In this, the final episode of our first series of Next Generation Research, we're going to lift the curtain on who and what influences government policy and whether it ever sees the light of day. The focus of this episode is Dr. Oliver Mytton, he is an associate professor at the Institute of Child Health at University College London.

Oliver trained as a doctor and then moved into policy after feeling like he wanted to do more to help prevent illnesses caused by obesity. His main focus is now doing research to develop the evidence base, which can inform policies to prevent childhood obesity. We are going to learn about his work that helped develop the tax on sugary drinks which was implemented in 2017 and how important it is to analyse policies once they are implemented. We will hear from other key people who were part of making that tax a reality and, also what other suggestions to improve children's health were left behind and why.

You can find out more about Oliver's research at the Institute of Child Health here.

Evaluation of the soft drinks industry levy: https://www.mrc-epid.cam.ac.uk/research/studies/sdil/

NIHR Obesity Policy Research Unit (PRU): https://www.ucl.ac.uk/obesity-policy-research-unit/

You can follow Oliver on Twitter here

Host: Giles Yeo

Producer: Hester Cant

Executive Producer: Freya Hellier

This podcast was supported by the Future Leaders Fellows Development Network and funded by UKRI.

Find out more about the Future Leaders Fellowship here

The views expressed in the podcast are the views of the individuals in the podcast, and do not necessarily represent the views of UKRI or the FLF Development Network.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Did you know that our genes can impact how we respond to infections? Most of us can live our lives without even knowing we've been exposed to certain diseases. For some, however, that same disease could be life-threatening. Why is that?

In this episode of Next Generation Research, we're going to be diving into Vanessa Sancho-Shimizu's research. Vanessa is a senior lecturer in the Department of Infectious Diseases at Imperial College London, where she runs a research lab.

Her Future Leaders project is about understanding the genetic influence on life-threatening infections with a particular focus on children. We learn about the new ways genetics are being used in medical treatment and diagnosis, the vital collaboration between clinicians and researchers and, how the study of these very rare infections can help us all.

Find out more about Vanessa's research here

Follow Vanessa on Twitter @SanchoShimizu

Host: Giles Yeo

Producer: Hester Cant

Executive Producer: Freya Hellier

This podcast was supported by the Future Leaders Fellows Development Network and funded by UKRI.

Find out more about the Future Leaders Fellowship here

The views expressed in the podcast are the views of the individuals in the podcast, and do not necessarily represent the views of UKRI or the FLF Development Network.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

HIV remains one of the world's most significant global public health challenges. As a result of recent advances in access to medication called antiretroviral therapy, HIV positive people can now live longer and healthier lives. Research has also confirmed this type of medication prevents onward transmission of the infection. Despite the existence of this medication, many people, are still being infected with HIV.

In this episode of Next Generation Research we are going to meet Valentina Cambiano, she is an associate professor in epidemiology at the Institute of Global Health at University College London.

We will find out about her research project, currently underway in Zimbabwe, which is aiming to understand why at-risk adolescent girls and young women are not taking the HIV prevention medication. Valentina and her colleagues are speaking to young women across the country in order to design a survey. They will then propose new ways to improve the uptake of this medication in Zimbabwe. We will hear about the reasons why this medication is not attractive, how it could be made more accessible and how this sort of sensitive research is undertaken.

Find out more about Valentina here: https://iris.ucl.ac.uk/iris/browse/profile?upi=VCAMB67

CeSHHAR website (the research centre in Zimbabwe): http://ceshhar.org/

HIV modelling consortium: http://hivmodeling.org/

Host: Giles Yeo

Producer: Hester Cant

Executive Producer: Freya Hellier

This podcast was supported by the Future Leaders Fellows Development Network and funded by UKRI.

Find out more about the Future Leaders Fellowship here

The views expressed in the podcast are the views of the individuals in the podcast, and do not necessarily represent the views of UKRI or the FLF Development Network.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.