King's medical student wins three prizes and is nominated to attend Lindau Nobel Laureate meeting due to significant research contributions

Jack Kingdon, current fourth year GKT medical student, has been nominated to attend Lindau Nobel Laureate meeting. This nomination comes off the back of his first place for the Scientific Contest at the European Student Conference, best poster presentation at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh’s National Research Symposium and best oral presentation at the BUCA International Undergraduate Cardiovascular Conference.

Speaking of his tremendous wins, Mr Kingdon said it was a shock:

I wasn’t expecting any of it at all. I just went to take part, so it was definitely a shock to win [each time]. The win at the European Student Conference was particularly surprising as there are 400 students competing and you aren’t aware of what anyone else is presenting until the final round where you come together to watch the final 10 students present.

Winning was very surprising, but so rewarding; and now to be nominated to attend the Lindau Nobel Laureate meeting is beyond belief—being able to have the one-on-one with the most distinguished people in their field would be an incredible opportunity.

In 2015, Mr Kingdon was awarded a KCL Undergraduate Research Fellow position in the Department of Vascular Surgery, Cardiovascular Division to look at a completely new piece of research. Observations regarding the links between deep vein thrombosis and atherosclerosis had been made, but until now, no one had researched if DVT did put people at more long term risk of heart attacks or strokes.

I’ve really enjoyed the research project and it has really enthused me. This area of research is really interesting because it’s completely new—no one has looked at this link before. Presenting this piece of research at these conferences has been a wonderful opportunity.

Mr Kingdon came to King’s on the Graduate/Professional Entry Programme after completing his Undergraduate at Southampton in Biomedical Sciences.

King’s is fantastic. I’m really happy here. I cannot thank my supervisors enough for all their support, in particular Mr Prakash Saha. Without them I couldn’t have done any of this.

And of course the funding that has been made available to me, to complete the research position as well as attend the conferences has been fantastic. Without it, these achievements wouldn’t have been made possible.

Professor Alberto Smith, Head of Vascular Surgery, believes Jack has what it takes to be a leader in his field:

A mix of curiosity and rigorous scientific approach are the bedrock of our research training, which has helped nurture the research careers of clinicians who are now leaders in their field.  Jack has these qualities in abundance. His achievement in obtaining the national and international awards for his research work at such an early stage in his medical career is indeed remarkable and is a strong indicator of his clinical academic potential. I hope that when he completes his medical degree, Jack will take up the baton to continue with his research interests and develop a successful career as a clinician scientist; hopefully in my lab! 

So what’s next for Mr Kingdon?

We are finishing up a couple of experiments in the lab and then we’ll write it up to be published. I want to apply for the Academic Foundation Programme. It’s very competitive with only 400 places in the country and the St Thomas’ one is really competitive—because it’s so great.