Post by Maryohan Al Ibadi

Hello Network! I just wanted to share an excellent experience I had with University of Oxford with UNIQ. I went on a four day journey through the university, on a subject specific course tailored to Medicine at Oxford. During which I was fortunate enough to stay at St. Hilda's, and managed to see many other outstanding colleges such as Exeter, Worcester, Magdalen amongst others. Throughout the days, I was lucky enough to attend deeply fascinating lectures on several topics, some of which include: - About the cell cycle, cancer and more specifically going deeper into the APC gene mutation making cancer more likely. And how this influences other molecules (beta catenin) leading to excess cell proliferation. All lead by an excellent speaker - Chris Norbury. Which developed my intellectual curiosity heavily as it challenged me to think holistically about I think about cancer as a whole now. - As well as this, I went through an unexpected medical physics lecture led by Neil Herring, which was centred around maths and physics of the heart which was strange at first, as I didn't expect this in medicine. But eventually I fell in love with the concepts we covered from poiseuille's law and laplace's law and how the heart seems to magically defy them. - Along with this I also looked through the lens of a translational scientist, who showed us how crucial iron levels are through pregnancy and through underlining heart conditions, and how in each case a certain level is needed to progress healthy and having abnormal levels (often which are left unnoticed until too late) can be extremely detrimental. Overall, It was a great experience, which really motivated me to wanting to apply even more to Oxford. And truly showed me that Medicine is the right choice for me. Many thanks to UNIQ, all the lectures, site managers and student ambassadors for making this such truly unique experience!