The Big Bang UK Young Scientists and Engineers Fair is organised by Engineering UK (EUK) and takes place at the NEC in Birmingham. The Fair aims to inspire the next generation with hands-on workshops, activities and live shows aimed at 10- to 13-year-olds. This year, over 20,000 young people attended the Fair from over 400 different schools, with 63.7 % of schools meeting EUK’s EDI criteria.
The team from the MRC WIMM ran a stand called ‘Targeted Therapies’, which featured a brand-new activity developed by RDM Principal Investigator Abs Khan. The new activity involved shooting at ‘cancer cell’ targets with foam darts. In the easy level, the targets were large and easy to hit, whereas in the hard mode, the targets were much smaller and harder to shoot.
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This demonstrated to students how difficult it is to develop new treatments that target cancer cells without damaging healthy cells and tissues, compared to targeting cells within model systems in the lab. The new cancer cell shooting activity was very popular with the students attending, with many highlighting it in their overall feedback for the Fair as something they were particularly drawn to and enjoyed.
Dr Khan’s research involves engineering complex human models to better understand how cell-to-cell and cross-tissue interactions shape health and disease, with the ultimate goal of using these to identify new therapies and validate them in relevant, human pre-clinical platforms.
Reflecting on the Fair, Abs Khan said:
Being able to capture a really complicated part of our research and distil it into something fun (for both us and the students) was a real pleasure.
One of the nicest things about being at the MRC WIMM is how much engagement we get from the whole community when we do this type of event. We had volunteers from a bunch of different labs, all of whom brought so much enthusiasm and engagement, which I think really benefits the kids.