Extensive efforts to try to reduce the numbers of women dying during pregnancy and childbirth will come under the spotlight today (September 18).
It is estimated that every minute of every day a woman dies needlessly in pregnancy or childbirth, mainly in the developing world.
Immpact - a University of Aberdeen global research project - is working hard to promote better health for mothers-to-be in developing countries.
Representatives from Immpact will be exhibiting displays of their work at the University of Aberdeen's Innovate with Aberdeen – The Frontiers of Excellence event which is taking place today at Elphinstone Hall and is open to all sectors of healthcare, research, government and non government organisations, industry and the wider business community.
Immpact will be joined on their stand by representatives of their technical advisory arm – Ipact, who will be telling visitors about the international training course they have delivered in Morocco, Uganda and Indonesia for those working in maternal and neonatal health programmes. Further courses are now being planned for Burkina Faso and Tanzania.
Innovate with Aberdeen is the latest in a twice yearly series of events that showcase groundbreaking research underway and technologies being developed at the University of Aberdeen.
It also allows companies to find out about how they could collaborate with University researchers and also benefit from consultancy work, continuing professional development and knowledge transfer partnerships.
Visitors will also hear of work being done to develop personalised treatments for cancer.
Studies underway at the University aim to develop tests to individualise therapy, by identifying the right drug for the right patient. Much of the research is focusing on lung cancer, a resistant cancer with very poor prognosis for patients.
One of the talks at Innovate will highlight how University scientists have identified a set of genes that accurately predict a lung cancer patient's response to platinum chemotherapy. This work has also identified a cancer molecule that blocks the effects of these platinum drugs. This molecular insight may be exploited to develop more effective lung cancer treatments.
Nutrition will be the focus of another Innovate exhibit called The Scottish Diet – Is It Getting Any Better? It will show that despite publicity and numerous initiatives to increase fruit and vegetable purchases in Scotland are still a long way off the target of 400g a day.
Another exhibit will feature the work being done at the University into the reliability of methods used to calculate carbon savings associated with wind farms.
It will explain about an approach that has been developed to calculate the impact of wind farm developments on the soil carbon stocks held in peats. The method provides a transparent and easy to follow method for estimating the impacts of wind farms on the carbon dynamics of peat lands.
More than 50 staff from the University are showcasing their research and partnership opportunities at Innovate with Aberdeen which kicks off at 12.45pm with exhibits and talks that will run until 5pm.
The keynote session and question time with Dr James Smith, Chairman of Shell UK, and Professor Alex Kemp from the University of Aberdeen, begins at 5.30pm and will be followed by a drinks, supper and networking reception which takes place between 6.45pm and 9pm.
All are welcome to attend. For more information about Innovate with Aberdeen see: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/innovate/