Sue Whittle

• PhD Biochemistry
• Professor (Associate) at University of Leeds

Integration of research into undergraduate degree programmes has been shown to have a beneficial effect on student learning, however, integrating activities which help first-year students to feel engage with research activity within their discipline has proved challenging. This study describes the use of Impact Case Studies created for the Research...

Background: Pre-university education curriculum changes may increase the skills and knowledge gap between secondary (high school) and tertiary (university) education that have been identified as having a major impact on the success of students from underresourced educational backgrounds. This study investigated the impact of extensive pre-universi...

Recent studies have indicated that the ‘sophomore slump’ (dissatisfaction and disengagement of second year students in the US) may also be observed in other countries, including the UK. However, no studies have reported on the effects of support interventions on student perceptions. This study used the DREEM-S survey, a modification of the validate...

Practical skills are important for the employability of biosciences graduates; however, first year science undergraduates often struggle to adapt to university practical classes, affecting skills development and decreasing their enthusiasm for laboratory work. This study describes the effects of introducing online multimedia practical support resou...

Background: Medical education faces challenges posed by widening access to training, a demand for globally competent healthcare workers and progress towards harmonisation of standards. Aim: To explore potential challenges arising from variation in diversity and educational background of medical school entrants. Method: This study investigated...

Higher education has invested in defining the role of generic skills in developing effective, adaptable graduates fit for a changing workplace. Research confirms that the development of generic skills that underpin effectiveness and adaptability in graduates is highly context-dependent and is shaped by the discipline within which these skills are c...

Students arrive in higher education (HE) with a range of generic and subject‐specific skills which they are expected to use and build upon during their degree courses. In order to ensure that undergraduates are able to make a successful transition to HE, it is important that teachers and course designers understand the level and range of skills wit...

Undergraduate research exposure leads to increased recruitment into academic medicine, enhanced employability and improved postgraduate research productivity. Uptake of undergraduate research opportunities is reported to be disappointing, and little is known about how students perceive research. Aim: To investigate opportunities for undergraduate p...

Communication, DevelopmentÕ was established in 2007 to improve studentsÕ learning and skills in professionalism and attitude. Evaluation of results and impact Result of patient surveys supported the MoH results and showed that patients were not satisfied with their doctorsÕ attitudes and communication skills. In addition, results of surveys of facu...

To explore the impact of research governance on medical students' ability to gain an understanding of research methodology, as required by the General Medical Council. We carried out a qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews, in 3 medical schools in the UK, with 12 interviewees including academic supervisors and administrative staff....

Educational environment makes an important contribution to student learning. The DREEM (Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure) questionnaire is a validated instrument for assessing educational environment, but used alone it has little value for identifying means of remediation of poor aspects of environment. This study used qualitative analy...

This paper describes further progress by the Northern Universities SSC Consortium in achieving consensus on the contribution of the Student Selected Components (SSCs) to undergraduate medical courses. Following the identification of common purposes and outcomes, the group has matched these to assessable key tasks which students may undertake in ord...

Generic skills development is increasingly being embedded into UK higher education curricula to improve the employability and lifelong learning skills of graduates. At the same time universities are being required to benchmark their curricular outcomes against national and employer standards. This paper presents and discusses the results of a study...

Since the 1997 Dearing Report generic skills development has become an essential part of higher education in the UK. Generic skills programmes are, in the main, either run in parallel with existing curricula or ‘embedded’ within them. In 1993 the General Medical Council introduced student selected components (SSCs) into the UK medical curriculum wi...

This study reports on a 4 year project conducted to detect any alteration to students' experience and self‐confidence in key skills resulting from the introduction of Curriculum 2000. The project involved 460 first year medical students who left school before the introduction of Curriculum 2000 and 478 who had experienced the new curriculum. Studen...

Widening participation initiatives together with changes in school curricula in England may broaden the range of lifelong learning skills experience of new undergraduates. This project examines the experience levels of current students, as a comparative baseline. First-year medical students completed a questionnaire on arrival, investigating their...

Student-selected components (SSCs) are an established part of undergraduate medical curricula in the UK. Implementation has been against a background of differing educational approaches to curricular change, together with a lack of clarity about their purpose, relationship with the core curriculum and contribution to overall assessment. This has re...

Student-selected projects with clearly identified transferable skill objectives have been introduced in Year 1, to help students focus on developing their lifelong learning skills. This study aimed to assess the impact of this innovation on students' perceptions of their skills, and to compare these views with those of students from the previous co...

Changes to the style of medical teaching will place a greater responsibility on individual medical students to manage their own learning, highlighting the need for students to develop good so-called 'transferable' skills at an early stage in their undergraduate career. To assess the attitudes of first year undergraduates towards transferable skills...

ContextChanges to the style of medical teaching will place a greater responsibility on individual medical students to manage their own learning, highlighting the need for students to develop good so-called ‘transferable’ skills at an early stage in their undergraduate career.Objectives To assess the attitudes of first year undergraduates towards tr...

The sensitivity to barbiturates of [3H]GABA binding to synaptosomal membrane fractions from rat cortex has been examined. We show that a range of anaesthetic/sedative barbiturates enhance GABA binding in the presence of chloride or other ions that interact with the associated ionophore. Furthermore, picrotoxinin and the anticonvulsant barbiturate p...

Reductase activity towards two aldose substrates has been examined in subcellular fractions prepared from rat brain. The reduction of glucuronate, which is sensitive to inhibition by the anticonvulsant drug sodium valproate, corresponds to the major high-Km aldehyde reductase in brain. Xylose reduction that is insensitive to valproate inhibition ha...

The conversion of -aminobutyrate (GABA) via succinic semialdehyde to -hydroxybutyrate has been examined in rat brain homogenates. A number of anticonvulsants, including sodium valproate and phenobarbitone, inhibited this metabolic pathway. These results are interpreted in the light of the characteristics of aldehyde reductases known to reduce succi...

The major isoenzyme of aldehyde reductase has been purified from ox brain by affinity chromatography. Carbamazepine (Ki = 7.3 × 10−4 M) and phenacemide (Ki = 2.5 × 10−4 M), in common with all other established anti-convulsant drugs tested, have been shown to inhibit the activity of this enzyme. A selection of structural analogues of the anti-convul...

The effects of inhibitors of aldehyde reductase (alcohol:NADP+ oxidoreductase, EC 1.1.1.2) on the formation of 3-methoxy-4-hydroxyphenethylene glycol from normetanephrine have been studied in rat brain homogenates. The reaction pathway was shown to be unaffected by several inhibitors of the major (high Km) form of aldehyde reductase such as sodium...

Although aldehyde reductases are widely distributed among tissues and species (Davidson et al., 1978), most interest has focussed on the mammalian brain enzymes because of their potential involvement in the metabolism of monoamine-derived aldehydes (Tipton et al., 1977). In most animals, however, the majority of reductase activity is located in liv...

Aldehyde reductases (EC 1.1.1.2) appear to play a number of distinct functions in cellular metabolism (Tipton et al., 1977). In neuronal tissue, they predominantly function in the reduction of aldehydes generated by oxidative deamination of monoamines or transamination of γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA). They may also play a role in the metabolism of al...

—Succinic semialdehyde dehydrogenase and NADPH-dependent aldehyde reductase have been purified from ox brain by affinity chromatography on 5′ AMP–Sepharose and 2′5′ ADP–Sepharose respectively. Aldehyde reductase has also been purified using chromatography on Procion Red HE3B–Sepharose. The effects of the anticonvulsant drug sodium valproate were ex...