News

A new paper from the Krupic Lab, published in Cell Reports Methods, shows the development of a fully automated AI-driven home cage monitoring system. The system incorporates a T-maze test, novel object recognition as well as object-in-place recognition tests accompanied by measurement of other locomotion behaviours, all done without any food and wa…

A new study from researchers from the Centre for Trophoblast Research at Cambridge’s Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience and the Medical Research Council Metabolic Diseases Unit, part of the Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science, has discovered that fetuses use a copy of a gene inherited from their dad to force their mum to…

A group of students and demonstrators from the Human Anatomy Centre attended the summer scientific meeting of the British Association of Clinical Anatomists on 6 July 2023. This was held at the School of Anatomy, University of Bristol with the theme of "Applied and Functional Anatomy". Four Part II PDN project students gave oral presentations and L…

A new study from the Krupic lab, led by Dr Julija Krupic, shows that the network of entorhinal grid cells and hippocampal place cells show predictive coding and encode the future trajectories of an animal rather than its current location.Published in Cell Reports, the paper Simultaneous representation of multiple time horizons by entorhinal grid ce…

Congratulations to the Zernicka-Goetz lab, who can now share their human embryo-like model, published in Nature. Knowledge of the morphogenetic transformations undergone by a human embryo following its implantation into the uterus, is limited by the inability to observe the embryo in vivo. Stem cell-derived models of the embryo are important tools …

We are delighted to share the news that Professor Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, PDN professor of mammalian development and stem cell biology, has been awarded the prestigious 2023 Ogawa-Yamanaka Stem Cell Prize by Gladstone Institutes.For the past 25 years, research from the Zernicka-Goetz lab has pioneered studies of the fundamental mechanisms that dr…

Our congratulations to Hugh Robinson (Professor G11), Benedicte Sanson (Professor G12) and David Bainbridge ( Professor G12), who have been awarded professorships in this years Academic promotions, as published in the University of Cambridge Reporter. Hugh and Benedicte were both recognised for their outstanding contributions in the research and t…

We have planted our first tree in the Forest of Biologists!  - a living forest, created as part of a biodiversity initiative from The Company of Biologists, with support from The Woodland Trust. For each Research Article or Review article published, a living tree will be planted in a UK forest. The initiative will also fund the restoration and pres…

A new paper by the Fleming lab, and published in Autophagy, presents their findings from the development of an inducible expression system to up- or downregulate autophagy in vivo, in zebrafish. Autophagy is a process that occurs inside cells that allows them to clear damaged, misfolded or aggregated proteins and damaged organelles. Defects in this…

Congratulations go to Spatika Jayaram on being a 2023 recipient of a Gates ScholarshipWe will be welcoming Spatika in October when she will be joining us from India, via Oxford, to begin a PhD with Professor Angela Roberts https://www.gatescambridge.org/biography/18697/https://www.gatescambridge.org/about/news/gates-cambridge-class-of-2023-announc…

Unsupervised, frequent and remote: A novel platform for personalised digital phenotyping of long-term memory in humansA short study description:Krupic lab developed a novel hAge platform (healthy Age) for remote and unsupervised testing of long-term memory in humans, which has the potential to be used as an early digital biomarker for Alzheimer's d…

After working as an integral part of PDN for the past 27 years, today we say farewell and happy retirement to the Department's Principal Assistant, Phil Garrett. Phil started working for the University of Cambridge in August 1974 when he was 16 years old - almost 49 years ago! His first role was in the Department of Biochemistry as a Trainee Techni…

PDN Academic, Professor Matthew Mason, is working with the Physiology Society to create a series of video resources as part of their new Training Hub. The three-part series, focusing on cardiovascular physiology, provides physiology educators who are new to teaching with useful analogies and advice to communicate key concepts in physiology effectiv…

A study by a team of PDN researchers under the leadership of Professor Angela Roberts and published in Science Translational Medicine, reveals how the anxiety and anhedonia that is induced by overactivation of Area 25, a region of the frontal lobe intimately associated with depression in humans, is dependent upon two separate pathways.The team was …

Congratulations to Dr Angie Tavernor, Veterinary Teaching Associate at PDN, who is one of thirteen recipients of this year's Pilkington Prize for Teaching Excellence. The prizes are awarded to individuals who make an outstanding contribution to teaching at the University of Cambridge. They were endowed and inaugurated in 1994 by Sir Alastair Pilkin…