Endocrine Abstracts

I am a Consultant Endocrinologist and Reader in Endocrinology. I have a strong interest in undergraduate education and hold various educational roles at Imperial College London, including Head of Year 1, BSc in Biomedical Sciences. This is a new degree course aimed at students who want careers as biomedical researchers, tackling important human diseases. Hence, early development of laboratory skills is the backbone of this course and we have worked hard to develop new approaches to instil these skills in our students. To increase confidence in the laboratory, particularly in team working and practical skills, colleagues and I have worked together to develop ‘The Biomedical Kitchen’. This is a new inter-departmental collaboration with Chemistry, drawing on parallels between cookery and science to support student confidence in starting in the molecular laboratory. My talk will describe how we developed and implemented ‘The Biomedical Kitchen’ and subsequently refined its delivery in response to student feedback, demonstrating how to foster learning of new, key laboratory skills in an enjoyable and novel way.