King's College London

A 4^th year undergraduate medical student, Mr Siddarth Raj, has won Best Original Research Award at the Future Orthopaedic Surgeons conference hosted by the Royal Society of Medicine.

The international meeting held on 7^th December 2019 was attended by orthopaedic clinicians and medical students from across s the UK and Europe.

Siddarth is a graduate of the Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences' Intercalated BSc in Regenerative Medicine and Innovation Technology in 2018.  During his course he worked with Dr Ian Thompson on a research project examining innovative materials for peripheral nerve regeneration.

After graduating the iBSc and returning to medicine, Siddarth continued to work with Dr Thompson on the project and presented his finding at the Future Orthopaedic Surgeons meeting.  The paper was titled In vitro Investigation into Peripheral Nerve Regeneration Using Chitosan-Collagen Hydrogels.  After winning the award Siddarth has received a number of invitations to present his data at other medical and student lead meetings.

Siddarth said: “My Intercalated degree has created so many opportunities already and I have not graduated medicine yet!  Working with Dr Thompson has allowed me to develop my research skills but perhaps more importantly he (Dr Thompson) has given me the confidence to stand up and present my data.”

The team lead by Dr Ian Thompson have just submitted a paper containing Siddarth’s data to the Brain and Behaviour journal, with hope it will be published in 2020.

Dr Thompson said: “I am so pleased that the hard work of our Intercalated BSc students is being recognised by both the King’s staff and also international clinical meetings.  Siddarth has been a hard working student and deserves his success at this and the other meetings he is presenting at.”

This research has been accepted as a poster presentation at the upcoming World Congress for Biomaterials, Glasgow May 2020.