVID-19 vaccine trial – We catch up with a participant in Imperial’s COVID-19 vaccine trial after she receives her first dose, to see how she feels and why she decided to take part.

Neurodiversity network – We talk to Professor Sara Rankin, who was only diagnosed with dyslexia and dyspraxia as an adult, about her journey and why she helped set up a network for neurodiverse staff and students at Imperial and partner organisations in South Kensington.

Professor Rankin has also produced a series of Lockdown Lessons, talking to scientists at Imperial that have rapidly responded to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Poet in residence – We talk to Imperial’s new poet in residence Dan Simpson and researcher Dr Ans Vercammen about the poem they are working on together and how art and science really aren’t that different.

Their final poem will be unveiled at the Imperial Lates Online: Back to Nature, running online from 27 July to 2 August. You can also listen to Dan’s crowdsourced Back to Nature poem and some more of his quick-fire haikus.

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The podcast is presented by Gareth Mitchell, a lecturer on Imperial's MSc Science Communication course and the presenter of Digital Planet on the BBC World Service, with contributions from our roving reporters in the Communications and Public Affairs Division.