It was great to see several R2P2 members at the recent R2P2 meeting which took place on the 7th of October 2022 at the University of Birmingham. This was the first in-person event we have organised in more than 2 years, and it felt good to be back!
We had a varied programme which included talks from Professor Karim Raza and Professor Janet Lord as well as talks from 3 doctoral students who are part of the Student Patient Alliance (SPA) and work with a patient research partner during their PhD.
We also heard from Bob Michell, one of our R2P2 research partners. Bob talked about his personal experiences of RA and reflected on how the treatment of RA has changed from the time of his grandfather who also had RA. We have previously shared news of his very interesting and accessible article in the Lancet Rheumatology which can be
downloaded here or we can send you a PDF (just drop us a line).
During our R2P2 meeting, there was an excellent tour of the ‘Birmingham Tissue Analytics’ laboratory, with researchers giving practical demonstrations of techniques used to study tissue samples from patients taking part in research studies.
The demonstrations included approaches to handling the tissue biopsies, staining them and imaging them with high resolution microscopes. According to the feedback we received from attendees the inclusion of this lab tour has been a big hit, so we will certainly aim to repeat this in future meetings.
“Really enjoyed the Lab tour - and appreciated the efforts made by the staff and students to pitch the information at an appropriate level. That felt very considerate. I thought the balance between the formal and informal aspects was really good and allowed lots of social time to build on the talks that we had heard. I came away feeling really uplifted by the day.”
The meeting was concluded by a buffet lunch which gave everyone the chance to mingle, which after such a long hiatus was very much appreciated!