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 projects. This year also saw the return of our internal 3 Minute Thesis competition where we challenged our 2nd year PhD students to pitch their PhD topic to a lay audience, using one static slide in three minutes. A selection of our 3MT talks are available on our YouTube channel if you wish to get a flavour for the variety of research topics covered at the Unit.

Our keynote speaker was Prof Adrian Liston from the Department of Pathology at the University of Cambridge who gave an insightful talk on "The Challenges of a Positive Research Culture". The talk can also be found on his YouTube channel and various other useful resources on his lab website.

To wrap up our festivities, we awarded our Recognition Prizes for the year (winners listed below) before a poster session where more colleagues shared more about their work:

Mentor of the Year: Dr Andres Herrero, Sawarkar group (winner), Dr Juan Carlos Yam-Puc, Thaventhiran group (runner up)
Culture, Diversity and EDI: Dr Noni Beristain, Patil group (winner), Emily Horner, Thaventhiran group (runner up)

Student of the Year: Hashim Ahmed Nur, Aitken group (winner), Rebecca Boston, Patil group (runner up)

Research Support Staff of the Year: Liam Cocker, Flow Cytometry (winner), Daniela Mazzeo, Media Kitchen (runner up) and Dale Roberts, Maintenance (runner up)

Public Engagement: Vitalina Chamberlain-Evans, Thaventhiran group (winner), Claudia Arnedo Pac, Aitken group (runner up)

Best PhD student seminar: Rebecca Boston, Patil group

Science Day 3MT winner: Leah Hurst, Mennella group

The winner's were nominated and voted for by their colleagues for their impact and work this year.