COaCT CDT Training Programme
The COaCT CDT training programme consists of the individual PhD project and 5 training pathways. This programme is supported by our industry and other stakeholder partners and provides in depth training across technical R&D and technology translation in the field of organ-on-a-chip and other predictive in vitro models. A strong sense of community and collaboration between students and supervisory teams is maintained through our Winter School and Summer Symposium, interspersed with frequent shorter activities including seminars and journal club.
Details of the COaCT Training Programme are subject to change in line with latest developments in this rapidly expanding field.
PhD Project and Placement
All students will do their individual PhD project over the full 4 year period of the studentship. The academic supervision of each project will be led by two academics from Queen Mary's Centre for Predictive in vitro Models. In addition, we intend that all CDT students will also be aligned with an external supervisor(s) from our extensive group of industry and other stake holder partners.
Opportunities for PhD projects cover diverse research areas around the development and use of organ-on-a-chip and related predictive in vitro models.
Placements will be available for all CDT PhD students to spend typically 1 to 3 months embedded within an external organisation to understand broader perspectives on organ-chip technology. Organisations hosting placements will primarily be from our stake holder partners but may also include collaborating academic institutions.
Pathway 1: Design, Development & Use of Organ-Chip Technology
This training pathway takes place from the start of Year 1 and is designed to deliver the core technical skills including understanding of key organ-chip topics and practical skills. It consists of hands-on exercises and case studies, many led directly by our industry partners.
Core technical skills, will cover topics such as how to work with commercially available chip designs, how to design and print custom organ-chip devices, working with cell cultures, microfabrication of 3D chip environments, managing biochemical/physical chip stimuli, microfluidics, instrumentation and biosensing, nano-patterning, and in silico modelling. Students will be taught how to design and run appropriate chip experiments and analyse resulting data.
Quality Control & Industrial Manufacturing will introduce GLP, GCP & GMP requirements in industry settings. It will also cover the quality control requirements to evaluate materials, finished products, packaging, storage conditions and labelling which drive industrial settings.
As part of this activity, students will engage in residential winter schools. One of these will position organ-chip approaches in the industrial landscape and explore how market need shapes the sector, using case studies to explore how commercial organ-chip platforms adopt different technology and market approaches. Building on this, we will introduce the group projects, with each group looking to tackle one of the current major model development challenges the sector is currently facing. The second winter school will build on the project with a drug discovery pipeline exercise delivered by the Medicines Discovery Catapult, in which students consider practical uses of their models. Students will learn each step of the drug discovery pipeline and simulate the decision making required in target discovery, scale-up and manufacturing, with tight deadlines and changing information introduced during the exercise.
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Pathway 2: Responsible Research Culture for Organ-Chip Technology
This pathway will teach concepts of responsible research, innovation and design, and address the regulatory landscape governing safe, ethical use of organ-chips in human therapeutic discovery.
It will include a workshop on ‘Getting started on your PhD’ provided by QMUL’s Doctoral College which will cover research project management, important skills in high quality accurate and unbiased data collection, processing and analysis, and set the framework for the rest of this module.
Further content will be delivered through four ORBIT on-line training packages to be taken in year 1 (Ethics by Design, Responsible Organisations, Stakeholder Engagement, Sustainable Research) followed by a 1-day face-to-face ORBIT workshop in which students will develop an AREA framework to ensure the acceptability, desirability and sustainability of research and innovation. In years 2 & 3, ORBIT will follow up with Research Integrity and Data Governance training. COaCT staff will deliver 2 case study days, putting responsible research concepts to practical consideration. EDI and unconscious bias training will be provided though this module, identifying their importance in achieving an ethically and morally strong supportive research culture.
The training will additionally provide seminars and workshops in the 3Rs, clinical trials, the human tissue act and the regulation associated with the therapeutic discovery pipeline. Our partners, including MHRA, NPL, FRAME, RSPCA, Animal Free Research, will help to deliver this part of the training providing an understanding of the regulatory framework in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world.
Pathway 3: Developing Organ-Chip Research with Impact and Entrepreneurship
This part of the students' training will focus on research impact and entrepreneurship, utilising internal expertise from Queen Mary's Doctoral College, Queen Mary Innovation (QMI) and the Queen Mary Impact Team, alongside valuable input from our stakeholder partners.
On-line sessions and workshops will cover Intellectual Property, licensing, patents, spin-outs, and developing business plans, all centered on relevant case studies delivered with our stakeholders.
At the winter schools students will develop business models including a ‘Dragons Den Challenge’, pitching to select stakeholder partners.
Pathway 4: Effective Communication of Organ-Chip Technology
This activity will include training in reading, written and oral communication activities aimed at benefiting students PhD and career progression. Content will be delivered over all four years, in partnership with Queen Mary's Doctoral College. It will consist of practical workshops and writing retreats. Specific sessions will focus on writing technical industry reports, executive summaries, journal papers, conference abstracts, and a final PhD thesis, as well as develop student’s skills and confidence for delivering presentations. Taking a hands-on approach to all aspects, students will participate in intensive ‘writing retreats’: ‘writing science papers’ (year 3) and ‘Completing your Thesis’ (year 4). Throughout this activity there will be emphasis on critical thinking, peer and self-review and cohort support strategies.
Effective communication and personal effectiveness training will be delivered at the students' 3rd winter school. This will address personal impact, confident networking and difficult conversations.
Media and public engagement training will be coordinated by Queen Mary's Centre for Public Engagement and award-winning science education centre, The Centre of the Cell, and will tackle interacting with the media, writing press releases, interviews, and giving lay research talks. This training is essential for COaCT students given that public understanding will be key for successful development of organ-chips and related technology. As part of this training, students will be involved in the international ‘3MinuteThesis’ competition and public engagement activities at local events such as our Festival of Communities, with the best ideas submitted to major UK science festivals such as The Big Bang, and The Royal Society Summer Exhibition.
Pathway 5: Leadership & Careers associated with Organ-Chips
This training pathway will run over all 4 years of the programme, offering exposure to different stakeholders and career choices, and providing training in the core transferable skills students will need to be effective leaders in their future careers.
An introduction to the importance of networking will be provided at the start of the students' PhD with a practice networking event with ‘critical friend’ training before continual opportunities to develop these skills at stakeholder days and our symposiums.
Our stakeholder partners will contribute to a programme of events and site visits to better understand external non academic perspectives and environments within the organ-chip field. In addition students will be able to take up an 1-3 month placement with one of our partners.
Teamworking and leadership skills will be introduced experientially in a group project and drug-discovery pipeline exercise and during the 3rd winter school. Training will cover leadership styles and working with difference, as well as introducing Kolb, experiential learning, reflection and peer mentoring. At the end of the 3rd winter School students will begin a team leadership challenge, to plan and deliver the following summer organ-chip symposium. This will utilise newly developed skills, as students link with peers across cohorts, internal & external academics, our stakeholders and other interested partners.
All training will link with CPD activities and the reflective log, embedded throughout the 4-year studentship. Support to successfully interact with the buddy and stakeholder mentorship schemes will also be delivered through this module. Students will receive training in being a mentor and encouraged to establish up-mentoring schemes with COaCT academics to further develop community. Linked to this, a bespoke CV writing workshop will be available to all 4th year students.