PhD student, Matimba Swana, was awarded best Pecha Kucha presentation prize at the Global Forum on Bioethics in Research (GFBR 2022) after successfully summarising her entire PhD project in 5 minutes!
Matimba’s PhD focusses on how to build regulations for nanoswarms for future nanomedicine clinical trials in the UK, Europe and US. The research aims to consider the regulatory requirements in advance of the technology being ready for in-human testing.
Cancer nanomedicines can be used as drug carriers that can target tumours more effectively with anti-cancer agents, whilst leaving healthy body tissues untouched. The technology will use swarm behaviour design to improve performance, while avoiding side effects, culminating in an intelligent drug delivery system.
Matimba’s work studies how the classification of nanoswarm technologies as drug delivery systems will influence the regulatory requirements set in each country of use. Consideration of this categorisation alongside the guiding AI principles and ethical concerns will ensure an effective regulatory framework is developed ready for in-human drug testing.
This work was presented as part of the GFBR 2022 conference programme, organised by the World Health Organization, Wellcome and South African Medical Research Council. The event focussed on the topic of ethics of AI in global health research, bringing together ethicists, policy-makers, researchers, clinicians, computer scientists and healthcare workers from across the world to discuss how traditional research ethics regulatory frameworks have responded to the rapid advances in AI technology. ‘Trustworthiness’ featured as a key consideration in the conversation.
Matimba’s presentation was one of ten ‘Pecha Kucha‘ presentations held during the event. This rapid story-telling format is often favoured at academic conferences to give early career researchers an opportunity to spotlight their research widely to delegates before a networking or poster session.
Well done to Matimba on a successful presentation and award!
Find out more
You can read more about Matimba’s PhD work and sign up as a volunteer to talk about ethics and regulations on our Swarm Study page.