IAS Live: Drugs, Bugs and Infections

Last night five scientists researching different aspects of antimicrobials took to the floor at the FIS Conference at the ICC in Birmingham to take part in I’m a Scientist Live: Drugs, Bugs and Infections.

Photo courtesy of @biologyatkinge1

Photo courtesy of @biologyatkinge1

Our five were:

Mark Webber

Richard Bax

Amy Wedley

Anne-Marie Krachler

Peter Hawkey

AMK & LP

Photo courtesy of @PharmaMix

Our MC for the evening, Simon Watt, kicked off by spending 10 minutes interviewing Laura Piddock, Chair of Public Engagement at BSAC about the current situation in research. The scientists introduced themselves and gave their Science Facts and Fictions before the 100-strong audience launched with their questions.

30 mins later with time running out, Simon brought the event to a climax by asking the scientists to spend 30seconds telling the audience why they should get the votes and the winner’s trophy. The vote that followed confirmed that Anne Marie’s promotion of the IMI’s Summer School for Year 12 students was enough to edge her into the lead and win the vote.


Some numbers:

IASLIVE FIS Who are you

181 tickets ordered.

105 attendees on the evening (105 voting handsets were used).

Over half the audience were students evenly split between schools and undergraduates. This means a lot of the students who asked for tickets failed to show. We had a capacity of 150 for the evening with a maximum limit of 200 for the room. Whilst we expected some dropout we are surprised by the level of no-shows. We will need to over-book more heavily in future.

Voting was close. Only one vote separated Anne-Marie from the scientist who was second-placed. We discussed what to do in case of a tie beforehand, but were clear it wouldn’t end up as a draw. We need to take those plans more seriously in future.

Having the electronic voting cards allows us to ask some immediate evaluation questions. A healthy majority enjoyed the show and learnt from our panellists. A slightly smaller majority have caught the antimicrobial bug.

IASLIVE FIS MoreIASLIVE FIS Learn


What else did we learn/have confirmed from last night?

IASLIVE FIS Enjoy

  • Allowing a 30 minute turnaround between a lecture and IASLive with only one sound engineer is a little optimistic.
  • We should brief participants that they will be using a lapel mic and that they therefore need a lapel.
  • Some sort of stage helps if the audience are on the same level
  • Enthusiasm and energy will give rise to a decent discussion whatever the subject.
Posted on November 20, 2013 by ModShane in Evaluation, I'm a Scientist - Live. Comments Off on IAS Live: Drugs, Bugs and Infections