Nursing gene discovered in Hull breakthough

Prof KN Owalot

The gene that determines nursing behaviour has been discovered at the University of Hull putting to rest decades of the 'nurture versus nature' argument with regard to nursing and its attendant caring behaviours.

The work was carried out by Professor K.N. Owalot and funded by the U.N. Welcome Trust (Genome programme). Referring to the research which is published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing Professor Owalot said: 'This is a genuine breakthrough. For decades we have been wasting money on nursing programmes - even up to degree level -  and interviews. This discovery means that we can simply select on the basis of a saliva sample.'

About the discovery, Professor Owalot explained that only two codons make up this gene and these codons are entirely composed of the base cytosine. Codons are made up of three bases so this gene is composed of: CCC CCC. 'We're calling this the 6Cs gene' says Professor Owalot.

For further information and interviews please conact the University of Hull Media Office.

Biomedical Science Research Seminars 2017

Biomedical Science Research Seminars 2017,

Wednesday 1-2pm: All Welcome

Date	Speaker	Title	Location
1st March	Dr Mat Hardman, Director of Research School of Life Sciences & Reader in Wound Healing, University of Hull	Wound exploration: uncovering new mechanisms in skin healing pathology	BRYN-TR6
5th April	Professor Evelien Smits, Professory Tumor Immunology,  University of Antwerp	Investigating interleukin 15 and immune checkpoints for cancer immunotherapy	FEN-157/163
3rd May	Dr Stephanie McArdle, Senior Research Fellow, Nottingham Trent University	PAP-derived prostate cancer vaccine for the treatment of advanced prostate cancer	FEN-157/163
7th June	Dr Daniel Stratton, Senior Lecturer of Bioscience & Forensic Science Course Leader, London Metropolitan University	Microvesicles and Cancer (Sponsored by the Physiological Society – TBC)	FEN-157/163
5th July	Professor Ken Mills, Professor in School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences, Queen’s University Belfast	Improvement of the diagnosis, prognosis and prediction of therapeutic responses in myeloid leukaemia	FEN-157/163

Investigating interleukin 15 and immune checkpoints for cancer immunotherapy

Hull Science Festival

Hull Science Festival is occurring at the University of Hull on Sunday 2nd April from 10am - 4pm. Tickets can be booked here. presentations include those in the exploration zone by Dr Barbara Guinn on strawberry DNA extraction and by Professor John Greenman on microfluidics.

Hull TedX talk: From Where I Stand

Dr Isabel Pires, lecturer in the Biomedical Science subject group is delivering a talk at TEDxHull on Friday 31st March 10am - 3pm at the Hull Truck Theatre. The event is called "From Where I Stand" and Isabel will be talking about the HeLa cervical cancer cells, the first to be grown outside of a patient, taken from Mrs Henrietta Lacks in 1951. 

Cafe Scientifique: Wee tests for Cancer: the future is yellow

Dr Barbara Guinn will deliver a Cafe Scientific, tomorrow Wednesday 29th March, 7.30pm in Nellie's pub aka The White Horse Inn, Beverley.

Everyone is welcome and Cafe Scientific talks run every last Wednesday of the month at 7.30pm in Nellies pub.Check here for more details.

Developing teaching academics as scholars of teaching and learning – an interdisciplinary project

Peter Draper

Dr Peter Draper and Professor Graham Scott have been awarded £1000 by SEDA for a project:

Developing teaching academics as scholars of teaching and learning – an interdisciplinary project

Graham Scott

Schools visit Biomedical Sciences

On Friday 24^th March two schools visited the Biomedical Science subject group  for a Forensic Science taster session. The students learnt about the usefulness of a Forensic Science degree due to its application of many different sciences to answer the questions posed by the legal system. To this end students analysed their own hair and hair casts using clear nail varnish and microscope slides. And they analysed their fingerprints, which are unique to every individual even identical twins. David Stamper, Associate Assistant Head of Headlands School in Bridlington wrote “Can I just pass on my thanks for a great day. We all really enjoyed it and the students got a great deal out of it.”

Amy Newton, the Schools and Colleges Liaison Service wrote, “I just want to say a huge thank you for organising and leading the Forensic Science sessions on today’s school visits. The students appeared very engaged and I received a lot of positive verbal feedback about the session from both staff and students on their return to the coaches. I also really enjoyed the session! Thank you once again …”

Help-seeking and mutual recruitment into work in compulsive hoarding

Tim Buescher

Tim Buescher and Tracy Pallett (co-researcher and expert by experience) presented:
A participatory narrative of help-seeking and mutual recruitment' into their work in compulsive hoarding at Public Engagement and Performance Conference (see YouTube) 2017 17-18 March in York.

A blog about blogging..…really?

Here are some great links to articles that discuss why you might like to consider blogging, as an academic.

Image: Amazon.co.uk. screengrab

If you are interested in discovering how blogging can be used in teaching and learning, read this one.

If you are a researcher, visit this link, as it says everything you need to know, and says it very well.

And if you are a postgraduate student yourself, try thisone.

Finally, if you work in and around Higher Education, you can learn more here.

Better still, check out all four links if you have a chance!

Here’s hoping to see you making your first forays into blogging via this very bog! Keep us posted!

Lizzie Ette, Lecturer in Nursing

A-EQUIP: the benefits to midwives, a higher education perspective

Nicky Clark, Lead Midwife for Education in the Faculty has an entry on the NHS England blogsite

Truth telling and hope blog entry by Jan Hunter

Jan Hunter, Lecturer in Adult Nursing & Module Lead Medicines Management has published:

To tell or nt to tell? Honesty and hope in cancer nursing on BMJ Blogs 

Uganda trip by our nursing students

Sarah Davies, Victoria Messruther and Danielle Lincoln – three of our second year nursing students, have been on a trip to Uganda. These trips - which involve clinical practice - can be facilitated  as a part of our Bsc Nursing ‘alternative practice’ placements. This placement is facilitated by one of our PhD graduands, Dr Grace Nambozi in Mbarara.

Important international appointment for Nicki Credland

Nicki Credland has  just been appointed UK representative to the World Federation of Critical Care Nurses

Factors affecting the programme completion of pre-registration nursing students through a three year course: A retrospective cohort study

New publication by Jane Wray, Jo Aspland, Eric Gardiner and David Barrett: Wray J, Aspland J, Gardiner E, Barrett D (2017)  Factors affecting the programme completion of pre-registration nursing students through a three year course: A retrospective cohort study Nurse Education and Practice doi: 

Jo Aspland

Dr David Barrett

Jane Wray

Dr Eric Gardiner

Be like James Bond: connect with Q.

IMAGE: SONY PICTURES/SCREENGRAB

For those not yet aware, The Health Foundation, in collaboration with NHS Improvement, has established a new health improvement network called Q.

Q is currently promoting their network to those working in the Yorkshire and Humber region. 

If you have expertise in improvement and primarily work/volunteer in these parts of the UK, you are able to apply.

All applications for the spring wave need to be submitted by 23:59 (GMT) Monday 10 April.’

You can find details of the application process here: https://q.health.org.uk/join-q/

Taken from their website, Q says of itself:
‘Q is an initiative connecting people, who have improvement expertise, across the UK. It is led by the Health Foundation and supported and co-funded by NHS Improvement. Q’s mission is to foster continuous and sustainable improvement in health and care.
We’re creating opportunities for people to come together as an improvement community – sharing ideas, enhancing skills and collaborating to make health and care better.
We are creating Q for the long term to support individuals and their existing improvement work, to benefit members’ organisations and the populations they serve. It is designed to complement and help connect other initiatives and networks.
This is an exciting time for Q as we begin to pilot a variety of activities and opportunities that will enable people to connect, exchange, collaborate and learn. Some of these will be led by the Health Foundation, with others led by members and partner organisations.

You can find out more about Q here: https://q.health.org.uk/about/

by Lizzie Ette, Lecturer in Nursing

Student ODP Showcase Conference

The showcase conference was very successful and the whole ODP team are incredibly proud of the 3^rdyears.  Feedback from visitors and other students was incredibly positive and has certainly highlighted that the innovative projects being proposed by the students would be well received in clinical practice.  We had a whole range of different ideas put forward from developing a policy for surgical first assistants, to simulation training, mandatory training packages, information leaflets and app based developments for anxiety and education purposes.  We sincerely hope that our students enjoyed the chance to showcase their projects and that they will take these forward into their future careers and develop them.

Assessing Acute Itch Intensity: General Labelled Magnitude Scale is More Reliable than Classic Visual Analogue Scale

Dr Henning Holle

Henning Holle has co-authored:


Jones O, Schindler I, Holle H (2017) Assessing acute itch intensity: General Labelled Magnitude Scale is more reliable than Classic Visual Analoge Scale Acta Dermato-Venereologica doi: 10.2340/00015555-2584

Dr Holle was also interviewed about his work on contagious itch on DRadio Wissen, a German national radio  station.

Question: Why sign up to the National Institute of Health Research mailing list? Answer: Because we said so....oh, and they're really useful!

NIHR Dissemination Centre - Right Evidence, Better Decisions

The National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Dissemination Centre aims to put good research evidence at the heart of decision making in health and social care.

The centre critically appraises the latest health research to identify the most reliable, relevant and significant findings. It then disseminates these findings as:

These are OUR reasons, what are yours? #KnowYourResearch

NIHR Signals - The latest important research, summarised
NIHR Highlights - Conditions, treatments and issues explored using NIHR evidence
Themed Reviews - Bringing together NIHR research on a particular theme
To keep up to date, sign up to their mailing list or follow @NIHR_DC on twitter.

Humber NHS Trust clinical psychologists CPD day

On Tuesday 28 February 2017 the Humber NHS Trust clinical psychologists held a CPD day themed around Research. Alongside Humber NHS FT staff, three members of the clinical psychology doctorate programme staff contributed talks. First Dr Emma Wolverson discussed her Horizon 2020 work on developing a social network for people with dementia and their carers (Caregivers pro) and the benefit of working with different professional disciplines across various European countries. Dr Tim Alexander talked about the effectiveness of research teams and the experience of working on a CCG funded project on barriers and facilitators for young people to access mental health services and support with colleagues in the faculty and local charity MIND HEY. Finally, Dr Annette Schlosser gave a presentation on writing up both research and issues of professional concern, with topics such as psychologically informed post-EU referendum reflections and women in leadership roles in the profession. The day was well received and participants left having formed ideas of research and writing projects to initiate or complete. The day was a good example of how local NHS Trusts and universities can work together to develop and enhance links and research interests.

A flash of light - Giuliana Mazzoni

Giuliana Mazzoni

Professor Giuliana Mazzoni presented:

Mazzoni, G. (2016). Where is colour? In A Miah, M Lorch (Ed), A flash of light. London, Royal Society of Chemistry.

Theresa Mercer, Andrew Kythreotis, Carol Lambert and Gill Hughes: The University of Hull PhD Experience Conference

Dr Carol Lambert

Carol Lambert co-authored this University of Hull alumni report on The PhD Experience