Post by Rachel Duff

This week was the definition of being outside of my comfort zone, but I’m proud to have presented at the international IEEE Photonics Society conference in Singapore this week! 🇸🇬 For context, I was the only medic amongst a conference full of very technical and world renowned engineers 🥹. Just take a look at some of the slides and you'll see why I was often confused... I presented our work from my intercalated degree in biomedical engineering with Imperial College London. We built a low-cost multi-wavelength light source for fluorescence microscopy, with the aim of trying to combat inaccessibility to research in low-income environments and educational institutions. It may not have been as technical as the other presentations, but it's a very important topic! :) My favourite talk was by Dr Francisco Robles, who spoke about his work improving surgical resection techniques for glioblastoma 🧠 (a cancer notorious for poor prognosis and high recurrence rates) using their newly developed quantitative oblique back illumination microscopy(qOBM). It allows for subcellular visualisation during surgery, to identify tumour vs healthy tissue with greater certainty - and they’re soon moving to human trials. This clinical translation highlights the need for collaboration between medics and engineers - something we need more of. I was grateful to be joined by former team member Igor Roszczyk, and my supervisor Akhil Kallepalli, who has been nothing but generous and supportive throughout - the biggest thing I learnt from this conference was how important having a great mentor is! I mean, just take a look at his lanyard in the photo 👀. But seriously, his praise, advice & encouragement has always been sincere and beyond my expectations. Check out Kallepalli Lab here to see the kind of work he gets up to! 💡 I’m looking forward to returning to medicine and starting my paediatrics rotation next week. 👩🏻‍⚕️ I’ll also be presenting some other research at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh Symposium on the 28th, and helping with the National MedTech Foundation conference at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry on the 22nd, so do drop me a DM if you’re at either! A huge thank you to The Sutton Trust and JPMorganChase for their support throughout this year with the Opportunity Bursary, to be able to attend events like this, and explore Singapore! It was also a pleasure to meet kind people like Georgios Syriopoulos and Anita Chandran at the conference 💙.