University of Cambridge

In the 14th Hinsley Memorial lecture – an annual lecture given at St John’s on international relations - Timothy Garton-Ash examines the competing interests vying for control of the internet

International Relations: The Struggle for Power Over the Internet in a Post-American World

In frog spawn in a pond, each egg is able to turn itself into a tadpole and eventually a frog, with no help or guidance from a parent frog or from anything else in the pond. The single egg will have no resemblance in any respect to what it will turn into. We now begin to understand how this extraordinary transformation takes place. Eggs of frogs and other animals have another remarkable property. If a single cell from adult skin is transplanted into an egg, the skin cell will be made to go backwards in development to become an embryo cell from which another adult can be formed (repeating the process of normal development). In this way it is now possible to replace aged or diseased cells of an adult with rejuvenated cells from their skin. This is opening the possibility of cell replacement in humans.

Biography
John Gurdon was judged at school to be wholly unsuited to science having come bottom in a class of 250 in Biology. However, he was able to take up science at Oxford University, where he also did a PhD. His work led to the concept that an egg has the ability to rejuvenate the nucleus of an adult cell, and hence to the current prospect of replacing aged and diseased cells in humans with new cells derived from other body cells such as skin. In mid career he moved to Cambridge where he still works in the University. He is an Honorary Fellow of Christ Church, Oxford, and of Magdalene and Churchill Colleges in Cambridge. He served as Master of Magdalene from 1995-2002. He has received a number of awards including the Copley Medal of the Royal Society (2003), the Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research (2009), and the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine (2012). 

Reprogramming Animal Development - Professor Sir John Gurdon

Dr Frank Ledwidge, Barrister, Writer and Lecturer
Darwin College Lecture Series 2016 – Games 

The failed British military campaigns in Basra and Helmand followed similar courses. They began confidently, followed by defeat in the field and US military bail-out. The enemies of UK forces now dominate both theatres. British generals prided themselves on their prowess in exactly the kind of conflicts they thought they had entered- ‘counterinsurgency’. How then did they go so wrong? Before an army becomes involved in conflict, it should fully understand the kind of war it is going to be, what it wants to achieve by it and how the war will achieve those ends. British generals failed to ensure clarity on any of these questions and had no workable strategy. Further, they lacked a corporate culture and flexibility to understand and adapt to the environments in which they found themselves and defaulted to methods for which they were trained. The lack of a sound intelligence system and consequent situational naivete allowed their enemies to gain and retain the initiative. However, whilst there is a long way to go, there are signs that UK military leadership is developing the necessary skills and awareness to conduct successful operations.

Biography

Following eight years as a Barrister in Liverpool, Dr Frank Ledwidge served as a reserve military intelligence officer on front-line operations in Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq.He has also worked as a civilian security and justice advisor in UK Missions during the conflicts in Afghanistan and Libya. A law graduate of Oxford University, Frank holds a doctorate from Kings College London awarded for a study of the role of courts in insurgency. He is the author of two well-reviewed and bestselling studies of Britain’s recent military adventures ‘Losing Small Wars’ (Yale 2011) and ‘Investment in Blood’ (Yale 2013). He currently lectures in strategy and international law for Portsmouth University at the Royal Air Force College, Cranwell.

Losing the New Great Game

Speaking as part of the University of Cambridge's 'Brexit Week' - which took place from 18 to 22 October 2016 - Victoria Bateman gives her response to the question 'How Did We Get Here?'

Dr Victoria Bateman is a Director of Studies, Fellow and College Lecturer in Economics at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge. She publicly argued for a Remain vote in the run-up to the Referendum.

Brexit Week #2: Dr Victoria Bateman

Every day your immune system is busy protecting you from the thousands of germs around you that can make you sick. It does its job so efficiently that you don’t even notice that it is at work. Micro-organisms are present in your gut and interact with your body during periods of health and disease. When the immune system hits the wrong target, however, it can unleash a torrent of disorders, including inflammatory diseases, cancer, and autoimmune disease. Come along and be enlightened by our experts in the field.

Panelists: Dr Eoin McKinney (Autoimmunity - Dept of Medicine), Dr Maike De La Roche (Immunity - CRUK), Dr Sam Forster (Microbiota - Sanger Institute). Chaired by Prof Clare Bryant (Innate Immunity - Dept of Vet Medicine).

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

Has parliament taken back control and if so, are MPs about to shed their traditional party loyalties to prevent a no-deal Brexit? Listen to David Howarth, Professor of Law and Public Policy and former Cambridge MP, and Simon Deakin, Professor of Law, discuss what’s likely to happen in the Brexit negotiations in both the short and longer term.

A Center for Business Research Podcast: January 28th 2019

Brexit and its consequences for the UK economy and political systems

Welcome to We are the University. A podcast about the people who make Cambridge University unique.

In this episode we meet James Biddulph, the headmaster of the University of Cambridge Primary School. https://www.cam.ac.uk/primaryschool 

We talk about the school’s character and vision, how a trip to Nepal helped him realise that he wanted to teach as a career and we find out how he inspires the team of teachers that work with him.

www.educ.cam.ac.uk/people/staff/biddulph/ 

More than just an outstanding Ofsted rating sets the University of Cambridge Primary School apart: it places research at its heart, informing education practice and furthering research at Cambridge’s Faculty of Education and elsewhere. 

Visitors walking through one of the ‘learning streets’ that run through the core of the University of Cambridge Primary School (UCPS) soon notice something unusual. It’s not the fact that they end up back where they started – the school’s Polo-mint-shaped structure is just one of its radical features – but the startling lack of doors: classrooms open up invitingly on each side of the street, with snatches of lessons, storytelling or music audible within. 

The open-plan design both facilitates and symbolises the school’s role as the first, and still only, University Training School at primary level in the UK (the only secondary UTS is in Birmingham). Sponsored by the University of Cambridge, its role is to provide brilliant and inclusive primary education for its local community, and also to work alongside the University’s Faculty of Education and others to be research informed and research generating. 

Building from the work of the Faculty of Education, the school identified three ‘golden threads’that bind together its curriculum: habits of mind (the resilience and problem-solving skills that help children learn); dialogue (exemplified in the new DIALLS project); and playful inquiry. The aim, looking forward again, is to “empower children to make sense of the complex world in which they live” and nurture “compassionate citizens who want to make a positive contribution to their local and global worlds.”

Releasing the imagination: the University of Cambridge Primary School - James Biddulph

https://www.cam.ac.uk/thiscambridgelife/waheedarian

Having survived the civil war in Afghanistan, Waheed Arian arrived alone in the UK aged 15. He went on to study medicine at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. Today he’s using smartphones and volunteer specialists to provide life-saving medical advice to doctors working in areas of conflict.

The doctor using smartphones to save lives in war zones - Waheed Arian

Daphne Martschenko, president of Cambridge University Women’s Boat Club, is determined to make the sport of rowing more accessible. Her mission to pave the way for greater diversity in rowing chimes with her study of the charged concepts of race, socio-economic status, intelligence and genetics.

Read more here: https://medium.com/this-cambridge-life/the-star-rower-whose-research-examines-teachers-perceptions-of-intelligence-59467a7e18e2

The star rower whose research examines teachers’ perceptions of intelligence - Daphne Martschenko

Cambridge Infectious Diseases Public Lecture
Dr Ellen Nisbet discusses how saving the world's coral reefs is helping us cure malaria. Corals contain photosynthetic algae, dying when the algae are lost. And malaria parasites are really algae in disguise.

Dr Ellen Nisbet - Coral Reefs, Malaria And Drug Discovery

We humans have many obvious physical adaptations for effective movement – most notably the fact that we all tend to wander around on two legs. Less obvious, but every bit as important, is how our minds – particularly our desires – have been shaped through evolution by the need to move. Central to these mental adaptations is the brain’s ‘reward chemical’ dopamine. Dopamine is famous for making the runner’s high feel so good, but its role in encouraging and rewarding movement goes much deeper than that.

Drawing on the latest research, as well as traditional hunter-gatherer wisdom, zoologist Dr Matt Wilkinson will reveal all about these stimulating mental systems, and will give some tips about how to keep them working in our modern, civilised world.

Dr Matt Wilkinson - Joy Of Steps

A technology breakthrough that started in Cambridge has brought us to where we are able to decode the entire DNA sequence and determine mutations that cause rare genetic diseases and cancer. With all 100,000 genomes now sequenced, Dr David Bentley, Chief Scientist at Illumina, and Professor Mark Caulfield, Chief Scientist at Genomics England, discuss how the 100,000 Genome Project will revolutionise the way we practise medicine.

Dr David Bentley FMedSci
David is Vice President and Chief Scientist at Illumina Inc. and graduated with an M.A. in Natural Sciences from Cambridge and a D.Phil from Oxford. During his career he has been a Senior Lecturer at London University; and later the Head of Human Genetics and a founder member of the Board of Management at the Sanger Centre. David has played a leading role in the Human Genome Project and related international consortia to characterise human sequence variation, including The SNP Consortium and the HapMap Project. His long-term interest is the study of human sequence variation and its impact on human health and disease. His current research is focussed on fast, accurate sequencing of human genomes for adoption and benefit in healthcare, with early applications including rare genetic disease and cancer. These applications are exemplified in the goals of the 100,000 genomes project, a partnership that includes Illumina, Genomics England and the National Health Service.

Professor Mark Caulfield
Mark Caulfield graduated in Medicine in 1984 from the London Hospital Medical College and trained in Clinical Pharmacology at St Bartholomew’s Hospital where he developed a research programme in molecular genetics of hypertension which has discovered over 1000 gene loci for blood pressure and clinical research. He served on the NICE Guideline Group for hypertension and was President of the British Hypertension Society (2009-2011).

He was appointed Director of the William Harvey Research Institute in 2002 and was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2008. He led on fundraising towards the £25m William Harvey Heart Centre which created a translational clinical research centre. Since 2008 he directs the National Institute for Health Research Cardiovascular Biomedical Research Unit and Centre at Barts. Between 2010 and 2015 he co-led the merger of three hospitals in North London to create the new £400 million Barts Heart Centre which provides 80,000 cardiovascular patient episodes.

He has won the Lily Prize of the British Pharmacology Society, the Bjorn Folkow Award of the European Society of Hypertension 2016 and the Franz Volhard Award of the International Society of Hypertension in 2018.

In 2013 he became an NIHR Senior Investigator and was appointed as the Chief Scientist for Genomics England (100,000 Genomes Project) 2013-ongoing.

David Bentley & Mark Caulfield - 100,000 Genomes Project Transforming Precision Healthcare

Black holes are nature’s most extreme and exotic objects. They stretch our understanding of space and time to its limits and, in a cosmic irony, are responsible for some of the most energetic phenomena in the Universe. In this talk, Professor Christopher Reynolds describes the nature of black holes as we currently understand them, the role that they play in the Universe, and how future research on black holes may yet again change our view of reality.

Christopher Reynolds is the Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy at the University of Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy, and a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College. After completing his undergraduate and doctoral degrees at Cambridge, he spent 21 years in the United States including a 16 year stint as a Professor at the University of Maryland where we ran a research group focused on black holes. He returned to Cambridge in the Autumn of 2017

Prof Christopher Reynolds - The Universe Of Black Holes

In this episode, Charis and I speak to Cambridge University alumna, Pat Marsh. When we recorded the interview, we didn’t have any of the studio equipment with us, just a phone, but we thought it would be a crime not to share Pat’s incredible story. 

Pat was the first woman in the UK to hold a gaming licence and in 1979 she brought Space Invaders, the arcade game sensation, to the UK shores. 

Pat has had a distinguished business career, most recently serving as Executive Chairman of Philip-Treacy. Philip Treacy’s hats have adorned the heads of royals and celebrities alike, including Grace Jones, Lady Gaga, Madonna, Sarah Jessica Parker, Beyonce and Victoria Beckham.

The woman who brought Space Invaders to the UK - Pat Marsh

From human disease and intellectual ability, ethnicity and race to sex and our origins, Dr Ewan Birney and colleagues, discuss the five things that everyone should know about genetics.

Professor Anne Ferguson-Smith is the Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics and Head of the Department of Genetics. Her research focuses on the molecular events governing pre- and post-natal mammalian development.

Dr Matthew Hurles leads a research group at the Wellcome Sanger Institute focused on deciphering the genetic causes of severe developmental disorders, and understanding how DNA mutates as it is passed from generation to generation.

Dr Stuart Ritchie is a Lecturer in the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre at King’s College London. His research focuses on the genetic and environmental links to human intelligence differences.

Ewan Birney is Director of EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute with Dr Rolf Apweiler, and runs a small research group. He is also EMBL-EBI's Joint Head of Research, alongside Dr Nick Goldman.

Ewan completed his PhD at the Wellcome Sanger Institute with Richard Durbin. In 2000, he became Head of Nucleotide data at EMBL-EBI and in 2012 he took on the role of Associate Director at the institute. He became Director of EMBL-EBI in 2015. Ewan led the analysis of the Human Genome gene set, mouse and chicken genomes and the ENCODE project, focusing on non-coding elements of the human genome. Ewan’s main areas of research include functional genomics, DNA algorithms, statistical methods to analyse genomic information (in particular information associated with individual differences in humans and Medaka fish) and use of images for chromatin structure.

Ewan is a non-executive Director of Genomics England, and a consultant and advisor to a number of companies, including Oxford Nanopore Technologies, Dovetail Genomics and GSK. Ewan was elected an EMBO member in 2012, a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2014 and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2015. He was also made a CBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours list in 2018.

Ewan has received a number of awards including the 2003 Francis Crick Award from the Royal Society, the 2005 Overton Prize from the International Society for Computational Biology and the 2005 Benjamin Franklin Award for contributions in Open Source Bioinformatics.

Five Things About Genetics Everyone Should Know

Through a series of short, interactive presentations, Astex Pharmaceuticals take you on a journey into their ‘molecular mix and match’ approach to the discovery of new medicines. Stick around after the talks to meet the scientists!

Astex Pharmaceuticals - Molecular mix and match: designing and making new medicines

You might have heard that scientists will soon be able to build quantum computers. But what exactly is a quantum computer? Is it just a super-fast version of a normal computer? What will it be good for? And most importantly, should you buy one? Mithuna Yoganathan provides the answers! Hint: don't put in your pre-order until you've seen this talk!

Mithuna Yoganathan - What will my quantum computer do for me?

Giovanna Mallucci is Professor of Clinical Neurosciences and Associate Director of the UK Dementia Research Institute. She discusses how research is transforming our understanding of the cellular mechanisms that make brain cells go wrong in dementia and degenerative brain disease and how these insights may be translated into new treatments.

Professor Giovanna Mallucci has undergraduate degrees in Physiological Sciences and Medicine from the University of Oxford, with clinical training at University College, London. She obtained her PhD from London University, for which she generated the first adult onset mouse model of prion protein knockout that paved the way to her discoveries about reversibility of early neurodegeneration and underlying mechanisms.

Her work on the role of the UPR in neurodegenerative disease and its pharmacological manipulation was hailed as “turning point in search for medicines to control and prevent Alzheimer’s” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-24462699 and was the 2013/2014 Research for Society MRC success story http://www.mrc.ac.uk/successes/mrc-success-stories-2013-14-a-review-of-t....
Since her PhD she has combined clinical work and basic research and led groups in the MRC Prion Unit (2001-2008) and the MRC Toxicology Unit (2008-present), before moving to Cambridge, where, as well as running her own lab, she is now setting up the UK Dementia Research Institute Centre at the University of Cambridge. She is also Honorary Consultant Neurologist at Addenbrooke's Hospital specialising in Dementia. Her own lab is pioneering interventions targeting common pathways for treatment of dementia.

She has received numerous national and international awards for her work, including a SciAm50 award for leadership in research as one of the top 50 scientific innovators worldwide, and has given many plenary and keynote talks at international conferences. She is an ERC Consolidator Fellow. In 2017, she was elected Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.

Giovanna Mallucci - Discoveries leading to new treatments for dementia

It’s something that we all do, but no one talks about it: emptying your bowels. However, for many people with conditions that impair this most normal of bodily functions, it can impact your day-to-day life in unexpected and profoundly challenging ways. Scientists Dr Ewan St. John Smith and Dr James Hockley teamed up with DragonLight Films to produce a short film that explores how gut function goes wrong, the impact it has on peoples’ lives and how scientists and clinicians are working to better treat those affected. We seek to understand how gut function is disrupted and how pain occurs in conditions including Crohn’s disease (a form of inflammatory bowel disease, IBD) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), as well as being a natural consequence of ageing.
You can watch the film here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOiNI0qREsI

After watching the film Dr Dervila Glynn of Cambridge Neuroscience will moderate an open debate with a panel of experts to discuss themes arising from the film. The event is supported by Bowel and Cancer Research whose mission is to bring forward to a day when no one will die of bowel cancer or have to live with chronic bowel disease.

Come along and discover more about your amazing gut, a system as complex as your brain, how it controls things we take for granted and which no one usually likes to talk about!

Biographies:
Dr Ewan St. John Smith is a Senior Lecturer in Pharmacology at the University of Cambridge and Fellow in Pharmacology at Corpus Christi College. Ewan’s research group is focused on determining how pain is caused in a wide variety of conditions.

Dr James Hockley is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Pharmacology at the University of Cambridge. James’ research examines the biological pathways responsible for how sensations, in particular pain, arise from our internal organs.

Colin Ramsay is an award-winning Cambridge based filmmaker, founder and managing director of DragonLight Films. In 2017, Colin won the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) “Best Research Film of the Year” for his documentary film Pain in the Machine.

Gut Reaction: Living with bowel disease

In this episode we chat to Duncan Astle, a developmental neuroscientist, who’s based at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit. Duncan and I talk about his recent study that uses machine learning to identify learning difficulties and why children may struggle at school. We also talk about his work with Pride in STEM and how the current scientific research publishing model needs to change.

University of Cambridge

Rail2019