The University of Exeter Medical School has continued a run of success at a prestigious national neuroanatomy competition for students, scooping a trio of prizes.
The Exeter contingent won big for the fourth year in a row at the 14th edition of the National Undergraduate Neuroanatomy Competition (NUNC) held at University of Glasgow in 2026. The team narrowly missed three additional NUNC prizes by a few ranking positions.
To compete, students complete a two-part neuroanatomy examination, including multiple choice and practical examinations papers. They are battling it out for four NUNC trophy prizes and ten NUNC Distinction medals.
The Exeter prizes won at this year’s NUNC competition are:
- Runner’s Up Pre-Clinical Trophy Prize: Stoyan Ilkov (2nd Year BMBS student)
- Distinction Medal Prize: Mubashar Bhatti (3rd ear BMBS student)
- Distinction Medal Prize: Ismail Shaikh (3rd Year BMBS student)
Stoyan Ilkov, winner of the Runner’s Up Pre-Clinical Trophy Prize, said: “Winning this prize was a huge honour and incredibly rewarding, particularly as it was my first year studying neuroanatomy in depth. The award not only reflects the hard work I put into preparing for the competition, but also the invaluable support and encouragement I received from Dr Hope Gangata, the Exeter tutors and team, and my family, who made this achievement possible. Representing the University of Exeter on a national stage and receiving this recognition is something I will always be proud of, and I am grateful to have had this opportunity.”
To prepare for the competition, the Medical School offered a series of advanced, highly visual and interactive neuroanatomy teaching sessions. For the first time, the Medical School also offered Assessment Tutors, to provide detailed personal feedback on mock assessments, identifying strong and weak neuroanatomy areas, and the predicted position of students in the NUNC competition.
Third Year Medicine student Ismail Shaikh, the Exeter NUNC Secretary and the Region Representative in the National 2026, collaborated with students, staff and the competition organising committee in the runup to the competition. Ismail, winner of the Distinction Medal Prize, said: “The students who took part had a spark, a hunger, and a passion to pursue knowledge; not just competition outcomes and results. They formed a community of students who found fun and curiosity in neuroanatomy, showing it can be fun and not a subject to be afraid of.”
The NUNC Delegation of students representing the University of Exeter Medical School included Muktar Shittu, Ali Abusara, Jinu Chang, Ismail Shaikh, Duvindi Kularatne, Stoyan Ilkov, Leo Nam and Mubashar Bhatti.
Dr Hope Gangata is the academic lead and said: “We have built a sustained ecosystem of students with career ambitions in neurology and neurosurgery over the past four years of the competition Our high interest momentum among our medical students has built on our earlier successes, where we had the highest number of prizes at both the NUNC 2024 and NUNC 2025 Conferences, and had the highest number of Distinction awards in the last three years in a row. We’re grateful for the various support we have received from the University of Exeter Medical School in running our campaign to prepare for this year’s competition.”
In total, Exeter has won 16 NUNC prizes out a possible 56 national prizes between 2023 and 2026.
Third Year Medicine student Sean Ho, the outgoing President of the Anatomy Society won the Runner’s Up Pre-Clinical Trophy Prize and the NUNC 2024 Distinction Medal Prize, said taking part in preparations had been a “privilege”. He said: “The dedication and hard work of our committee members, staff, and student tutors have culminated in another solid performance at the NUNC 2026 competition. I look forward to seeing future cohorts build on this success and continue to raise the bar for years to come.”
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