National British Brain Bee 2022
After the Online British Brain Bee competition 2022, 26 students from across the UK have been invited to the National British Brain Bee 2022 competition which was held on Saturday and Sunday, May 28-29, 2022.
On Saturday, 28 May 2022, students sat 3 rigorous exams:
- MCQ exam with 100 neuroscience questions
- Neuroanatomy and Neurohistology exam with 20 structures to be identified
- Patient diagnosis exam with 10 patient cases that students had to analyze and come up with the correct diagnosis.
After the exams were marked, the Top 5 students were selected. There were 2 students with the same score so in the final round of the competition, Live Q&A, there were 6 students. On Sunday, 29 May 2022, the Live Q&A session took place along with several talks by renowned neuroscientists and past Brain Bee participants.
Prizes
The winners of the National Brain Bee 2022 received a wide variety of great neuroscience textbooks which will help them progress with their careers.
Talks
Dr Bilal Malik talked about his research. He is based at the Department of Neuromuscular Diseases at the Queen Square Institute of Neurology (IoN) at UCL. His background lies within neurodegenerative and neuromuscular disease, as well as polyglutamine expansion disease. He completed his PhD at King’s College London researching amyloid toxicity in Alzheimer’s disease. His research interests are focused on Motor Neuron Disease (MND) and also Spinal Bulbar Muscular Atrophy (SBMA).
Dr Ashok Jansari talked about his life and his work in the field of neuropsychology. He studied Experimental Psychology at King’s College, Cambridge falling in love with neuropsychology through his undergraduate work with Rosaleen McCarthy. He followed this with a doctorate in autobiographical memory at the University of Sussex where he was supervised by Professor Alan Parkin.
Mr William Leung is a current student at Harvard University. He is also a past British Brain Bee Participant and a winner of the Bronze medal at the International Biology Olympiad (IBO) 2020. He talked about applying to Neuroscience/Biology in university, Brain Bee experience and IBO experience.
Live Q&A session
The Live Q&A session was judged by 2 amazing scientists: Dr Bilal Malik who is based at the Department of Neuromuscular Diseases at the Queen Square Institute of Neurology (IoN) at UCL and Dr Hasan Hasan (MBBS MRes) who graduated from medical school of Manipal University. Dr Hasan was also a visiting student at Brown University in pediatric neurology and pediatric neurorehabilitation.
During the Live Q&A session, students had to answer 20 questions, 30 seconds each. After the rigorous battle, the winners were announced.
Winners
1st place Maja Olma
2nd place Cristian Lindsay
3rd place Yixuan Wu