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Welcome to the MRC Toxicology Unit

The Medical Research Council (MRC) Toxicology Unit is a leading International Research Institute within the School of Biological Sciences, University of Cambridge. The Unit delivers mechanistic toxicology research, pursuing hypothesis-driven toxicological questions with a particular focus on the study of the causal links between exposure to endogenous and exogenous toxicants, molecular initiating events and adverse outcome pathways. The Unit's overall aims are to carry out pioneering research which leads to improved health and to train and mentor the next generation of toxicologists.

 

Professor Anne Willis is Director of the MRC Toxicology Unit.  Anne was appointed as a member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation in 2015, and in 2017 awarded an OBE for services to biomedical sciences and supporting the careers of women scientists.

 

     Professor Anne Willis OBE

News

Unit comes together at our Annual Science Day

28 November 2024

Earlier this month, all Unit colleagues came together to celebrate our science and achievements over the last year. This year we had talks from each of our Group Leaders who shared overviews of the direction of their group's work, as well as a handful of talks from postdoctoral researchers and PhD students about their...

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Unit attends Big Biology Day 2024

5 November 2024

Researchers from the Unit took part in the Big Biology Day at Hills Road Sixth Form College on 12th October. We brought along our Human Bookshelf activity and turned 8 of our scientists into 'human books' for the day. Visitors were able to loan our books for conversations about their research topics, what it is like to be...

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A tale of two strands: how DNA strand asymmetry affects damage, repair and mutation rates

12 June 2024

From snowflakes and sunflowers, to butterflies and humans, symmetry is abundant throughout nature . There is also an elegant symmetry to the double helix structure of DNA – the blueprint of life. Yet, many of the DNA’s functions are asymmetrical: only one strand is needed for certain cellular processes, and some key...

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Anne Willis awarded the John Barnes Prize for 2025

6 December 2024

Our Unit Director Prof Anne Willis has been awarded the prestigious John Barnes Prize Award from the British Toxicology Society . Prof Willis leads a research group investigating the role of post-transcriptional control in response to toxic injury with a focus on RNA-binding proteins, regulatory RNA motifs and tRNAs and...

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