Advanced Therapy Academy is a training initiative led by Dr Francesca Kinsella, a research Consultant Haematologist at University Hospitals Birmingham, who aims to deliver world-class development programmes to the BTRU members.
The Training Day was organised to benefit the early career researchers within BTRU and equip them with the necessary skills to streamline their career progression. We thank all of our guest speakers for their excellent talks that covered important aspects of how to get a proposed technology and therapy to the clinic and how to ensure the relevance of a project to the patients and other important stakeholders at the key stages of a translational journey.
Dr Elin Haf Davies, CEO and Founder of Aparito, discussed the difficulties of launching new digital technologies in the clinic. Dr Matthew Smart, Lead Scientist at Cell and Gene Catapult, has further deep-dived into the challenges of getting cellular ATMPs into the clinical setting and shared an educational insight into the intricacies of making the research relevant from an organisational perspective. We further thank our patient partners and Dr Karen Shaw, PPIE Lead of the Birmingham BTRU team, for discussing the importance of making your research relevant from a patient and public perspective.
The afternoon session witnessed an interactive presentation skills workshop aimed at enhancing presentation and entrepreneurial skills, delivered by Dr Alan Crivellaro from University of Turin, followed by the group activity that involved the development of a 5-minute elevator pitch and its presentation at the expert Dragon's Den.
What did our early career researchers think?
"The communication skills workshop was fun and the individual pitches were incidentally a great way to learn more about the work of the other participants. It was great to have the patients there too and their support for our research and keenness to be involved really came across."
"I really liked the Dragon's Den activity, where we were given the opportunity to apply what we've learned all day to formulate a pitch considering the translational aspects, the biology, the logistics and also how to best deliver the message across to the audience."