Ambassadors update: Pharmacology Summer School at the University of East London

As an Ambassador for the British Pharmacological Society, and the Schools and Colleges Liaison for Bioscience at the University of East London (UEL), I engage in outreach activities in the local area to help promote pharmacology within the further education sector.

For the past few years, I have predominantly been visiting schools and colleges to deliver talks about pharmacology. At each one of these sessions, I normally start off by asking the students if they have ever heard of pharmacology. The answer I get from the vast majority of students is “no”. To those who say that they have heard of pharmacology, I then ask “What do you think pharmacology is?” Most of the responses I receive tell me that the students are thinking of pharmacy. I expect this will sound familiar to colleagues from other universities engaged in outreach activities.

For us at UEL, this told us that it was time for a different strategy: so instead of telling students what pharmacology is, we decided to give them an experience of what it means to be a pharmacologist. To this end we set-up a two-day pharmacology Summer School for year 12 students, which ran in June 2016.

The aim of the Summer School was to give the students not only a flavour of what it means to be a pharmacologist, but also a real experience of how new medicines are developed. So the Summer School was built around the idea that all enrolled students would play the role of research scientists working for a “pretend pharmaceutical company” for which I played the role of the CEO. Six of our current second-year pharmacology students played the role of Research Team Leaders and one of the PhD students played the role of the Head of the Neuropharmacology Research Unit. To make the exercise as realistic as possible, the company was given a name – “Ceutical Pharmaceuticals” – a mission statement, strategy, goals and a company profile. The goal of the “Neuropharmacology Research Team” of Ceutical Pharmaceuticals was to screen for a new Alzheimer’s drug, hence the title given for the Summer School was “Discovering the next blockbuster drug for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease”.

The students worked in teams of five, each headed by their UEL student Team Leader, and were responsible for the screening of a different set of compounds. In the laboratory experiments, the students engaged in an in vitro organ bath experiment in which drugs were screened for activation of a muscarinic receptor. To test for selective activation of a muscarinic receptor, compounds that gave responses (in the form of contractions of smooth muscles of the ileum) were then tested in the presence of atropine (as a selective antagonist of the muscarinic receptor).

On the first day the students were introduced to the various activities, took part in “ice-breaking sessions” and given an overview of the company, its mission statement and goal. After the usual health and safety talk, the students were briefed on pharmacology and Alzheimer’s disease. The rest of the day was spent in the laboratories working with the Team Leaders in small groups carrying out ileum organ bath experiments, being guided on the technique and data capture. On the second day, the students worked with their Team Leaders to analyse and evaluate their experimental data by working out potency and efficacy values for the compounds tested. They were also tasked with preparing a presentation in the afternoon in a boardroom setting to the company CEO (me), Board and investors (made up of other academics). During these presentations, the teams were quizzed about the experiments, results and asked to question their colleagues’ presentations. The distance travelled from day one to day two was remarkable. The students not only handled the questions with professionalism and clarity, they also discussed in depth all the findings from across the groups and asked intelligent and thought provoking questions. It was amazing to see how much the students had learnt about pharmacology in such a short time.

One of the team explains the organ bath results to the rest of the team

The real unsung heroes of the Summer School were our second-year pharmacology students who played the role of Team Leaders as they were the ones who guided the students through the experiments, data analysis, and preparation for presentations.

I have a more practical insight into pharmacology. It has affirmed my interest in carrying on with pharmacology in higher education or university.

Indeed both UEL students and year 12 students gained experience in how basic pharmacological research translates into clinical practice and also how the pharmaceutical industry works. More importantly for their own personal development, the students gained an understanding of the importance of transferable skills, including research and problem-solving skills; the ability to plan and manage projects; analysis of scientific data; critical thinking and developing arguments from scientific perspectives; communication and presentation skills, and of course team work – all of which are just what their future employers will be looking for.

Good experience overall and I now have something to write on my personal statement.

The feedback from students was that they gained a very positive experience of higher education and of what it would be like to become a pharmacologist. On the evaluation forms 100% agreed or strongly agreed that after the Summer School they had a better understanding of pharmacology and that they felt better informed about the role of pharmacologists in drug development. 67% agreed or strongly agreed that attending the Summer School had inspired them to study a specific subject at university. And perhaps most gratifyingly of all, 100% said that they would now be considering a career in science.

Given the popularity of the Summer School, we will be running two more Summer School sessions later this year.

Acknowledgements

I would like to give a huge thanks to the university’s Education and Community Partnerships team for providing highly professional administrative support for the Summer School during the event and with all the prior publicity work.

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