Cogent Skills' recent Labour Force Survey has shown that the UK life sciences sector is severely lacking in young talent, with 28% more employees aged 40–64 than 16–40, and recent school leavers and graduates making up just 5% of the total workforce. This has prompted EPM to seek out and compile a list of five youngsters who appear to be bucking this trend.
1/ Krtin Nithiyanandam
Stroke
Krtin is the mastermind behind a test that could be used to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease up to 10 years before the first symptoms appear. The 15-year-old has developed a ‘trojan horse’ antibody that once injected into the bloodstream seeks to penetrate the brain and attach to neurotoxic proteins that are present in the first stages of the disease. The antibodies are also joined to fluorescent particles so they can be picked up on brain scans. Krtin’s test has made it through to the Google Science Fair Prize final.
2/ Habiba Akhtar
Bionic woman
A third-year MPharm student at Medway School of Pharmacy, Universities of Kent and Greenwich, Habiba is the Telegraph STEM Awards’ Pharmaceuticals category winner. The 23-year-old’s proposal to the judges was a bionic woman for use in clinical trials, linking up lab-grown blood vessels and artificial lungs that can be controlled by computer.
3/ Oscar Daws
Gluco-Duo
Final-year Brunel University design student Oscar Daws came up with a device that aims to improve patients’ self-management of diabetes. Exhibited at the Made in Brunel exhibition, the Gluco-Duo glucose meter, which combines glucose testing and insulin injection, simply requires the patient to push on a pad and a connected insulin pen, which connect via a smartphone app.
4/ Dr Charlotte Pawlyn
Cancer cell
Dr Charlotte Pawlyn, Institute of Cancer Research PhD student and Royal Marsden Hospital Haematology Registrar, was awarded the Women in Cancer Research Scholar Award at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in recognition of her research into new treatment strategies for myeloma. She was the only woman in the UK to receive the award this year and her work has been described by Myeloma UK’s chief executive as “groundbreaking”.
5/ Paul Townsend
Capsules
33-year-old Paul Townsend, an employee of unlicenced medicines manufacturer The Specials Laboratory, was crowned Young Achiever of the Year at the North East of England Process Industry Cluster (NEPIC) Awards. After 13 years’ working in hospitals, Paul joined The Specials Laboratory in 2006 as a senior technician and has progressed up the ranks to Technical Manager.