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Unit researchers part of consortium awarded £8M in funding to enhance the UK’s nucleic acid therapeutics delivery platforms

16 January 2023

We are delighted to share the news that Prof Anne Willis and Dr Ritwick Sawarkar are a part of a consortium that has been awarded £8 million by the Nucleic Acid Therapy Accelerator (NATA) to enhance the UK's nucleic acid therapeutics delivery platforms. The consortium, led by Professor Matthew Wood at the University of...

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Celebrating 75 years of the MRC Toxicology Unit

7 December 2022

On 6th December, staff and students from the MRC Toxicology Unit and guests from external organisations and partners gathered at St Catharine's College in Cambridge to celebrate 75 years of the MRC Toxicology Unit. The afternoon started off with an overview of the Unit and toxicology from Anne Willis , Director of the Unit...

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Researchers reveal potential new way that mesothelioma develops

24 October 2022

Mesothelioma is a type of cancer predominantly caused by breathing in asbestos fibres. However, the disease usually doesn’t develop for decades after exposure. Once diagnosed, the tumours are already at an advanced stage and current therapies have minimal impact on prolonging the life of patients, so there is an urgent...

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Supporting postdocs transition to independent research leaders

19 October 2022

As part of our focus on driving a culture of positive research leadership, the Unit has awarded two fellowships to postdocs at the Unit. The Transition to Independence (TTI) Fellowships will support senior postdoctoral researchers to forge their own independent group in an area of toxicology-relevant biomedical research...

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Obesity and COVID-19: when two pandemics collide

24 September 2022

Elderberries, flaxseeds, manuka honey, garlic and the juice of an orange. A recipe for a vampire-repelling poultice, perhaps? No, but these ingredients have all made their way from ancient folklore into current public consciousness as “immune-boosting superfoods”. The midst of a global infectious disease pandemic is a...

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ITTP student makes national finals of 3 Minute Thesis competition

22 September 2022

On 15th September, PhD student, Laura Booth, from our Integrative Toxicology Training Partnership (ITTP) programme competed in the national finals of the 3 Minute Thesis (3MT) competition. The 3MT competition challenges research-based postgraduate students to distill their research into a three-minute story for a non-...

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Student successes for the Martins group

14 September 2022

Congratulations to Yizhou Yu, a PhD student in the Martins lab. Yizhou studies the pathways that cause Alzheimer’s disease so that we can find more affordable treatments. He presented his work so far at the Neurobiology of Brain Disorders Conference in Spain to leaders in the field. Amongst receiving great feedback and...

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From friends to foes: why you never judge a bug by its cover

9 September 2022

As someone who hovers between being a millennial and gen-Zer, I often wonder how great thinkers of the past would view the extensive ways in which social media are intertwined with our everyday lives. Plato, for instance, might have thought that these virtual alternatives to real-life interactions are mere shadows of...

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Kiran Patil comments on 'synthetic microbiome' research in the New York Times

7 September 2022

The New York Times report on a synthetic human microbiome that has been created for the first time combining 119 species of bacteria naturally found in the human body. Dr Kiran Patil provided his expert comment on the work. Kiran commented: “It is remarkable how a hundred-plus human gut strains form a stable and resilient...

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Artistic representation of inside of cell with different organelles

Cells build local supply chain of metabolites required for gene expression regulation

31 August 2022

Research from the Patil group published in Science Advances reveals that parts of the TCA cycle, originally thought to only happen in the mitochondria, are happening in the nucleus, closer to the DNA and ready to be dispatched when critical processes of the cell increase their demand, without barriers.

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