Celebrating Biomedical Scientist of the Year 2022
IBMS Fellow Bamidele Farinre, who is Chief Biomedical Scientist at the London Medical Laboratory was also announced as the ‘Overall Winner 2022'.
Bamidele won the prestigious accolades for her pioneering work to set up mobile laboratories to speed up COVID-19 testing in the midst of the pandemic.
In her role as the Chief Biomedical Scientist for Mobile Processing Units Vans (MPUV) commissioned by the Department of Health & Social Care, Bamidele competently built and managed over 100 staff teams of scientists, associate practitioners, and laboratory assistants within a 7-month period of commencing her role. She took responsibility for their continuous development including creating a safe working environment for her team to thrive. Bamidele set up detailed SOPs for COVID-19 LAMP- RT and processes for performance tests, trained her team of Scientists and Associates, as well as developing a comprehensive train the trainer programme. She established the competency assessment framework, led the implementation of the IT LIMS system, and established a KPI monitoring regime all within the MPUV project.
It is an honour to be recognised for this prestigious award.
Following the awards ceremony, Bami told the IBMS:
“I am still amazed by the whole experience. It is an honour to be recognised for this prestigious award; for my contribution to the profession, in my role on the MPUV, especially in raising the profile of Biomedical Science as a career and inspiring the future generation of scientists into the field.
Special thanks to my nominee (mentee) for believing in my leadership abilities, the whole team on the MPUV project, and everyone that has been part of my journey so far.
This award is a notable milestone in my career, especially being crowned the overall winner. This award is dedicated to all scientists out there and is a way of encouraging my fellow colleagues to consider mentorship, and volunteer as STEM ambassadors, aswell as a way of raising awareness of the profession in a positive light to the public.“
Furthermore, Bamidele was instrumental in leading, designing, and implementing the June Almeida Laboratory based in the Franklin Wilkins Building, Waterloo, London as a collaborative project between Kings College London and Viapath Analytics LLP and is an all-round versatile scientist, regularly contributing to the work of the IBMS, including, as IBMS virology panel member, CPD officer and author of several articles in our magazine.
I was so proud to see our members recognised for their outstanding achievements.
IBMS President Debra Padgett commented following Bami's win:
"I was so proud to see our members recognised for their outstanding achievements at this year's Advancing Healthcare Awards. The awards are a great opportunity to showcase biomedical scientists and support staff who go above and beyond to provide the best quality patient care, often engaging in projects at the cutting-edge of the profession. I want to congratulate Bamidele for her exceptional performance, winning both the Biomedical Scientist of the Year and the Overall Winner award, which were very well deserved. Her work for the MPUV project brought COVID-19 testing closer to the community in the middle of the pandemic, ensuring patients up and down the country could receive a faster test result, providing reassurance and allowing those who were negative to leave isolation earlier than expected. Fantastic work!"
Bami made us proud to be scientists.
The judges commented:
"Bami made us proud to be scientists. Bami comes across as a leader for the profession who is inspirational to other scientists. In the midst of a global pandemic, Bami set-up a mobile based testing system for Covid-19, facing enormous pressure and deadlines, but succeeded in doing this. The result was 14 fully accredited ‘labs in a van’ that travelled to all parts of England offering tests and latterly also offering vaccinations too. Bami was also able to employ and develop large numbers of staff and also herself during this process.”
This award is a notable milestone in my career especially been crowned the overall winner of the Advancing Healthcare Awards 2022 This award is dedicated to all scientists out there and a way of encouraging my fellow colleagues to consider mentorship, and volunteer as STEM ambassadors as a way of raising awareness of the profession in a positive light to the public. “
The IBMS has sponsored ‘Biomedical Scientist of the Year’ at the Advancing Healthcare Awards for the past 5 years. The award celebrates an exceptional biomedical scientist who has used their skills and expertise to advance practice in an innovative and impactful way, making a real difference to patients’ lives and inspiring those around them.
IBMS members win in other categories
We’d also like to congratulate our members who won awards in other categories at the Advancing Healthcare Awards 2022.
Danny Gaskin, Selma Turkovic and Anas Nasir won the ‘inspiring the healthcare science workforce of the future award' for developing an innovative, remote, cost-effective education group, free to access for newly qualified biomedical scientists and those new to transfusion science and students.
Adeboye Ifederu was part of the group to win the 'Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine Award for Innovation in Healthcare Science' for launching a national SCID new-born screening service expected to significantly increase the 40% survival rate of SCID.
Arnold Awuah was recognised as a 'Rising Star' in the profession for developing from a quiet student to a scientist with the confidence to present his COVID work to an audience of more than 200 scientists and clinicians. Arnold is constantly learning and horizon scanning to implement new tests for patient benefit.