Last week 25 researchers from the MRC Toxicology Unit took part in two events for the 2025 edition of the Cambridge Festival to share exciting facts about science and engage families with our research.
The Cambridge Festival is an annual event that was started over 20 years ago by scientists from the University of Cambridge. The festival hosts a wide range of talks, demonstrations and interactive events that attract more than 30,000 visitors. Coordinated by the University of Cambridge’s Public Engagement team, it gives the general public a chance to go into the laboratories and lecture halls of Cambridge and a learn about the research that happens there.
Our CamFest this year kicked off with a new workshop for 11-14 year olds called How Antibodies Save Lives, that was part of the Cambridge Festival School's Days. Vitalina led the workshop, alongside other Tox Unit immunologists, sharing how the immune system defends us against infections and how antibodies are involved. The students really enjoyed the interactive part of the workshop, making a beaded antibody keyring in a Y-shape to remind them of the constant and variable regions that make up an antibody. They learnt that we can educate the immune system to create antibodies for a particular infection using vaccines and that we can also use antibodies to fight cancer.
At the Family Weekend the Unit brought back the ever-popular Tattoo My Science activity that was started in conjunction with the Gurdon Institute and CRUK in 2023. This was a record-breaking year as we gave out over 800 temporary tattoos and over 200 stickers! Visitors chose from a ‘brochure’ of 15 different designs and then heard from Tox Unit researchers about the science behind them. The 15 different designs corresponded with different areas of research at the Unit including tyre pollution, the gut microbiome, antibodies, DNA damage and more. We shared that Toxicology is all about understanding how things in our environment including medicines can affect our bodies, and that anything can be a poison if we have enough of it! You can read more about the research that we do at the Unit on our research page.
Alongside our Tattoos we shared our Science Comics and Day in the Life Videos. We now have three comics, with a fourth in progress, about DNA damage, fibre toxicity and air purification in our lungs. Visitors to the festival had the chance to colour in different pages from the comics. You can read and print your own versions of our science comics here. We also shared our Day in the Life videos, which show what it is like to be a PhD student or technician at the MRC Toxicology Unit, with videos of tissue culture, taking cells from liquid nitrogen, data analysis and even some rowing! You can access these anytime on our YouTube channel.
It was fantastic to be able to meet so many visitors over the three days, share our research and do fun activities with you. Look out for us at the Big Biology Day in October!
Thank you to all our volunteers who made our research come to life; Kirsti, Cameron, Vanessa, Rebecca R, Eve, Kadri, Gruffydd, Alex, Rebecca B, Amy, Francesca, Aditi, Leah, Rui, Gili, Brain, Odara, Simone, Vita, Alex, Wiktoria, Joanna, Juan and Ed. Thanks also to Ty and Maria, who volunteered for the workshop that was cancelled.
