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talk on a C l s. But now taking a step into the world of dentistry and period ontology. So I'd like to pass on to my colleague, Doctor Maya Cibulec, who is, um, an ACL in period ontology at the UCL Eastman Institute. Thank you for joining us, Maya. Over to you. Good evening, everyone. Just like Sarah. I'm also stuck at work in London, and I'm really delighted to share my journey with you today. I will be speaking about academic clinical lectureship, and I'm currently based at the Eastman Dental Institute uh, U C L and the Royal National E Ent and Dental Hospitals. I'm not sure if there are any dental students or trainees on the call tonight, but a lot of what I will be talking about can be applied to different fields. So, as some of the previous speakers said, clinical Lectureship is a postdoctoral award and N. H. R. The National Institute for Health and Care Research supports with these awards doctors and dentists to develop clinical academic careers, and I try clinical lectures. It provides you with 50% protected academic time, and the remaining time is spent in clinical specialty training this typically last for four years, or until completion of your specialist training or up to six years part time. You already seen this flow chart. This one is for dental trainees, but it is quite similar. Typically, you would start and complete your dental or medical program and have a period of formal research Training before you could apply for clinical lectureship in dentistry typically can start at ST one. So my own journey started in Croatia. I'm from a very small town in the Slavonia region, which is known for agriculture and white making. I do come from a medical family, but I've never really considered a career in healthcare until being hospitalized for a critical acute illness. I thought I would specialize early for oral cavity, and I thought dentistry would involve some creativity nowadays as I work in London. So I've been in London for the past eight years for my PhD training and clinical lectureship. My journey started in Croatia with the undergraduate studies. I did an integrated undergraduate and graduate program with a heavy emphasis and research, following which I obtained King's College London Health School Scholarship, which funded me for four year PhD project in stem cells and regenerative medicine. Following that, I obtain NIH, our clinic collector Ship Award, and I'm currently doing my specialist training in periodontics. So during my dental school, years already gained a lot of experience with research, and I realized quite early on that I like surgery, So I was lucky to get involved in different surgical workshops nationally and internationally. I also lead student organizations on a national level, as well as the European Dental Students Association, which represents 65,000 students in Europe. This also allowed me to travel extensively and presented conferences as well as participate in voluntary projects for Children working closely with the tooth fairy or projects for older people. Research was a significant, uh, time during my training, and it probably started after reading one of the nature articles. Uh, this particular one was on a natural painkiller found in human saliva while preparing for a seminar, and it took probably a year or two until I managed to persuade one of my professors and a colleague that this would make a really interesting research project. We also teamed up with some chemists at a research institute, and we managed to develop and publish a new method for detecting and quantifying human or P, or fin. We also applied this clinically and managed to complete a case control study. Where did not so the puzzle of the burning mouse syndrome? But it was nevertheless really interesting research experience that really made me learn a lot. I then applied for my PhD studies at King's College London. Maybe some of you have done some training at Guy's Hospital. I did enjoy beautiful views of London's from there. It did involve a lot of hard work, as some of the previous speakers already stressed. So long hours, weekends. But there were some fun moments. For example, in one of the pictures here in the middle, uh, situation where my colleague and I coincidentally showed up for an early morning experiment in similar outfits. I did learn a lot of different techniques from my colleagues. I find that everyone in sciences quite helpful, and this work resulted in a couple of publications, for example, uh, cell reports and the nature communications paper. I did work on animal model during my PhD, and this is something that requires long lab hours but was a very useful, useful skill to gain. I did also get some experience with sequencing and by informatics, and I still continue to work on this project up today and maintain my visiting role at King's College, London in 2019. I started my specialty training at the Eastman Hospital and you still Dental Institute. It wasn't an easy time because there was a period of covid disruption and removed hospital and institute in the meantime. But I still found it a very, uh uh challenging and and good experience with, um, a lot of useful clinical opportunities and training in surgical skills. We in our department still maintain a running club, and we frequently attend conferences in beautiful locations such as Florence. I find that these are good situations to connect a network with your colleagues, which often results in good research collaborations. I, during my training so far got a chance to involved with many different types of research basic science, which is my personal favorite, as well as some clinical research education research into virtual reality, as well as some bioinformatics or health informatics and big data analysis. A lot of researchers do not like to engage in teaching because teaching does require a lot of time. It takes time to mark assignments. It takes them to prepare lectures and seminars. But during especially during my last role, I started to appreciate and see how rewarding teaching can be. I find that it promotes a higher level of understanding of the topic that you teach, and you have an opportunity to contribute to development of future workforce as well as develop your skills and confidence. Pros of Korean academia It is never boring with research projects which can often involve many different areas of research. In my particular case, that is microbiology, systemic health links with gum disease or paradigm tightest biomaterial research into non vesicles etcetera, teaching assignments, involvement in professional organizations. I do encourage everyone to get involved in professional and student organizations and work closely with colleagues. Grant applications really important, and this is something that was highlighted. Usually there is, uh, about 5 to 10% success rate, and it is important to apply in order to get funding collaborations, conferences, peer review or or useful activities to get involved with and get exposed to, as well as quality improvement projects. Patient's and public involvement and public engagement. There are also some coins, and, uh, these are long working hours in academia. These are typically evening and weekend work. There is a lot of pressure to produce. You've probably heard the saying publish or perish. It is very competitive, and typically at early stages, they're only fixed term contracts. Relocation is quite common because positions are not often available in the institute or the hospital you're working at and lower. Starting income is very typical for jobs in academia, especially if you're working in postdoctoral rolls. Finding your place in academia it is important to establish yourself within both clinical and research communities through a number of research projects through research collaborations. As I said already applying for grants and securing funding for your projects, this will allow you to gain independence and pursue some of your ideas and develop your research program. In my particular case, this is in regenerative periodontist, and I'm able to use my knowledge and skills from my PhD, which was in stem cell biology as well as learn more by different fields that are overlapping, such as biomaterial research, chemistry, microbiology with involvement in many different projects. You can make a lot of impact with your publications with your presentation at international conferences, as well as engage with public and make impact in that area. I believe that mentorship is very important. And on my path I have met and worked with many different professors and colleagues. Sometimes Pierce sometimes senior colleagues who mentored me and still occasionally looked through my grant applications presentations and give feedback in, for example, clinical work in surgery. That is really, uh, important. But I also started mentoring others in my current position as a. C. L and supervising students mast er and PhDs so very challenging, but also very dynamic and exciting area. I believe the key to succeed in academia is, as I mentioned already, through collaborations creating your support networks. This can be family, friends, partner, perhaps outsourcing some of your chores that you don't enjoy to be able to focus on meaningful work, health and well being if you're a surgeon, ergonomic position and regular exercise, as well as having cultivating your other interest, such as hobbies. So that concludes my talk, and I would be very happy to answer any questions about research pathways. But Ph. DS and CS. Thank you very much. My, uh, I'll just kick off the question your cameras frozen like if you start hammer off and then turn it on again, if it might. Perfect. Oh, well, before I go, there's a There's a question on the on the chat. I don't know if you can sit. How is translational research different to clinical research? Yeah, I believe there is still a wide gap between basic science research and clinical research, and translational research is a term that it that is used to describe the type of research that is attempting to bridge that gap. So typically in translational research, you will be maybe a point further than having a hypothesis, such as in basic science research. And you might build it upon, for example, some preliminary data that you have or use in vivo research and model organisms, for example, larger animals that is more applicable than, for example, in vitro work in a dish in the lab and in clinical research involving clinical trials, which usually is 10 years or more. Um, long path. I'm not sure if this answers this question. Um, I have another question. I have a specific example for translational research. So my you were You were talking through your PhD and your your ACL, which are both very interesting. How did how are you able to balance the clinical development over that time period particularly, You know, it was punctuated by covid. So, um, be interested to hear a bit about that during cl Well, both really for your PhD and your CL, uh, dentistry and dental surgery that you perform as Sarah was saying craft craft specialty. So the same things apply. So I did choose to do my PhD full time. But during that time I did have an opportunity to work with consultants in oral medicine and periodontology at Guy's Hospital. And I also did do some private work in dentistry at the same time as well. I started a company to organize trainings for doctors and dentists, so that was some connection with clinical world at the time. But I have to say, most of my time was spent running around the lab and doing experiments designing experiments, learning new techniques. I think it is important to to maintain skills because it is a long time if you're out of clinics for four or five years. And then during covid, there was a period of time of 8 to 6 months where not many patient's wanted to to see dentists. And at that time, actually, I did some volunteering and intensive care unit, like many other colleagues in dentistry. But yeah, Now we Now we're back to doing surgeries, so, of course. Well, thank you so much for your time, Maya. That will probably be questions. Um, at the end. Um, it's a very interesting talk, particularly for those dentists among you. And, of course, as you said, transferable skills, I'd like to move on to our next speaker now, um