Incredible students at Concord College scoop awards for innovations that could be used to save lives around the globe

The next generation of medical minds at Concord College in Acton Burnell near Shrewsbury have developed a raft of innovations that could be developed to save countless lives around the globe.

Students took the top prize in the 'heart' and 'lung' categories and reached the final of the 'global health' competition.

The winning teams each collected a top prize of £3,000 that will be spent on science-related activities at the college and a mentoring session with a university academic.

Innovations by the students, which could be developed by medical scientists one day, include a non-surgical treatment for arrhythmia that uses an optogenetic pacemaker, acontinuous wheezing detection patch to help asthma sufferers regulate their dosage and reduce overuse side effects, and a wearable patch for the early detection of cholera to stop the spread of disease in refugee camps.

Concord College’s head of science, Barry Brown praised students for their incredible innovations, standards of research and seamless presentations.

He said: "It really is extraordinary that teams of Concordian scientists have won prestigious competitions against an array of very talented students from some of the other top schools in the country.

"This challenge was not just about being good at science, students needed to innovate and develop a novel solution to a problem using creativity and a high degree of collaboration from across all the science disciplines.

"In addition to this, their ability to communicate their ideas fluently and cope with difficult questions from researchers at Imperial College was simply a joy to behold. They truly are the scientists of the future, and I have every confidence that they will go out and make the world a better place through science."

Hundreds enter Science in Medicine competitions hosted by the Imperial College in London

This year, there were 235 entries from 138 schools around the UK in total, across five themes. But, only 10 teams were selected for each of the finals, and Concord College was represented in three.

The Optogenetic Pacemaker team comprised of Amae, An, Eliana, Simon, Sohaib and Thomas. Their invention addressed the difficulties with surgically implanted pacemakers, and instead opted to use a virus carrying gene coded for a protein that is normally found in the eye, which is light sensitive.

A patch worn on the chest would be linked to a monitor which - if it detected arrythmia - would trigger an infrared light that would penetrate the chest to break down the protein, which would kickstart the heart into its correct rhythm.

"Taking part in the Imperial competition was one of the most intellectually stimulating and rewarding experiences I have ever undertaken," said team leader Amae. "It was an incredible opportunity to conduct independent research in cardiology and genetics, which are areas of personal interest to me.

"Working with a team of great minds led me to appreciate the value of multidisciplinary groups. Together, we achieved a greater collective outcome than any of us could have reached alone. Winning first place was the cherry on top. I would do it all over again in a heartbeat."

Meanwhile, in the lung category, a team featuring Angela, Clarice, Daria, Matthew, Ying and Zachary designed an asthma patch. The wheezing patch would use a calibrated sound detection algorithm to adjust the dose of a patient’s reliever according to their symptoms, thereby mitigating inhaler over-use.

The global health team of Joyce, Paco, Dawn, Delfina, Eunis and Vanessa looked into a disease within refugee camps in Cameroon, and focused on how easily cholera spread through insanitary conditions. 

They found that an issue was the speed of transmission compared to the relatively slow testing regime. So, students came up with a patch that used microneedles to take samples from tissue fluid in the skin and indicate in just 15 minutes whether there was any sign of cholera antibodies. Early detection would allow quicker quarantine and reduce the spread of the disease.

Mr Brown added: "Students were given the opportunity to talk to leading academics in the field to see if their ideas were feasible. It would not surprise me at all if the academics followed up the innovations and they were workable one day."