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"mRNA vaccines could be fine tuned": Latest research from Willis and Thaventhiran groups covered in national and international media

7 December 2023

Work published by Prof Anne Willis and Dr James Thaventhiran, alongside collaborators in Kent, Oxford and Liverpool, describing how mRNA therapeutics may cause an unintended immune response and need fine-tuning for the future was reported across multiple national and international media outlets. You can read the Unit's...

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Researchers redesign future mRNA therapeutics to prevent potentially harmful immune responses

6 December 2023

Researchers from the Willis and Thaventhiran labs have discovered that misreading of therapeutic mRNAs by the cell’s decoding machinery can cause an unintended immune response in the body. They have identified the sequence within the mRNA that causes this to occur and found a way to prevent ‘off-target’ immune responses to...

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Innovative approach reveals a dual ‘Google Map’ of RNAs and proteins within cells

30 November 2023

You might imagine the cells in your body as quite static. In reality, they are hives of activity and contain cocktails of different molecules. Just like us, these different molecules in our cells all have a job. Just like us, those jobs span a wide range of roles and take place in designated spaces – instead of offices or...

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Searching for new anti-cancer compounds in bacteria

30 June 2023

Cancer is something that has impacted all of us either directly or indirectly and is a leading cause of death globally. As a result, there is an urgent and ongoing need to discover and develop new treatments to tackle this disease more efficiently. Interestingly, most of the small-molecule drugs that have been approved as...

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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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Prof Anne Willis featured on the British Toxicology Society's podcast

8 July 2022

The 1st episode of the British Toxicology Society's 'Flying the NEST' podcast features Unit Director Prof Anne Willis. In this episode, Anne discusses her career path so far, what she wishes she had known at the start of her career and insights in the Unit's research. Listen online now . The British Toxicology Society (BTS...

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MRC Toxicology Unit Semi-finalists - Postdoc Business Plan Competition

3 August 2021

Congratulations to Gavin D. Garland and Aristedis Sfakianos who have made it through to the semi-finals of the 2021 Chris Abell Postdoc Business Plan competition! Find more information about the competition, semi-finalists and prizes here: https://www.enterprise.cam.ac.uk/semi-finalists-announced-in-2021-postdo...

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New exciting paper from the Willis Lab

18 December 2019

We are pleased to announce a new paper from the Willis lab, which made front cover of science signaling, shows the common chemotherapy doxorubicin can promote the migration of cancer cells through phosphorylation of a translation factor. Please see the links to the article published in Science Signaling below: Summary...

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