News

Dr Ritwick Sawarkar, Group Leader at the MRC Toxicology Unit, alongside Dr Kadri Seppa, a Postdoctoral Researcher in the lab, have been awarded €150,000 from the European Research Council (ERC) to develop a novel mRNA therapeutic approach to treat Alzheimer's disease.Dementia affected 55 million people in 2020, and cases are estimated to double eve…

Scientists have found that stopping translation elongation, a key step in protein production, can slow the growth of cancer cells. They identified that this works by reducing the energy producing capability of the mitochondria. We can use this finding to develop a treatment for cancers that are reliant on the mitochondria, such as acute myeloid leu…

Researchers at the MRC Toxicology Unit have found that the antipsychotic drug aripiprazole impairs fertility in male fruit flies. Aripiprazole damages the mitochondria in adult male testes, resulting in increased levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and loss of the precursor cells that give rise to sperm.Aripiprazole is a third-generation antips…

Professor Kiran Patil, MRC Investigator at the MRC Toxicology Unit has been given the Clarivate Web of Science Highly Cited Award for 2025.The highly cited program celebrates individuals who have demonstrated a significant influence on their field of research and the wider scientific community. The researchers selected are those who rank in the top…

Researchers in the Patil Lab have used a lab-based screening to identify over 150 common industrial chemicals, from pesticides to flame retardants, that have a toxic effect on bacteria found in the healthy human gut microbiome.We are exposed to many different chemicals in our modern world including pesticides and herbicides sprayed on food crops an…

Each year MRC Toxicology Unit group leaders, research staff, students and support staff take part in our annual Science Day to celebrate science and achievements over the past year. This year we were based in the beautiful Møller Institute overlooking Churchill College grounds.After excellent breakfast muffins and a welcome by Unit Director Profess…

The MRC Toxicology Unit is part of a £15.9 million initiative from the Medical Research Council (MRC), Innovate UK and the Wellcome Trust to advance promising ‘human in vitro models’. This sits alongside new UK government strategy to reduce animal testing, speeding up plans to phase out the use of animals in science.Science Minister Lord Vallance a…

The MRC Toxicology Unit are joining an interdisciplinary team on a major new initiative that aims to redefine human-based research models for greater understanding of disease and the acceleration of new medicines.The joint £15.9 million investment by the UKRI Medical Research Council (MRC), Wellcome and UKRI Innovate UK will enable the development …

The MRC Toxicology Unit and Department of Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge, AstraZeneca, Cancer Research UK Scotland Institute, and the Mary Lyon Centre at MRC Harwell have been awarded a £3.4 million Medical Research Council Prosperity Partnership grant to fund research into understanding the early safety profile of antisense oligonucle…

Tiago Marques-Pedro is a PhD student in the MacFarlane lab who studies mitochondrial toxicity. Tiago had the opportunity to organise and co-chair a Gordon Research Symposium. These symposiums, held the day before the main Gordon Research Conference on a particular topic, give early career researchers the chance to present their work in a more infor…

Researchers from the Unit brought activities about Nucleic Acid Therapies to the Big Biology Day at Hills Road Sixth Form College on 11th October.Cambridge Biologists have been running the Big Biology Day at Hills Road Sixth Form since 2012 and its now one of the largest events of its kind in the UK! This event combines hands on science activities …

The Chariots of Fire race is a relay race for charity that takes a scenic route through some of Cambridge's best known colleges. This year MRC Toxicology Unit members along with those from the Pharmacology Department and Gurdon Institute entered two teams, the Nucleostrides and Toxicology RuNAs.They joined around 300 teams on an approximately 2 mil…

We asked Sawarkar Lab student Anfas about his research at the Tox Unit, why he chose to study an MPhil and what he likes to do when he's not in the lab.What is your research about?When cells in our body encounter extreme heat, the bonds within proteins break, causing them to misfold. Misfolded proteins cannot function properly; they begin to aggreg…

Niall Buckley recently attended this year's Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on the Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms of Toxicity in New Hampshire thanks to a travel grant from the EUROTOX Congress. Niall, a postdoc in the MacFarlane lab and AstraZeneca Hepatic Safety Team, presented his work on how CDK9 inhibitors can damage liver cells (hepatocy…

David O'Loughlin, a PhD student in the MacFarlane Lab went to the prestigious Lindau Nobel Laureate meeting in Germany which this year focused on chemistry. David tells us about the meeting and how he found the experience: Attending a Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetingby David O'LoughlinIn March, I received an incredible email: after a months-long, mult…