A FIFE school pupil has joined a medical research team as part of her work towards an advanced higher in physics.

Megan Griffiths, a sixth year pupil at Bell Baxter High School, in Cupar, has swapped the classroom for the laboratory for her physics project.

She is helping a research project at Dundee University which is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

The university’s Biomedical Physics Group, headed by Paul Campbell, is researching the use of high frequency ultrasound for non-invasive medical procedures.

Mr Campbell explained that therapeutic ultrasound can ‘cook’ tissue in situ without invasive surgery and can be used to sensitise tissue so chemotherapy drugs are more effective.

He said, “What Megan is looking at is the effect of heating and what is the threshold for heating tissue in a phantom tumour.”

Megan, who intends to study medicine at university, is the first school pupil to have worked with the team, he said, and the knowledge she gained would stand her in good stead.

Bell Baxter head of physics Grant McAllister said Megan was a bright pupil and he was delighted that she had taken up such a ground-breaking opportunity.

He said some really interesting ideas had been put forward for pupils’ sixth year projects and added, “Megan has really gone with this one.

“I’m very proud of her.”