“We wanted them to go outside their comfort zone and consider an area of research or find something not currently being explored. They had time to think about it, individually or in teams, and then convincingly present their ideas to their peers,”

says Professor Richard Morgan, Dean of the School of Biomedical Sciences.

One of the winning teams, made up of three second year students - Cyndy Appiah, Duwa Afzal and Alan Petrauskas - considered whether it would be possible to create a device that can engineer or produce bacteriophages to fight infection according to the pathogens being released in the body.

A lot of bacteria are resistant to antibiotics and so we thought we could create a machine to produce bacteriophages - viruses that specifically attack bacteria - inside our own body,”

Duwa says.

The device would act like a pacemaker, detecting a pathogen and deconstructing it to understand its molecular genomics, then creating a bacteriophage, using the body’s own materials.

Alan adds:

We considered gene therapy and implementing cyber electronics into our own bodies. Our idea was also about how we could potentially make life easier for people with health challenges, such as those who are immuno-compromised.”

While team members initially found presenting the idea to fellow students and staff quite nerve-wracking, they enjoyed getting involved in discussions and considering the questions it provoked.

It was fun to discuss our thinking especially with our lecturers. They had their own pointers for us and shared expertise on what they are doing in terms of research,”

Cyndy says.

First year student Jamie Tivanova successfully entered the Grand Challenge with the question – "Are there any proteins that we have not seen before and what that would mean for us?"

I was exploring the idea that perhaps on a different planet it might be possible that the structure of the amino acid and therefore protein, would develop differently. Particularly, if it might involve different elements or combinations of elements that we don't usually see on Earth. And that would result in different proteins and therefore different life forms that we have not discovered yet,”

Jamie says.

Jamie adds that for her, part of what made ‘The Grand Challenge’ fun was that it was not being graded as coursework:

I enjoyed spending time looking into something that interests me and sharing my thinking with other people.”

• Find out more about studying at UWL’s School of Medicine and Biosciences