Cambridge heads for Hay

jfp40 — Thu, 10 Apr 2014 09:20:09 +0000

̽��ֱ��Cambridge Series has been running for six years at the prestigious Festival and is part of the ̽��ֱ��’s commitment to public engagement. ̽��ֱ��Festival runs from 22nd May to 1st June and is now open for bookings.

This year's line-up includes Sir John Gurdon who was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for the discovery that mature cells can be converted to stem cells. He will talk about his pioneering work on cloning.

Other speakers include Dr Ha-Joon Chang on economics, classicist Professor Paul Cartledge on after Thermopylae, Dame Barbara Stocking, former chief executive of Oxfam GB and president of Murray Edwards College, on the challenges for women in the workplace, Professor Chris Dobson and Dr Mary Dobson on Alzheimer's and other plagues, economist Professor Noreena Hertz on smart thinking and Professor Robert Mair on tunnelling into the future of our cities.

Professor Richard Evans, president of Wolfson College, will talk about the history of conspiracy theories, Dr John Swenson-Wright from the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies will ask if North Korea is the perennial crisis state and Dr Robin Hesketh from the Department of Biochemistry will attempt to demystify cancer.

Several of the talks will take the form of a conversation: Professor Simon Blackburn will debate the uses and abuses of self love with journalist Rosie Boycott; novelist and playwright Biyi Bandele, a former Judith E. Wilson Fellow at Churchill College, will be in conversation with Dr Malachi McIntosh from the Department of English about migrant writing; Professor Henrietta Moore, William Wyse Chair of Social Anthropology, will talk about the future of civil activism with Ricken Patel, founding President of Avaaz, the world's largest online activist community; and psychologist Dr Terri Apter will debate how women follow, resist and play with the stereotypes that define them with author and alumna Zoe Strimpel.

Other Cambridge academics speaking at Hay are Professor Stefan Collini discussing higher education’s two cultures - the humanities and science - and historian Professor David Reynolds.

Peter Florence, director of the Hay Festival, said: "Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� nurtures and challenges the world's greatest minds, and offers the deepest understanding of the most intractable problems and the most thrilling opportunities. And for one week a year they bring that thinking to a field in Wales and share it with everyone. That's a wonderful gift."

Nicola Buckley, head of public engagement at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “ ̽��ֱ��Cambridge series is a wonderful way to share fascinating research from the ̽��ֱ�� with the public. ̽��ֱ��Hay Festival draws an international cross-section of people, from policy makers to prospective university students. We have found that Hay audiences are highly interested in the diversity of Cambridge speakers, and ask some great questions. We look forward to another fantastic series of speakers, with talks and debates covering so many areas of research and key ideas emerging from Cambridge, relevant to key issues faced globally today."

For tickets, go to: www.hayfestival.org

A host of Cambridge academics, including Nobel Laureate Sir John Gurdon, will be speaking on subjects ranging from stem cell technology and Alzheimer’s to the future of North Korea and the history of conspiracy theories at this year’s Hay Festival.

Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� nurtures and challenges the world's greatest minds, and offers the deepest understanding of the most intractable problems and the most thrilling opportunities

Peter Florence, Director of Hay Festival

Hay Festival

Night shot at Hay Festival

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Professor Sir John Gurdon awarded Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

fpjl2 — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 14:01:36 +0000

̽��ֱ��Nobel Assembly has today (8 October) announced that Professor Sir John Gurdon has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 2012, along with Professor Shinya Yamanaka, for their ground-breaking work which proved that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become immature stem cells capable of developing into all tissues of the body.

̽��ֱ��Assembly stated that their work “revolutionised our understanding of how cells and organisms develop” and that their discoveries “have completely changed our view of the development and cellular specialisation”.

It was previously thought that once a cell reached a level of maturity to become specialised, creating the various tissues that make up a body, it was an irreversible, one-way process - that the fate of the cell is permanently locked.

Gurdon discovered in 1962 that the specialisation of cells is in fact reversible by eliminating the nucleus of a frog egg cell and replacing it with the nucleus from an already mature and specialised cell, lifted from a tadpole.

̽��ֱ��modified frog egg developed into a normal tadpole, proving that the mature cell still contained the necessary DNA to develop all cells in the frog - effectively cloning the tadpole.

As the Nobel Assembly points out, he thus proved that the nucleus of the mature cell “had not lost its capacity to drive development to a fully functional organism.” This discovery that a mature cell does not have to be confined forever to its specialised state revolutionised cell biology, leading to the establishment of new research areas and eventually the cloning of mammals.

“I am immensely honoured to be awarded this spectacular recognition, and delighted to be due to receive it with Shinya Yamanaka, whose work has brought the whole field within the realistic expectation of therapeutic benefits,” said Gurdon.

“I am of course most enormously grateful to those colleagues who have worked with me, at various times over the last half century. It is particularly pleasing to see how purely basic research, originally aimed at testing the genetic identity of different cell types in the body, has turned out to have clear human health prospects.”

̽��ֱ��Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Institute - part of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - where Gurdon was formerly chairman, was renamed the Gurdon Institute in 2004, in honour of his extraordinary achievements in the field of developmental and cancer biology.

In 2006, more than 40 years after Gurdon’s initial discovery, Professor Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto ̽��ֱ�� discovered how intact mature cells in mice could also be reprogrammed to become immature stem cells, able to develop into all types of cells in the body.

̽��ֱ��Nobel Assembly notes that “these discoveries have provided new tools for scientists around the world and led to remarkable progress in many areas of medicine,” including invaluable new avenues for understanding disease mechanisms - providing new opportunities to develop medical therapies.

“I am absolutely thrilled that John has won the Nobel Prize,” said Professor Daniel St Johnston, current Director of the Gurdon Institute. “He is not only a great scientist who laid the foundations for modern stem cell research but a fantastic role model who has done an enormous amount for British science.”

Gurdon’s journey to the highest level of science was not straightforward, and had something of a bumpy start. On a shelf in his Cambridge office, Gurdon still keeps a framed copy of a school report from Eton College when he was 15 years old. His teacher at the time describes Gurdon’s scientific ambitions as “quite ridiculous”, due to the fact that "he will not listen, but will insist on doing his work in his own way”.

Professor Sir John Gurdon was born in 1933 in Dippenhall, UK. He received his Doctorate from Oxford ̽��ֱ�� in 1960 and was a postdoctoral fellow at California Institute of Technology. He joined the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, in 1972 and has served as Professor of Cell Biology. Gurdon was Master of Magdalene College from 1995 to 2003 when he was succeeded by the current Master, Duncan Robinson.

Professor Gurdon is the 89th Cambridge affiliate to be awarded a Nobel Prize.

̽��ֱ��Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has today been jointly awarded to Professor Sir John Gurdon, Emeritus Professor in Cell Biology currently at the ̽��ֱ��’s Gurdon Institute, along with Professor Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto ̽��ֱ��, for their pioneering work in stem cell research.

These discoveries have provided new tools for scientists around the world and led to remarkable progress in many areas of medicine.

̽��ֱ��Nobel Assembly

Wellcome Trust

John Gurdon

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̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - John Gurdon

Cambridge heads for Hay

Professor Sir John Gurdon awarded Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine