King's College London

Researchers from the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences are back at the UK’s largest science festival, New Scientist Live, to share the latest breakthroughs in healthcare, surgery and artificial intelligence. The newly online event will feature sessions with our researchers in 3D printing, neuroanatomy, placenta imaging, future of at-home cardiological care, jobs in research and nuclear science.  

Professor Kawal Rhode

3D Printing in Healthcare: Live Demo  

3D printing is revolutionising healthcare by providing novel methods for visualising body parts, planning surgery and even treating patients.

Kawal Rhode, Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Head of Education will present a live 3D printing demonstration to show how it can be used in healthcare by taking a 2D medical scan of his own body and transforming it into a 3D print.

Dr Ana Baburamani & Lizzie Burns

Folding of the Brain: Exploring Science through Origami  

During early years the human brain undergoes astonishing changes in structure, becoming a highly folded network of neurons.

Dr Ana Baburamani from the Centre for the Developing Brain and Dr Lizzie Burns, a science-based, creative specialist and visiting academic in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford, will merge science and art to explore how scientists study the changes in the brain while workshop participants learn an origami fold.

Dr Andrew Melbourne, Dr Rosalind Aughwane 

What Did Your Placenta Ever Do For You? 

The placenta is essentially the lifeline for a growing baby, and arguably one of the most important organs in the human body, critical to birth.

Dr Rosalind Aughwane and Dr Andrew Melbourne will discuss new concepts and therapies that are currently being introduced in the UK alongside state-of the art technology to explore the placenta in detail and may show a real placenta during the event.

Dionysios Malas, Aishwarya Mishra, Jie Tang, Ryan Stanyard, Chirag Mehra, Dr Charlotte Pretzsch, Dr Judit Ciarrusta 

Careers Talk- Paths to Becoming a Scientist

In this specially curated session, researchers at different career levels, from doctoral to postdoctoral, will introduce themselves, their work and share with audiences how a day in their life of research looks like. Researchers and participants will explore together the areas of research in neuroscience, biology, nanomedicine, medical imaging and medical robotics.  

Professor Pablo Lamata & Salome Bazin

Echoes, How Collaborations Between Science and Design are Shaping the Future of Healthcare

Collaborations between design and science have the potential to create a future where interactive technologies lead to inclusive and individualised healthcare.

Heart Researcher Professor Pablo Lamata and designer/founder of Cellule studio, Salome Bazin collaborated to create ECHOES, a mobile application which records the sound of a human heartbeat, sending anonymised data to researchers to better understand the potential of mobile technologies to monitor cardiac health, while also demonstrating how the app can be used by everyone in a beautiful and playful way. Participants are encouraged to download the application on echoesapp.org before the workshop.

Aidan Michaels & Professor Alexander Hammers   

The Future of Medical Imaging: An Interview with Professor Alexander Hammers

PhD student Aidan Michaels is host of Radio Nuclear, a science podcast from the Centre for Doctoral Training in Smart Medical Imaging at King’s and Imperial College London. Aidan’s podcast aims to engage people outside of scientific research in molecular imaging and nuclear medicine.

Joining him on a special live recording of the podcast will be Professor Alexander Hammers, a Neurologist with a particular interest in epilepsy, and Head of the King’s College London & Guy’s and St Thomas’ PET Centre at St Thomas’ Hospital.

Professor Kairbaan Hodivala-Dilke

The Future of Cancer Therapy

Professor Kairbaan Hodivala-Dilke is a cancer researcher working on a new, counter-intuitive, treatment. In contrast to accepted ideas of "starving" cancer by cutting off its blood supply, she works to increase the number of blood vessels - allowing more chemotherapy to reach the tumour, and improving survival. In this workshop, Professor Hodivala-Dilke will explain her motivation for becoming a cancer researcher, growing up with her Parsee family in south west London, and how her fascination with how nature controls growth feeds into her research. She is part of CRUK RadNet City of London, linking researchers from QMUL, UCL, the Crick and King's together to form a major national radiation research hub.

Professor Seb Ourselin, Head, School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences will also deliver a keynote on Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare, guiding audiences through how AI tools are built, what they will do, and how we can expect to see them in hospitals around the UK. The talk will also touch on some of the key challenges of deploying these tools into our healthcare systems.

This year’s event follows on from the overwhelming success of the 2019 Operating Theatre of the Future, which saw over 10,000 guests, from young children to adults. Join us and explore the current research and technologies being worked on at the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences.  

Download the full program here. Register here.