News

From 3 to 7 August 2026, Cambridge Open Lab hosted its Summer School on Open Science in Practice at the beautiful Homerton College, bringing together 11 students and 3 teaching assistants (TAs) from 11 different countries.Organised by Dr Chloé Guillaume and Dr Célia Laurent, the Summer School combined discussions on the principles of Open Science w…

Giussani Lab member, Dr Wen Tong, has been awarded the 2025 Early Investigator Prize from the Journal of Physiology.https://physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/hub/journal/14697793/features/early-investigator-prizeThis initiative is designed to reward early career authors who publish outstanding research papers in The Journal.Her winning paper, Placenta…

The Royal Society has awarded a Faraday Discovery Fellowship to Professor Kathy Niakan. The fellowships support outstanding mid-career research leaders in the UK.Professor Niakan will investigate how human embryo cells develop into specialised cells and tissues at the time of implantation in the uterus. By uncovering the molecular mechanisms that g…

Two PDN Anatomy Part II project students, Pratham Dalwadi (Peterhouse) and Luke Quinn (Corpus Christi) gave excellent oral presentations at the summer scientific meeting of the British Association of Clinical Anatomists at City St George's University of London on 9 July 2026. Pratham was awarded the Conrad Lewin Prize.

Our congratulations to Research Associate, Dr Szilvia Vas, who has been awarded the 2026 Michael Harbuz Prize by the British Society for Neuroendocrinology (BSN). The prize is awarded “in memory of Dr Michael Harbuz” and recognises “an outstanding member of the emerging generation of neuroendocrinologists at the BSN.”Dr Vas is an in vivo neuroscien…

The 2027 Bayliss-Starling Prize Lecture has been awarded to Dr Eleanor Raffan by the Physiological Society. Donated by the Bayliss and Starling Society, the annual lecture is awarded to a mid-career physiologist to celebrate a discrete package of work that has made a significant impact on physiological understanding.  Dr Raffan will give a lecture …

Congratulations to Dr Christian Wood, who was recently awarded a Junior Non-Clinical Psychopharmacology award from the British Association of Psychopharmacology. This included a prize talk at the annual meeting titled "Causal circuit mechanisms linking prefrontal-cingulate dysfunction to depression and anxiety". Christian is a Research Associate wi…

A new PhD studentship, starting in January 2027, has just been announced.'Mitochondrial Metabolism and Novel Therapeutic Strategies for Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease (MASLD)' is jointly supervised by the University of Cambridge and Novo Nordisk. It is an exceptional opportunity to contribute to research addressing one of …

On two exceptionally warm days this summer (25th and 26th June), Senior Chief Teaching Technician Lorna Roberts, and Teaching and Research Lab Technician Taylor Thomas Lennon, represented PDN at the Science Museum in London, taking part in the Technicians Takeover event, held in the Technicians Gallery and sponsored by the Gatsby Foundation.

Scientists have, for the first time, used an extremely precise genome editing technique called base editing to study gene function in human embryos. They found that a gene called NANOG is essential for forming the future body from an embryo. "Base editing can precisely change a single nucleotide base pair to another in an entire human genome of aro…

Congratulations to Professor Christine Holt, who is a recipient of the Kavli Prize 2026, one of the world’s largest scientific prizes. Honouring groundbreaking scientific discovery, the recipients of the Kavli Prizes 2026 in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience were announced today by The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters…

Congratulations to Dr Eleanor Raffan, who was recently announced as the 2027 recipient of the Society for Endocrinology Starling Medal for Early Career Research Excellence.The medal is awarded, on an annual basis, to honour an emerging outstanding basic, clinical or translational scientist who is a member of the Society and whose work has contribut…

Dr Jonathan Holmes shares his memories upon reaching 50 years of teaching Veterinary Anatomy at PDN:----------"After demonstrating at ‘Into the Pelvis’, the last VAP dissection practical of the academic year, a few days ago, I have, bar a few supervisions, completed my 50th year teaching the subject in the Department.I came up to Queens’ College to…

A new study has found that stresses such as systemic racism and socioeconomic disadvantage may sensitise key processes in the body during pregnancy, helping to explain why black women and their babies face significantly higher rates of complication than white women.Stresses experienced by black women, such as socioeconomic inequalities, may alter k…

Thanks to funding from the TSN ROKS Outreach Demonstrator Fund, Teaching Technicians in the Histology and Experimental Classrooms of PDN, were able to develop and trial a new outreach activity, “Good Air, Bad Air”, designed by, Taylor Thomas Lennon.We showcased the first version of the demonstration unit at the Cambridge Science Festival on, 28th M…