Leads: LifeArc and QMUL

Support: Kilburn and Strode

EVOluTION Summer School, 6th-8th September 2017.

The EVOluTION Summer School for 2017 took place in London over 3 days in early autumn. On the first day the students traveled to the LifeArc premises in Stevenage. They spent an intensive day learning about various aspects of drug discovery with presentations from Scientists working in different divisions of LifeArc. One of our EVOluTION students, Monica  Maciuszek (ESR 10), also took everyone on a tour of the state of the art laboratories. 

Talks on the remaining days were held at QMUL's Charterhouse square campus and were open to selected PhD students from across QMUL. Lectures were given by speakers from a number of pharmaceutical companies including David Tough from GSK, John Wallace from Antibe Therapeutics and Elizabeth Allen  from Quintiles.   In the evening summer school attendees were treated to a quintessential  british dining experience at the Clerkenwell  gastropub known as “The Peasant”. 

The final day of the school was led by our partners Kilburn and Strode and incorporated the transferable  training skills session. The seminars focused on intellectual property (IP) and commercial exploitation  and began with an introduction to IP law by Paula Alessandro and Beatrice Lana from Queen Mary Innovations. Michael Newton and Paul Briscoe then gave presentations on IP management and exploitation. Georgia Gliki, Senior Business Manager at LifeArc, concluded the morning session with a fascinating case study on the development and commercialisation of a medical device. The summer school concluded with a closed session for the ESRs, where individual and group feedback was given by LifeArc and Kilburn and Strode on all the exploitation plans that have been drafted by the students. 

Overall the feedback from the students has been very positive:  

“ I liked that the programme was packed with diverse topics. For me (the) whole section about antibody therapeutics was new and I found it really useful, especially, that some part of my project will be about the Antibody-drug conjugate".

"The quality of the talks and the speakers were really high and informative." 

"It was a very interesting area which we dont often get to explore in academia. It was great that it was opened up to students not on the EVOluTION scheme."

The next EVOluTION Summer School for 2018 will focus on  "Preclinical and Clinical innovation for the next decade”. Dates will be confirmed soon so keep an eye out on the upcoming events part of the home page. 

The programme for 2017 is available to download: EVOluTION Summer School 2017 programme [PDF 1,554KB]