Their Royal Highnesses were welcomed to the Fitzwilliam Museum by by the Lord Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire, Sir Hugh Duberly, by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, and by the Museum’s Director, Mr Tim Knox.

At the Museum, they  met  pupils from King’s Hedges School and Soham Village College taking part in educational activities designed by the museum to allow primary school children to interact with the exhibits.

The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall met staff from the Fitzwilliam Museum, and were shown treasures from the Museum’s collection including a unique sculpture in wax, “Arabesque over the Right Leg, Left Arm in Front”, by Edgar Degas, and a European medieval illuminated manuscript.

Staff from the Cambridge University Library demonstrated the latest digitisation techniques, and displayed rare items from the UL’s collection including a copy of Charles Darwin’s On the origin of species by means of natural selection (1859) and Andreas Vesalius De humani corporis fabrica librorum epitome (1543).

Also at the Fitzwilliam, Their Royal Highnesses met with representatives of University-led and local outreach, education and development initiatives including the Cambridge-Africa Programme, the Cambridge Development Initiative, the Research for Equitable Access and Learning Centre, the Campaign for Female Education, and the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, of which  The Prince is Patron. They were then introduced to foreign students awarded the prestigious Gates Cambridge Scholarships.

Addressing Their Royal Highnesses after the Museum visit, the Vice-Chancellor said:

“It is especially gratifying to welcome The Prince of Wales back to Cambridge as one of our most distinguished alumni. There are some 230,000 active members of the University’s alumni networks around the world. His Royal Highness is not only one of the most prominent among them, but also one of the most supportive of the University. We are grateful for his key role as Patron to the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and to the Cambridge Commonwealth, European & International Trust.”

In the afternoon, Their Royal Highnesses attended  a rehearsal of the King’s College Choir.

The think-tank British Influence is said to be contemplating a judicial review arguing that the UK remains a contracting party to the European Economic Area (EEA) agreement and so will retain membership of the Single Market even after Brexit.

British Influence suggest that only if the UK notifies its intention to withdraw from the EEA agreement in terms of Article 127 of that agreement would the UK ‘leave’ the Single Market.

“The UK’s obligations under the EEA agreement may not lapse when the UK leaves the EU. But the UK only has limited obligations arising under that agreement. For all aspects relating to customs and compliance with the Single Market rules, it is the EU, not the UK, that exercises rights and duties under the agreement,” says Kenneth Armstrong, Professor of European Law and the Director of the Centre for European Legal Studies at the University of Cambridge.   

“Although the UK is a contracting party to the EEA agreement alongside the EU, it is only a party for those aspects of the agreement that fall within the legal powers of the UK. EU membership means that the legal powers of the UK are limited, especially in respect of customs and Single Market rules which have been taken over from the Member States and are exercised on their behalf by the EU.”

If the litigants were, nonetheless, successful in persuading a court that the UK was entitled to exercise the rights of a contracting party, Professor Armstrong suggests they may not be enforceable against the EU27 but only against the three European Free Trade Association (EFTA) states:

“The agreement is between the EU and the Member States on one side, and Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein on the other side. This means that the UK was a contracting party as a Member State and only in relation to the three EFTA states. It would be contrary to the purpose of the agreement for it to regulate relations between the UK and the EU27. It is for the EU treaties alone to regulate that relationship subject to the supervision of the European Court of Justice.”

The EEA Agreement is an “association agreement” that comprehensively deals with a wide range of issues of cooperation between the EU and EFTA, says Armstrong. It is not limited to the Single Market.

“Because they have such a wide scope, association agreements must be signed not just by the EU as a legal entity but also by its Member States for those areas of the agreement where Member States retain their own sovereign powers. But as regards customs duties and the common rulebook of the Single Market, these powers have been transferred to the EU and are exercised collectively at EU level.

“It is not enough to say that the UK is a ‘contracting party’ and then draw the inference that this gives the UK continuing access to the Single Market. It is only a contracting party for certain purposes and within the legal limits of its powers at the time the agreement was reached. At that time, the UK was an EU Member State and the EU had taken over responsibilities for customs and the Single Market rulebook,” concludes Armstrong.

“I would be very surprised if this litigation changed the political course of Brexit." 

The EEA Agreement was signed by the EU, its Member States and three EFTA states (without Switzerland) on 17 March 1993, and ratified by the UK on 15 November 1993.

Article 127 of the EEA Agreement states:

Each Contracting Party may withdraw from this Agreement provided it gives at least twelve months' notice in writing to the other Contracting Parties.

Immediately after the notification of the intended withdrawal, the other Contracting Parties shall convene a diplomatic conference in order to envisage the necessary modifications to bring to the Agreement. 

Two complementary methods were developed: sOPiTKO is a knock-out system that turns off genes by disrupting the DNA, while sOPTiKD is a knock-down system that silences the action of genes by disrupting the RNA. Using these two methods, scientists can turn off or silence genes in any cell type, at any stage of a cell’s development from stem cell to fully differentiated adult cell. These systems will allow researchers world-wide to rapidly and accurately explore the changing role of genes as the cells develop into tissues such as liver, skin or heart, and discover how this contributes to health and disease.

The body contains approximately 37 trillion cells, yet the human genome only contains around 20,000 genes. So, to produce every tissue and cell type in the body, different combinations of genes must operate at different moments in the development of an organ or tissue. Being able to turn off genes at specific moments in a cell’s development allows their changing roles to be investigated.

Professor Ludovic Vallier, one of the senior authors of the study from the Wellcome Trust–Medical Research Council Cambridge Stem Cell Institute at the University of Cambridge and the Sanger Institute said: “As a cell develops from being stem cell to being a fully differentiated adult cell, the genes within it take on different roles. Before, if we knocked out a gene, we could only see what effect this had at the very first step. By allowing the gene to operate during the cell’s development and then knocking it out with sOPTiKO at a later developmental step, we can investigate exactly what it is doing at that stage.”

The sOPTiKO and sOPTiKD methods allow scientists to silence the activity of more than one gene at a time, so researchers are now able to investigate the role of whole families of related genes by knocking down the activity of all of them at once.

Dr Alessandro Bertero, one of the first authors of the study from the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, said: “In the past we have been hampered by the fact we could study a gene’s function only in a specific tissue. Now you can knock out the same gene in parallel in a diversity of cell types with different functions.”

In addition, the freely available system allows experiments to be carried out far more rapidly and cheaply. sOPTiKO is highly flexible so that it can be used in every tissue in the body without needing to create a new system each time. sOPiTKD allows vast improvements in efficiency: it can be used to knock down more than one gene at a time. Before, to silence the activity of three genes, researchers had to knock down one gene, grow the cell line, and repeat for the next gene, and again for the next. Now it can do it all in one step, cutting a nine-month process down to just one to two months.

Reference
Bertero A et al. (2016) Optimized inducible shRNA and CRISPR/Cas9 platforms for in vitro studies of human development using hPSCs. Development 143: 4405-4418. doi:10.1242/dev.138081

Adapted from a press release by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.

Now, researchers from the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge have launched an online survey looking at the relationship between political attitudes and cognitive thinking styles, exploring different aspects of our personalities and our cognitive abilities, as well as our attitudes towards Brexit and the issues that surround it.

The survey is a follow-up to a recent study carried out by the team during the US elections, which looked at issues relating to Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton’s respective campaigns. The researchers are currently analysing the data from 800 respondents who completed the survey.

“The events of this year have really highlighted how strongly people feel about certain political issues,” explains Leor Zmigrod, a PhD student at the Department, who is leading the research. “We are interested in how these attitudes might relate to individuals’ identities and thinking styles.”

The survey asks questions on everything from attitudes towards the Monarchy, the EU and religion, to how much you agree it is acceptable to fight someone making fun of Britain, and to how anxious, creative or disorganised you consider yourself to be. It also includes cognitive games that look at your cognitive thinking style.

“It’s important to stress that this isn’t about making judgements about ideologies,” adds Zmigrod, “it’s about understanding how they arise.”

Dr Jason Rentfrow, Zmigrod’s supervisor, adds: “We think of ideologies usually in relation to politics, but in fact they come into many areas of our lives. We want to find out what links people to their ideologies and what drives them to protect their nation and communities in different ways.”

“It will be interesting to see if we can determine how basic cognitive styles relate to our political thinking,” says Professor Trevor Robbins, Head of Psychology, and Zmigrod’s advisor.

Depression affects around one in twenty adolescents, causing considerable suffering and potentially affecting relationships and educational performance. Unfortunately, recurrence is likely in a half of all cases through into adult life and is associated with increasing personal difficulties and lower educational and employment prospects. However, it may be possible to reduce the risk of recurrence if a treatment for the condition shows enduring effects a year after the end of therapy.

Good evidence exists that psychological treatments are effective – around 70% of adolescents who receive treatment go into clinical remission – but there is very little evidence about whether these effects last. Currently, only cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) has a sufficient evidence base to be offered on the NHS; CBT focuses on identifying the thoughts, feelings and actions that maintain depression, and then working collaboratively with the patient to change unhelpful thoughts and behaviours and thereby improve social  functions.

“Depression can seriously impair people’s lives, and in many cases begins during their teenage years,” explains Professor Ian Goodyer from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge. “If we can tackle it early on, evidence suggests we can reduce the chances of severe depression returning. In our study, we wanted to see if in routine NHS clinical settings two new treatments would be as effective as CBT,  and, importantly, if their effects  of any would last beyond end of treatment.”

Professor Goodyer is part of the ‘Improving mood with psychoanalytic and cognitive therapies’ (IMPACT) research team, which carried out a randomised controlled trial of 465 adolescents referred to 15 NHS clinics across England who received a diagnosis of major depression. The team randomised the patients to receive one of three treatments: CBT, short term psychoanalytic therapy, or a brief psychosocial intervention. The therapies tended to last between six and 11 sessions, delivered over a 25-28 week period.

Brief Psychosocial Intervention is a brief active problem solving intervention for depression that focuses on improving and maintaining mental and physical hygiene, engaging in pleasurable activities, maintaining schoolwork and peer relations, and reducing loneliness.

Short term psychoanalytic therapy, on the other hand, focuses on the patient’s preoccupations, memories, day-dreams, nocturnal dreams and subconscious drivers. The therapy aims to tackle these at an unconscious level and through the therapist-patient relationship.

The researchers found that 70% of the adolescents in the study improved substantially in each of the therapy groups by end of treatment.  Follow up over the next 12 months confirmed a continuing decline in depression symptoms – a 50% reduction by the end of the study, confirming non-clinical levels were sustained.  Furthermore, for all three, the total cost of therapy and subsequent health service use was around the same amount.

Although it was not possible through this particular study to determine the extent to which improvement can be directly attributed to the treatments, the researchers say it demonstrates that these three different psychological therapies may each be employed in NHS child and adolescent mental health services with equal confidence. Furthermore all three can be delivered in 6-11 sessions over a seven month period and be expected to show sustained effects up to a year later. Importantly, although around 40% of the patients in each treatment arm received an antidepressant, this did not influence the effects of each psychological treatment when compared with each other.

“This is very promising and shows that at least two-thirds of teenagers may benefit from these psychiatric treatments, which in theory reduce the risk of recurrence,” says co-author Professor Peter Fonagy of the Anne Freud Centre and UCL. “Of course, this means that there are still a substantial proportion of teenagers who do not benefit and we need to understand why this should be the case and find appropriate treatments to help them, too.”

The researchers believe it is possible that the different psychological treatments have advantages for specific types of adolescent depression, and targeting the treatments more precisely may deliver more efficient therapy and reduce time to remission.

“We currently have a limited arsenal of treatments, but the fact that all three therapies are equally effective – and cost the same to implement – means that we might now be able to offer alternatives,” adds Professor Goodyer. “These therapies are also relatively short, usually involving less than a dozen sessions. Together, these factors could be particularly helpful given that there are often long waiting times for referrals for CBT in the NHS.”

The research was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and the Department of Health.

Reference
Goodyer, IM et al. Cognitive behavioural therapy and short-term psychoanalytical psychotherapy versus a brief psychosocial intervention in adolescents with unipolar major depressive disorder (IMPACT): a multicentre, pragmatic, observer-blind, randomised controlled superiority trial; Lancet Psychiatry; 30 Nov 2016; DOI: 10.1016/S2215-0366(16)30378-9

Although the single-celled ancestors of animals are extinct, the choanoflagellates, which evolved from a common ancestor and which have remained single-celled since the Cambrian period around 500 million years ago, are common in the Earth’s oceans and lakes. Certain choanoflagellate species form small swimming colonies and these colonies are thought to resemble the early multicellular organisms that later evolved into animals. Oxygen levels on the planet started rising in the pre-Cambrian period and it’s likely this played a major influence on the emergence of these multicellular life forms.

The researchers observed choanoflagellate colonies swimming under controlled conditions and varied the oxygen concentration in the water over time. They found the colonies navigate based on the logarithm of the oxygen concentration, similar to the way humans sense sound and light. This increases their sensing capabilities in low-oxygen environments where navigation becomes crucial for survival.

One of the authors on the paper, Professor Raymond E. Goldstein, of the University’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, says:

"Our work provides the first evidence that choanoflagellates can sense, and move towards, oxygen. Since choanoflagellates are now understood to be the closest relatives of animals, this discovery may shed light on the properties of the last common ancestor of the two groups, and in particular its response to the changing oxygen levels in the Precambrian era. Perhaps more importantly, the work raises fascinating questions about how the simplest multicellular organisms, lacking any type of central nervous system, sense and respond to their environment."

Many organisms find their way to favourable areas by using different strategies. Bacteria bias their tumbling to navigate towards food and algae can turn and move directly towards light. While choanaflagellates require oxygen, it wasn’t known if they could successfully navigate towards it.  But the research showed both single cells and swimming colonies were able to find it.

While animals require enormous amounts of coordination between their cells in order to navigate, this research reveals such coordination isn’t needed for simple multicellular life forms. In addition, microorganisms’ search for food is rendered more difficult by the presence of thermal noise. Being so small, microorganisms are constantly being buffeted by vibrations in the waters that surround them, and their search strategy needs to be robust to counter this.

The team, based in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, included PhD student Julius B. Kirkegaard, visiting student Ambre Bouillant, postdoctoral fellow Dr. Alan O. Marron, Senior Research Associate Dr. Kyriacos C. Leptos, and Professor Raymond E. Goldstein.

This work was supported by the European Research Council, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, and the Wellcome Trust.

Reference
Kirkegaard, JB et al. Aerotaxis in the closest relatives of animals. e-Life; 24 Nov 2016; DOI: 10.7554/eLife.18109

Cutting welfare and social care budgets during times of economic hardship is an “historically obsolete” strategy that ignores the very roots of British prosperity, a group of Cambridge academics have warned.

Writing in the leading medical journal, The Lancet, a team of researchers argue that squeezing health and welfare spending in order to reduce taxes, and on the basis that these are luxuries that can only be afforded when times are good, overlooks a critical lesson of British history – namely that they are central to the nation’s economic success.

The authors are all part of a group based at St John’s College, University of Cambridge, which is studying the causes of health inequalities and looking at how research in this area can be used to inform policy interventions.

Drawing on recent research, they argue that the concept of a British welfare state, widely thought to have begun after the Second World War, actually dates back to a “precocious welfare system” forged during the reign of Elizabeth I, which was fundamental to England’s emergence as “the most dynamic economy in the world”.

While the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said that there will be no further welfare savings during the present Parliament beyond those already announced, the paper is directly critical of the continuation of those existing policies, which have reduced welfare spending overall in the name of economic austerity.

Referring to the statement made by the former Prime Minister, David Cameron, that “you can only have a strong NHS if you have a strong economy”, the authors argue: “The narrow view that spending on the National Health Service and social care is largely a burden on the economy is blind to the large national return to prosperity that comes from all citizens benefiting from a true sense of social security.”

They continue: “There are signs that Theresa May subscribes to the same historically obsolete view. Despite her inaugural statement as Prime Minister, her Chancellor’s autumn statement signals continuing austerity with further cuts inflicted on the poor and their children, the vulnerable, and infirm older people.”

By contrast, the paper argues that a universalist approach of progressively-funded health and welfare spending is an integral part of economic growth, and something that modern states cannot afford to do without. That conclusion is echoed in a new educational film, developed from work by Simon Szreter, Professor of History & Public Policy at Cambridge and a co-author of the Lancet piece.

“We are arguing from history that there needs to be an end to this idea of setting economic growth in opposition to the goal of welfare provision,” Professor Szreter said. “A healthy society needs both, and the suggestion of history is that they seem to feed each other.”

Perhaps surprisingly, the paper traces that feedback loop to the Tudor era, and specifically the Elizabethan Poor Laws in 1598 and 1601. These enshrined in law an absolute “right of relief” for every subject of the Crown, funding the policy with a community tax and applying both through the local Parish.

The authors say that this not only represented the world’s first social security system, but also made the elderly less reliant on their children for support, increased labour mobility, enabled urban growth and eased Britain’s transition to an industrial economy. The system also maintained a level of demand by supporting the purchasing power of the poor when food prices rose.

Rather than stifling Britain’s economy, the paper argues that the system was therefore essential to helping the country to become the most urbanized society in the world, and the world’s leading economy, between 1600 and 1800. Although the population more than doubled during this time, key indicators of prosperity - such as life expectancy - actually improved.

“Overall, it facilitated the most sustained period of rising economic prosperity in the nation’s history,” the authors observe.

The authors go on to link the economic growth that the nation experienced under the welfare state after 1945 with similar universalist principles of progressively-funded health and welfare provision, arguing that these stimulated a dynamic period of per capita economic growth, and cut the rich-poor divide to an all-time low during the 1970s.

Conversely, they argue that the economy has stagnated when such principles have been abandoned. The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 overhauled the earlier Elizabethan Laws in an effort to prevent abuses of the system that were felt to be draining the pockets of honest taxpayers. Infamously, this involved providing relief through workhouses in which the appalling conditions, seared into social consciousness by authors like Charles Dickens, were so bad that only the truly destitute sought their help.

The study suggests that there is no evidence that this approach, which came close to criminalising the poor, actually brought about much economic benefit. In fact, British growth rates gradually fell behind the country’s rivals’ after 1870 - and only recovered after 1950, in the postwar decades of the revived, universalist welfare state.

The authors also point out that to cut welfare budgets because this will relieve taxation on “hard-working families” implies that those who need welfare are somehow unproductive. Just as the Victorian 1834 measures attempted to address a perceived problem with the “idle poor”, current strategies often dub benefits claimants, directly or indirectly, as “scroungers”.

“The interests of the poor and the wealthy are not mutually opposed in a zero-sum game,” the authors conclude. “Investment in policies that develop human and social capital will underpin economic opportunities and security for the whole population.”

The paper, Health and welfare as a burden on the state? The dangers of forgetting history is published in The Lancet.

The Cambridge Scholars are among 129 men and women, representing 30 countries and 75 universities, chosen for this year’s programme. This is the second year for the Schwarzman Scholars programme, which aims to educate and prepare the world’s most exceptional men and women to confront the most difficult challenges of the coming century and develop an understanding of China. The programme was founded by Blackstone Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder Stephen A Schwarzman.

The five Cambridge Scholars are Zheng Guo, Ruby Holmes, Lukas Schmelter, Charles Vitry and Amos Wittenberg.

Zheng Guo received his Master’s degree in Nuclear Energy from the University of Cambridge and Bachelor’s degree in Energy and Power Systems from Tsinghua University. His research focuses on energy systems modelling, and the development of sustainable and clean energy. Zheng has published several original research papers in international journals and is a student counsellor at Tsinghua University.

Ruby Holmes graduated in 2016, having read politics and international studies at Sidney Sussex College. She is an internationally recognised debater and public speaking coach, and organised a women’s public speaking association while at Cambridge.

Lukas Schmelter is currently completing an MPhil in Modern European History at Cambridge. Parallel to his studies, he led large-scale student conferences, worked for a political think-tank focused on European integration, and completed internships in the German Bundestag, the German Foreign Ministry and the European Parliament.

Charles Vitry graduated in 2016, having read Manufacturing Engineering at St John’s College, and has attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on exchange. He has recently implemented a 30% supplier lead time reduction model at Amazon Spain and launched a factory production control system in Apple’s Soft Goods factories in China.

Amos Wittenberg, who graduated in 2015, read English Literature at Corpus Christi College, and helped set up and run the Cambridge Globalist, a student-led current affairs magazine. After graduating he spent four months as a British Council scholar in Beijing studying Chinese, and now works as a financial journalist.

“It has been truly inspiring for me to meet these people, who at such a young age have already started to make an impact on the world,” said Stephen A. Schwarzman. “Cleary their journey is just beginning, but it is our hope that the Scholars of the inaugural class, this new class, and every class thereafter will leave with a better understanding of how to foster friendship, cooperation and collaboration among the peoples of the world.”

The 129 Scholars were selected through a rigorous and thorough selection process designed to evaluate leadership experience and potential, intellectual and academic ability, including the capacity to understand emerging trends, design solutions, and inspire others to a vision, as well as strength of character. The applications were reviewed by a distinguished team from around the world with 300 semi-finalists invited for in-person interviews in Beijing, Bangkok, London or New York before international panels composed of CEOs, former heads of state, university presidents, non-profit executives, journalists and other leaders.

This distinguished group of interviewers who were responsible for selecting Scholars included Jared Cohen, Founder and President, Jigsaw, Alphabet Inc, David Petraeus, Former Director of the CIA, Brian Mulroney, Former Prime Minister of Canada, Jeremy Wright, Attorney General for England and Wales, Shelly Lazarus, Chairman Emeritus of Ogilvy & Mather, Rona Fairhead, Chairman of the BBC Trust, Cathy Engelbert, CEO of Deloitte, Lionel Barber, Editor of the Financial Times, and many others.

Robert Garris, Global Director of Admissions said, “As we met the candidates for the second class of Scholars during their interviews, we were impressed with their unparalleled energy, initiative, and drive. We confirmed once again how essential it is to have experienced leaders from politics, the non-profit world, and government as panellists, meeting the candidates in person to identify the next generation of leaders.”

The scholarship is fully funded for all participants, including travel costs and a personal stipend, and is supported by the programme’s endowment which is expected to total $450 million, with $435 million raised to date. Scholars will live and study together at Schwarzman College, the dedicated state-of-the-art academic and residential building built exclusively for the programme.

Scholars will study Public Policy, Economics & Business, and International Studies, and spend a year immersed in an international community of thinkers, innovators and senior leaders in business, politics and society.

The cast iron sculpture was originally situated on Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Landmark Trust. It is part of Gormley’s LAND series of sculptures which the artist has referred to as: “standing stones: markers in space and time… catalysts for reflection.”

DAZE IV joins other Gormley sculptures already in Cambridge, including Earthbound: Plant (2002), a life-size metal sculpture of the human form buried upside down in front of the MacDonald Institute for Archaeological Research on the Downing Site: only the soles of the feet are visible. Jesus College has one of the 'Learning to See' sculptures in its main Library. It is a single standing figure, with feet together and arms at sides in an attitude of watchful repose, based on a cast of the artist’s body. The sculpture mutes any individuating features to assert on what is typical of the human form.

Gormley studied archaeology, anthropology and the history of art at Trinity College, graduating in 1971. Over the last 25 years he has revitalised the human image in sculpture through a radical investigation of the body as a place of memory and transformation, using his own body as subject, tool and material. Best known for his Angel of the North sculpture in Gateshead, Gormley was awarded the Turner Prize in 1994, the South Bank Prize for Visual Art in 1999 and was knighted in 2014. He is an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College and Jesus College, Cambridge and has been a member of the Royal Academy since 2003.

Professor Martin Millett, Head of School of Arts and Humanities at the University of Cambridge, which was instrumental in arranging the loan of the sculpture, said:

“We’re delighted to welcome this exciting sculpture to enhance the Sidgwick site. Gormley's work is particularly appropriate to the architectural context of the site whilst its human scale is in harmony with the students and staff at the core of the campus.”

Today’s reception for the sculpture’s arrival, hosted by the School of Arts and Humanities, was attended by Gormley, Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz and staff who work on the Sidgwick Site. The sculpture is on loan to the University for 10 years.

The sculpture was installed with the assistance of the University’s Estate Management Department.

The boathouse, on the River Great Ouse in Ely, was opened by Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, and represents the culmination of close to a decade’s work by volunteers, rowers and alumni. Plans for a new boathouse were started in 2008, with the construction itself taking two and a half years.

The three Cambridge rowing clubs - the Cambridge University Boat Club (CUBC), Cambridge University Women’s Boat Club (CUWBC) and Cambridge University Lightweight Rowing Club (CULRC) - will now all train under the same roof for the first time.

Cambridge rowers have trained at Ely for the annual Boat Races against Oxford for generations, due to the narrowness and busyness of the River Cam in Cambridge, but until now they have had to make do with inadequate facilities - in the case of one of the clubs, their Ely base was essentially a shed.



“The previous facilities were not of the standard you’d expect given the calibre of athletes we’ve got,” said Ashton Brown, a PhD student in the Faculty of Education and President of the Women’s Boat Club. “This is a real step up in terms of quality - there’s a real sense of positive forward momentum now.”

The new building was designed by architect Jerry Bailey, and was financed with the assistance of more than 450 alumni and friends of the three clubs.

“It’s so fantastic to be here - it’s really amazing to see it come to fruition after so long,” said Ely Project Manager Ewan Pearson. “It has been a thrill to lead the project team and I want to thank them all for their contribution. I am certain that success will follow, both against Oxford, and at an international level.”

George Nash, Cambridge graduate and gold medal winner at the Rio Olympics, said that the new boathouse “gives a renewed sense of purpose for rowing at Cambridge - I look back with a great sense of gratitude at what Cambridge rowing gave me, and I’m excited to see how rowing at Cambridge will develop.

“Preparing for the Boat Race was incredibly intense, and balancing that with the very demanding academic workload at Cambridge meant that it was a really high pressure environment. But in terms of preparing me for life as an Olympic rower, it really was the best type of training you could ask for.”

The new boathouse will make the three clubs more efficient, by allowing them to collaborate and learn from each other in their training. According to the rowers, the additional dock space will allow them to get the most out of every session, and get back to Cambridge for lectures more easily.

“I’m hugely grateful for the hard work and generosity that has made this project possible, and I look forward to working with CUBC and CUWBC more closely,” said Jamie Brown, a second-year undergraduate at King’s College and President of CULRC.

Rob Baker, Chief Coach of the CUWBC, said that while the new boathouse is a huge step forward, it’s not a magic bullet. “We’re not going to get faster just by walking out of the shed - we can use the new boathouse to help us make the boats go faster, but it’s not going to happen overnight.”

“This new training facility has some very real and measurable performance benefits, and will serve as a home on the River Great Ouse for Cambridge University rowing for many years to come,” said Lance Tredell, CUBC President. “It’s a fantastic facility - better than I could have ever imagined.”


 

The visit to Cambridge was part of a trip to the United Kingdom organised by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which aims to provide a platform for the young Indian political leaders to learn about the UK’s political landscape and the wider UK-India relationship.

Having spent a few days in London –including sitting through a Prime Minister’s Question Time session—the group arrived in Cambridge to visit the University’s Centre of South Asian Studies and to meet with various student society representatives.

At the Centre of South Asian studies, the delegation was welcomed by Dr David Washbrook, Senior Research Fellow at Trinity College, who offered an overview of the University’s historical links to India.

Professor Polly O’Hanlon, a fellow of Clare College, explained how British scholarship about India evolved in the second half of the 20th century, leading to the creation in 1964 of the Centre of South Asian Studies –the first of its kind in the UK.

Dr Edward Anderson, Smuts Research Fellow in Commonwealth Studies, gave an overview of the Centre’s work, its library and archives, and its MPhil in Modern South Asian Studies.

After meeting MPhil students, the delegation was taken into the Centre of South Asian Studies’ library, where Kevin Greenbank, the Centre’s Archivist, displayed many of the Archives’ treasures. These included a panoramic photograph from the Delhi Durbar of 1911, Edwin Lutyens’ plans for New Delhi (including many for buildings that were never built) and miniature paintings from 1842.

Commenting on the visit, Dr Anderson said: "Cambridge has an extremely rich and diverse history of connections with India – a relationship that is today as important as ever. The visiting students seemed to really enjoy hearing about this shared heritage, and our students from the MPhil in Modern South Asian Studies were also able to learn a lot from the young Indian politicians".

Explaining the motivation behind the visit, Shria Gandhi, Political Officer at the UK’s High Commission in Delhi, said:

“This group represents 6 political parties across 10 Indian states. They are the next generation of Indian leaders. The idea is to expose them to UK institutions –its Parliament, businesses, media, higher education institutions—so that 15 or 20 years down the line, when they are members of parliament or ministers in the Indian government, they will want to collaborate with the UK. The idea is to promote the UK-India bilateral relation, and who better than future leaders of India as ambassadors to promote that relationship?”

Ronak Hegde, 29, from Maharashtra, and a member of the youth wing of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), shared his impressions of the Centre of South Asian Studies: “I am always curious to know about my past history. If anyone gives me new insights into my own background I am always grateful.”

This sentiment was echoed by Richa Singh, 29, the first elected woman President in the 128-year history of the Allahabad University Students’ Union, and a member of the Samajwadi (Socialist) Party: “Cambridge is a very important place for us, and the Centre of South Asian Studies gives us a deeper understanding of India and its relations to the UK.”

Hasiba Amin, 26, General Secretary of the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), the student wing of the Congress Party, explained the importance of visiting Cambridge.

Referring to India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, she said: “I am a big Nehru fan, and Cambridge played a role in making Nehru what he was. He chose democracy. He understood the importance of criticism. Cambridge had a role to play in that.”

Leni Jadhav, 30, also a General Secretary of the NSUI, added: “We know some of the Cambridge colleges from Bollywood films, and what I’ve seen is just as beautiful. But I was very pleased to have met people who are interested in topics that are of great interest to me as an Indian. Now I’m keen to meet students, and learn about what they do, about their sports activities, about their cultural life –the things the students here do apart from studying.”

Cambridge’s track record in research and innovation was the biggest draw for Alok Kumar Singh, 28, president of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh party:

“I’m a biochemist, and I admire Cambridge because of the work of Nobel winner Venkatraman Ramakrishnan. Some of the greatest recent discoveries in molecular biology have happened in this university.”

A fellow member of the ABVP, 20-year-old Harikrishna Varma explained that he was most interested in understanding the difference between student politics in both countries:

“I want to know how political dynamics play out in University life. The way they work here seems to be better for academic life. In Indian party politics there is more rhetoric and less detail. Here there is more space for nuanced opinions.”

Abhishek Gupta, 23, of the student wing of the Aam Aadmi Party, said: “When you hear the name of Cambridge, you think about very high levels in education. We know of the high standards of education set by Cambridge, and we need more universities like this in India.”

The University of Cambridge has enjoyed a close relationship with India for over 150 years. From the mid-19th century, when the first students from India arrived in Cambridge, scholarship and lasting friendship have been the foundation of academic partnership. Three Indian Prime Ministers were educated at Cambridge, and the University is now home to distinguished academics from India across all fields of the arts, humanities, social, physical, biological and medical sciences.

In March 2017, to mark the anniversary of India’s independence, the University of Cambridge’s museums will launch a year-long programme of India-focused exhibitions and events.

The Wellcome/CRUK Gurdon Institute and Wellcome/MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute have been named as two of 14 Wellcome Centres announced today, all of which aim to advance our understanding of health and disease, and span fundamental and social sciences, clinical research and engineering.

At Wellcome Centres groups of world-class researchers with a joint vision come together to share facilities, collaborate, and benefit from the dynamic research, cultural and training environment.  This special environment allows them to deliver world-leading research and high-impact translation.  

The Gurdon Institute is a world-leading centre for research at the interface between developmental biology and cancer biology, using several model systems, from yeast to human organoids. Across the Institute’s 25-year history this research has led to major insights into the molecular and cellular defects that give rise to cancer and other diseases of ageing, and several findings have been successfully translated into drug discovery through spinout companies.

Professor Daniel St Johnston, Director of the Wellcome/CRUK Gurdon Institute, says: "We are delighted that the Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research UK have decided to renew the Centre funding for the Gurdon Institute, which will allow us to continue our ground-breaking research on the links between developmental biology and cancer."

The Stem Cell Institute was established in 2012 and is a world-leading centre for stem cell research. Stem cells give rise to the multitude of cell types that make up our bodies, and their dysfunction underlies numerous diseases including many current global health challenges. Stem cells also provide unique tools for modelling disease and for generating novel cell-based therapies. In 2018, its researchers will come together in a new purpose-built building embedded within the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, close to multiple other research institutes and adjacent to Addenbrooke’s and Papworth hospitals.

Professor Tony Green, Director of the Wellcome/MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, says: “Stem cell research offers unrivalled opportunities for developing new approaches to the management of disease, and I am delighted that both the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council will continue to support our pioneering research at this exciting time.”

Wellcome’s Director, Dr Jeremy Farrar, says: “Wellcome Centres play a special role in the global research ecosystem. By creating places where researchers can flourish we can catalyse world-leading research and translation, and amplify its influence and impact.

“At Wellcome we believe in long term support for discovery-driven science, and Wellcome Centres are an outstanding environment for researchers to further our understanding of fundamental biology, accelerate translation to clinical practice, and explore the social and cultural context of medicine."

• Double the proportion of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds in Higher Education (HE) by 2020;
• Increase by 20 percent the number of students in HE from ethnic minority groups;
• Address the under-representation of young men from disadvantaged backgrounds in HE

“I feel like I’m in a bit of a daze at the moment as to what just happened,” says Giri Nandakumar. “I have never seen a dead body before. The complexion, the expression of the face, the position they’re in, this was all quite new to me.”

Nandakumar is a first year medical student at Cambridge. He has been at the University less than a week, and has barely had time to unpack his belongings and settle in before entering the dissection room and taking his first steps towards a career in medicine. While students in other disciplines are poring over textbooks or listening keenly to a lecture, he has come face-to-face with a tutor of a very different kind: a donated, dead body.

To read more and to find out about the history of anatomy teaching at Cambridge, please see your feature Body of work: the silent teacher helping students learn anatomy.

Dr Gardner is currently Director of Library Services and University Librarian at the University of Bristol, and will take up her new post at Cambridge in April 2017. She follows in the footsteps of Anne Jarvis, who was University Librarian at Cambridge from 2009 until September 2016.

Dr Gardner said: “I am delighted to have been elected as Cambridge University’s Librarian and to have the opportunity to build on the success of a long line, over 600 years, of my predecessors, most recently the wonderful Anne Jarvis.

“It will be an honour to join Cambridge and to lead one of the world’s great research and copyright libraries, rich with world heritage treasures.”

This year (2016) marks the 600th anniversary of the first mention of Cambridge University Library. Older than the British Library and the Vatican Library, it was first mentioned by name in two wills dated March 1416 – with its most valuable contents stored in a wooden chest. Today, the Library is home to eight million books, journals, maps and magazines, as well as some of the world’s most iconic scientific, literary and cultural treasures.

Its priceless collections include Newton’s own annotated copy of Principia Mathematica, Darwin’s papers on evolution, 3000-year-old Chinese oracle bones and the earliest reliable text for 20 of Shakespeare’s plays (First Folio).

Earlier this year, a spectacular exhibition, Lines of Thought, put on display some of the most valuable, rare and important books and artefacts in the collections, attracting record audiences and interest from around the world.

Since 1710, the Library has also been entitled to one copy of each and every publication in the UL and Ireland under Legal Deposit. With two million of its volumes on open display, readers have the largest open-access collection in Europe immediately available to them.

Cambridge University Library’s current exhibition – Curious Objects – takes a sideways look at the 600-year-old institution, showcasing its collection of weird and wonderful non-book items such as ectoplasm and paintings from Pompeii.

Acting University Librarian, Professor Chris Young, said: “Dr Jessica Gardner’s experience, knowledge, vision and warmth make her an exceptionally qualified candidate to lead Cambridge University Library. It has been a privilege to steer this extraordinary institution through this time of transition, and I am delighted to know I will be handing over to someone as capable as Dr Gardner.

“In my role as Deputy Head of the School of Arts and Humanities, I look forward to working with her to create closer links between the treasures of Cambridge University Library and the outstanding research happening across the University.”

Dr Gardner added “The collections held by Cambridge span more than 4,000 years of recorded human thought. I’ll want to develop a shared vision with staff and students of the University to help build the Library’s global profile for its leading role in collection, shaping, preserving and inspiring world knowledge.”

Results of the study, co-authored by Michael Weber, a paleoclimatologist and visiting scientist at the University of Cambridge, along with colleagues from the USA, New Zealand and Germany, are published this week in the journal Nature.

Global climate models that look at the last several thousand years have failed to account for the amount of climate variability captured in the paleoclimate record, according to lead author Pepijn Bakker, a climate modeller from the MARUM Center for Marine Environmental Studies at the University of Bremen in Germany.

The researchers first turned their attention to the Scotia Sea. “Most icebergs calving off the Antarctic Ice Sheet travel through this region because of the atmospheric and oceanic circulation,” explained Weber. “The icebergs contain gravel that drop into the sediment on the ocean floor – and analysis and dating of such deposits shows that for the last 8,000 years, there were centuries with more gravel and those with less.”

The research team’s hypothesis is that climate modellers have historically overlooked one crucial element in the overall climate system. They discovered that the centuries-long phases of enhanced and reduced Antarctic ice mass loss documented over the past 8,000 years have had a cascading effect on the entire climate system.

Using sophisticated computer modelling, the researchers traced the variability in iceberg calving (ice that breaks away from glaciers) to small changes in ocean temperatures.

“There is a natural variability in the deeper part of the ocean adjacent to the Antarctic Ice Sheet that causes small but significant changes in temperatures,” said co-author Andreas Schmittner, a climate modeller from Oregon State University. “When the ocean temperatures warm, it causes more direct melting of the ice sheet below the surface, and it increases the number of icebergs that calve off the ice sheet.”

Those two factors combine to provide an influx of fresh water into the Southern Ocean during these warm regimes, according to Peter Clark, a paleoclimatologist from Oregon State University, and co-author on the study.

“The introduction of that cold, fresh water lessens the salinity and cools the surface temperatures, at the same time, stratifying the layers of water,” he said. “The cold, fresh water freezes more easily, creating additional sea ice despite warmer temperatures that are down hundreds of meters below the surface.”

The discovery may help explain why sea ice is currently expanding in the Southern Ocean despite global warming, the researchers say.

“This response is well-known, but what is less-known is that the input of fresh water also leads to changes far away in the northern hemisphere, because it disrupts part of the global ocean circulation,” explained Nick Golledge from the University of Wellington, New Zealand, an ice-sheet modeller and study co-author. “Meltwater from the Antarctic won’t just raise global sea level, but might also amplify climate changes around the world. Some parts of the North Atlantic may end up with warmer temperatures as a consequence of part of Antarctica melting.”

Golledge used a computer model to simulate how the Antarctic Ice Sheet changed as it came out of the last ice age and into the present, warm period.

"The integration of data and models provides further evidence that the Antarctic Ice Sheet has experienced much greater natural variability in the past than previously anticipated,” added Weber. “We should therefore be concerned that it will possibly act very dynamically in the future, too, specifically when it comes to projecting future sea-level rise.”

Two years ago Weber led another study, also published in Nature, which found that the Antarctic Ice Sheet collapsed repeatedly and abruptly at the end of the Last Ice Age to 19,000 to 9,000 years ago. 

Dr John C Taylor OBE is donating £2.5 million to Cambridge University to set up the Professorship of Innovation, a prestigious new chair at the world-leading Department of Engineering.

He said, “I wish to celebrate British ingenuity and inventiveness.  It’s essential to develop inventions into production for the benefit of the creator while generating local employment through manufacturing growth.

“Too little is discussed these days about business financial freedom and job creation while too much attention is paid to venture capitalist business models, which can leave an inventor with little ownership.  One of my proudest achievements in business is that I never borrowed a penny from anyone.  This is because I always focussed on cash flow and used the revenue from manufacturing to fund innovation.

“I very much look forward to being invited to talk on this subject and spread the message of practical manufacturing throughout the engineering community.”

In 2008, Dr John C Taylor (Corpus 1956) created and donated to his former college the popular Corpus Chronophage Clock, positioned outside the Taylor Library at Corpus, which has now become one of the city’s most popular tourist attractions.

The new professorship, which has been endowed in perpetuity, will combine teaching and research to ensure young engineers combine innovation with practicality when approaching design.

Professor David Cardwell, Head of the Department of Engineering, said: “We are extremely grateful for this generous benefaction from Dr John C Taylor and honoured that this professorship will not only bear the name of such a distinguished inventor and engineer, but will help future generations to follow in his footsteps.”

John C Taylor is a long-standing donor to Collegiate Cambridge, supporting numerous initiatives.  In 2009 he was given the Chancellor’s 800th Anniversary Medal for outstanding philanthropy, presented by HRH Duke of Edinburgh.  He has donated to climate change research at Durham University and is a benefactor to the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), for the Strix Centre at UMIST’s Centre for Manufacture.

Cambridge launched its £2 billion Dear World… Yours, Cambridge philanthropic campaign for the University and Colleges in October 2015.  It has just celebrated its most successful fundraising year ever, raising more than £210 million including Dr John C Taylor’s gift.

The project, called EIT Food, has ambitious aims to cut by half the amount of food waste in Europe within a decade, and reduce ill health caused by diet by 2030. It has received €400 million (£340m) of EU research funding, matched by 1.2 billion euros (£1 billion) of funding from industry and other sources over seven years.

The project is funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), and will have a regional headquarters at the University of Reading to co-ordinate innovation, cutting edge education programmes and support start-ups in the ‘north west’ sector of Europe, covering the UK, Ireland and Iceland.

The Europe-wide scheme was put together by a partnership of 50 food business and research organisations from within Europe’s food sector, which provides jobs for 44 million people. Cambridge is part of one of five regional hubs across Europe. Already confirmed as core partners in the UK-based ‘Co-Location Centre’ (CLC) alongside Cambridge are academic centres Matís, Queen’s University Belfast and the University of Reading, as well as businesses ABP Food Group, PepsiCo and The Nielsen Company. Further partners are expected to be announced in the next year.

Professor Howard Griffiths, co-chair of the Global Food Security Strategic Research Initiative at the University of Cambridge, who will lead Cambridge’s involvement in the EIT, said: "Sustainability is a top-level agenda which is engaging both global multinational food producers and academics. Our joint goal is in making the entire food system more resilient in the context of a changing climate, and improving health and nutrition for people across the world."

EIT Food will set up four programmes to target broad societal challenges, including:

• personalised healthy food
• the digitalization of the food system
• consumer-driven supply chain development, customised products and new technology in farming, processing and retail
• resource-efficient processes, making food more sustainable by eliminating waste and recycling by-products throughout the food chain. 

EIT Food will also organize international entrepreneurship programmes for students, and develop a unique interdisciplinary EIT labelled Food System MSc for graduates. Thousands of students and food professionals will be trained via workshops, summer schools and online educational programmes like MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) and SPOCs (Specialized Private Online Courses).

Peter van Bladeren, Vice President Nestec, Global head Regulatory and Scientific Affairs for Nestlé and Chair of the Interim Supervisory Board of EIT Food, said: “EIT Food is committed to create the future curriculum for students and food professionals as a driving force for innovation and business creation; it will give the food manufacturing sector, which accounts for 44 million jobs in Europe, a unique competitive edge.”

Adapted from a press release by the University of Reading

Getting released from prison or police custody can be a huge shock to those who have been incarcerated. Our new research gives an indication of just how vulnerable these people can be. We found that over a seven-year period, 400 people died of a suspected suicide within 48 hours of leaving police detention.

The number of people dying in prisons and in police custody has been increasing for several years. There is, rightly, a statutory obligation for every death that occurs within a state institution to be investigated by an independent body. So each death in a prison is investigated by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO), while the equivalent in police stations are investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).

But for people who die shortly after release from police or prison custody, their deaths are not subject to statutory investigation and are too often invisible.

A dangerous transition

Our research, published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, looked into non-natural deaths of people who have been released from police detention or prison custody. We found that the data on these deaths is contingent upon the relevant institutions (prisons, police or probation) finding out about the death in the first place – and this can be difficult.

We examined two sets of data: IPCC data on suspected suicides that occurred within 48 hours of release from police detention and data from the National Offender Management Service on deaths of people under probation supervision, which includes those released from prison. We also conducted interviews with 15 custody sergeants – police officers who are responsible for the welfare of a detainee while in a police station – prison officers and others such as representatives of police and crime commissioners (PCCs) and Public Health England.

The IPCC data suggest that 400 people died between 2009 and 2016 of a suspected suicide within 48 hours of release, although this number declined between the years 2014-15 and 2015-16, as the graph below shows. People who had been detained on suspicion of sex offences accounted for 32% of the 400 total suspected suicides.

We also examined a selection of 41 investigations and summaries of investigations into apparent post-release suicides that were provided to us by the IPCC. Half of these people had pre-existing mental health conditions. These referrals also pointed to inadequate risk assessment, record keeping and onward referral to relevant community-based care providers such as mental health or drug treatment providers.

We then looked at deaths that had occurred within 28 days of release from prison. Despite some issues with the accuracy and completeness of the data, we identified 66 people between 2010 and 2015 who had died from non-natural causes within 28 days of leaving prison. The numbers are small and so it is difficult to draw wider conclusions, but we found that 44 of those 66 died from a drug-related death. Of the 66, 35 had served a sentence for an acquisitive offence such as theft, shoplifting or robbery, offences which are commonly associated with drug use.

We also analysed investigations conducted between 2010 and 2015 by the PPO into deaths that occurred in approved premises, also known as bail hostels, within 28 days of release from custody. These investigations seek to understand what, if anything, could have been done to prevent the death. This highlighted problems with supporting drug-using offenders, a lack of confidence among staff and a failure to create a smooth transition from prison into the community.

Staff under strain

These analyses only tell part of the story. Our discussions with custody officers painted a complex picture. They argued that they were getting better at identifying people in custody with mental health conditions but that their ability to deal with them effectively was restricted by factors beyond their control such as a lack of appropriate treatment for people after leaving their care and an inadequate number of beds in mental health hospitals. They told us that the risk assessment tool they use for identifying such people was not fit for purpose because it did not go into enough detail and that they would benefit from additional mental health training. They were also strongly in favour of the responsibility for healthcare commissioning in police stations being handed to the NHS, rather than PCCs, a proposal which was dropped in December 2015.

The story from prison staff was similar, but they also talked about the use of new psychoactive substances and the negative effects these substances are having on mental health and safety in the prison.

Problems also exist when it comes to the provision of community-based care after people are released. These include cuts to community mental health services and drug services, as well as recent changes to the probation service, which have seen 70% of the service outsourced to the private sector. Such reforms have made communication between prisons and probation providers more difficult. These budget cuts and public sector reforms are having a serious impact on the ability of criminal justice agencies to deal with these issues and prevent any future deaths.

There needs to be an improvement in the way in which data on non-natural deaths is collected. Deaths post-detention should also be subject to similar levels of investigation as those that occur in police custody and prison. It would be naive to suggest that all deaths of people leaving state detention can be investigated, but there is scope for more oversight from both the IPCC and PPO, at least while they are adjusting to life back in the community. At the same time, the government must maintain investment in mental health and drug services to help prevent those most vulnerable when they are released from detention from taking their own life.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Professor Loraine Gelsthorpe is Deputy Director of the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge.

Nicola Padfield is Master, Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, and a Reader in Criminal and Penal Justice, University of Cambridge.

Jake Phillips is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Sheffield Hallam University.

A key part of the funding will involve training the next generation of cancer researchers - including 45 PhD students - to ensure the brightest scientists are attracted to Cambridge.

The award will also fund research nurses and data managers, and help build patient groups, and facilitate tissue sample collection and processing which is essential for life saving research.

Professor Richard Gilbertson, Director of the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre, said: “This funding award is excellent news for the city and for our Centre. It represents a critical investment in the research infrastructure in Cambridge and will equip us with the key laboratory and clinical tools needed to advance the understanding and treatment of cancer.

“This is an exciting collaboration of researchers, scientists and clinicians from Cancer Research UK, the University of Cambridge and Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust as well as the pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies across the city. It’s an alliance that allows us to make use of a wide range of expertise and techniques that can help progress cancer research and bring benefits to patients sooner.

“The investment means we will be able to further develop our work in translational research – getting cutting-edge discoveries from the laboratory to patients and learning as much as possible from patients to initiate new research.”

The Centre brings together leading scientists, doctors and nurses to push forward improvements in early diagnosis and to find and develop better, kinder treatments. In particular, researchers are focusing on breast, lung, ovarian, pancreatic, oesophageal, blood, prostate and children’s cancers and brain tumours.

Danielle Glavin, Cancer Research UK spokesperson for the East, said: “This award is a recognition of the fantastic research that’s taking place in Cambridge. One in two of us will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in our lives - so it’s reassuring to know that, thanks to our supporters, Cancer Research UK is able to fund some of the best and most promising research in Cambridge that will help more people survive.”