Combining medicine and biology research: a unique way to treat lung injury

Suitable for 14-19-year olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom, STEM clubs and at home.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 biology.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• This teaching resource explains the work of Dr Julie Bastarache, a physician-scientist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, USA. She is studying the effects of cell-free haemoglobin on acute respiratory distress syndrome, in a dual role as a medical doctor and lab researcher.

• This resource also contains an interview with Julie and offers an insight into careers as a physician-scientist. If your students have questions for Julie, they can send them to her online. All they need to do is to go to the article online (see the Futurum link below), scroll down to the end and type in the question(s). Julie will reply!

• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on Julie’s research and challenges them to create a presentation for a school careers day to encourage students to consider a career as a physician-scientist.

• An animation about Julie’s work is available through the weblink, along with a downloadable script.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

If you like these free resources – or have suggestions for improvements –, please let us know and leave us some feedback. Thank you!