̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Nita Forouhi

Boost your life in 2025: Top tips for a healthier body and mind from Cambridge experts

jg533 — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 09:16:07 +0000

Five Cambridge experts share their top tips on ways to boost your body and mind, backed up by their own research

Red and processed meat consumption associated with higher type 2 diabetes risk

Anonymous — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 22:30:56 +0000

̽��ֱ��findings are published today in ̽��ֱ��Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology.

Global meat production has increased rapidly in recent decades and meat consumption exceeds dietary guidelines in many countries. Earlier research indicated that higher intakes of processed meat and unprocessed red meat are associated with an elevated risk of type 2 diabetes, but the results have been variable and not conclusive.

Poultry such as chicken, turkey, or duck is often considered to be an alternative to processed meat or unprocessed red meat, but fewer studies have examined the association between poultry consumption and type 2 diabetes.

To determine the association between consumption of processed meat, unprocessed red meat and poultry and type 2 diabetes, a team led by researchers at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge used the global InterConnect project to analyse data from 31 study cohorts in 20 countries. Their extensive analysis took into account factors such as age, gender, health-related behaviours, energy intake and body mass index.

̽��ֱ��researchers found that the habitual consumption of 50 grams of processed meat a day - equivalent to 2 slices of ham - is associated with a 15% higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the next 10 years. ̽��ֱ��consumption of 100 grams of unprocessed red meat a day - equivalent to a small steak - was associated with a 10% higher risk of type 2 diabetes.

Habitual consumption of 100 grams of poultry a day was associated with an 8% higher risk, but when further analyses were conducted to test the findings under different scenarios the association for poultry consumption became weaker, whereas the associations with type 2 diabetes for each of processed meat and unprocessed meat persisted.

Professor Nita Forouhi of the Medical Research Council (MRC) Epidemiology Unit at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, and a senior author on the paper, said: “Our research provides the most comprehensive evidence to date of an association between eating processed meat and unprocessed red meat and a higher future risk of type 2 diabetes. It supports recommendations to limit the consumption of processed meat and unprocessed red meat to reduce type 2 diabetes cases in the population.

“While our findings provide more comprehensive evidence on the association between poultry consumption and type 2 diabetes than was previously available, the link remains uncertain and needs to be investigated further.”

InterConnect uses an approach that allows researchers to analyse individual participant data from diverse studies, rather than being limited to published results. This enabled the authors to include as many as 31 studies in this analysis, 18 of which had not previously published findings on the link between meat consumption and type 2 diabetes. By including this previously unpublished study data the authors considerably expanded the evidence base and reduced the potential for bias from the exclusion of existing research.

Lead author Dr Chunxiao Li, also of the MRC Epidemiology Unit, said: “Previous meta-analysis involved pooling together of already published results from studies on the link between meat consumption and type 2 diabetes, but our analysis examined data from individual participants in each study. This meant that we could harmonise the key data collected across studies, such as the meat intake information and the development of type 2 diabetes.

“Using harmonised data also meant we could more easily account for different factors, such as lifestyle or health behaviours, that may affect the association between meat consumption and diabetes.”

Professor Nick Wareham, Director of the MRC Epidemiology Unit, and a senior author on the paper said: “InterConnect enables us to study the risk factors for obesity and type 2 diabetes across populations in many different countries and continents around the world, helping to include populations that are under-represented in traditional meta-analyses.

“Most research studies on meat and type 2 diabetes have been conducted in USA and Europe, with some in East Asia. This research included additional studies from the Middle East, Latin America and South Asia, and highlighted the need for investment in research in these regions and in Africa.”

InterConnect was initially funded by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 602068.

Reference
Li, C et al. Meat consumption and incident type 2 diabetes: a federated meta-analysis of 1·97 million adults with 100,000 incident cases from 31 cohorts in 20 countries. Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol.; 20 August 2024

Adapted form a press release from the MRC Epidemiology Unit

Meat consumption, particularly consumption of processed meat and unprocessed red meat, is associated with a higher type 2 diabetes risk, an analysis of data from almost two million participants has found.

Our research supports recommendations to limit the consumption of processed meat and unprocessed red meat to reduce type 2 diabetes cases in the population

Nita Forouhi

Lauri Patterson

Preparing a Monte Cristo Sandwich, with Black Forest Ham

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Cambridge experts awarded 2024 Academy of Medical Sciences Fellowships

cjb250 — Mon, 20 May 2024 23:01:02 +0000

Professor Nita Forouhi from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Epidemiology Unit and Professor Susan Gathercole from the Department of Psychiatry and MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit join an esteemed Fellowship of over 1,400 researchers who have been recognised for their remarkable contributions to advancing biomedical and health sciences, ground-breaking research discoveries and translating developments into benefits for patients and wider society.

Professor Nita Forouhi is a clinical scientist whose research is focused on the link between diet, nutrition and the risk of diabetes, obesity and related disorders. She is Professor of Population Health and Nutrition and leads the Nutritional Epidemiology programme, which was awarded the Vice-Chancellor’s Best Impact Award in 2016. She frequently engages with the media to promote knowledge in the area of diet and health.

Professor Susan Gathercole is a cognitive psychologist with interests in memory and learning, including the causes of specific learning difficulties in children and how they might be overcome. Susan became a Fellow of the British Academy in 2014 and was awarded an OBE for services to psychology and education in 2016.

Professor Andrew Morris PMedSci, President of the Academy of Medical Sciences, said: “It is an honour to welcome these brilliant minds to our Fellowship. Our new Fellows lead pioneering work in biomedical research and are driving remarkable improvements in healthcare. We look forward to working with them, and learning from them, in our quest to foster an open and progressive research environment that improves the health of people everywhere through excellence in medical science.

“It is also welcoming to note that this year's cohort is our most diverse yet, in terms of gender, ethnicity and geography. While this progress is encouraging, we recognise that there is still much work to be done to truly diversify our Fellowship. We remain committed to our EDI goals and will continue to take meaningful steps to ensure our Fellowship reflects the rich diversity of the society we serve."

̽��ֱ��new Fellows will be formally admitted to the Academy at a ceremony on Wednesday 18 September 2024.

Two Cambridge Fellows are among the new Academy of Medical Sciences Fellows announced today.

Academy of Medical Sciences

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̽��ֱ�� academics ranked among best in the world

hcf38 — Thu, 21 Dec 2023 10:57:57 +0000

̽��ֱ��Research.com Best Female Scientists in the World 2023 rankings are based on an analysis of more than 166,000 profiles of scientists across the globe. Position in the ranking is according to a scientist’s total ‘H-index’ - rate of the publications made within a given area of research as well as awards and recognitions. Only the top 1000 scholars with the highest H-index are featured in the ranking.

Kay-Tee Khaw, an Emeritus Professor in Gerontology and a Gonville & Caius Fellow, is placed fifth worldwide and tops the list for Europe. Professor Khaw, who was named a CBE in 2003 for Services to Medicine, published a study on how modest differences in lifestyle are associated with better life expectancy which informed the UK Government’s ‘Small changes, big difference’ campaign in 2006.

Also high in the rankings is Barbara Sahakian, Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology in the Department of Psychiatry and a Fellow of Clare Hall, who is placed sixth in the UK. Professor Sahakian’s recent research includes a study showing the benefits to mental health and cognitive performance of reading for pleasure at an early age, and seven healthy lifestyle factors that reduce the risk of depression.

Joining Professor Khaw and Professor Sahakian in the top 10 in the UK is Carol Brayne, Professor of Public Health Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry and Fellow of Darwin. Awarded a CBE in 2017 for Services to Public Health Medicine, Professor Brayne has pioneered the study of dementia in populations.

Nine other ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge scientists also make the rankings:

Professor Gillian Murphy (Department of Oncology), an international leader in the field of metalloproteinases, who has defined their roles in arthritis and cancer.

Professor Claudia Langenberg (MRC Epidemiology Unit), a public health specialist combining her expertise with research focused on molecular epidemiology.

Professor Nita Forouhi (MRC Epidemiology Unit), a physician scientist, MRC Investigator and Programme Leader in Nutritional Epidemiology, whose research on the link between diet, nutrition and chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes has informed health policy.

Professor Alison Dunning (Centre for Cancer Genetic Epidemiology, Department of Oncology), a genetic epidemiologist working on the risk of breast and other hormonal cancers.

Professor Karalyn Patterson (MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge Centre for Frontotemporal Dementia and Related Disorders), a Fellow of Darwin College, who specialises in what we can learn about the organisation and neural representation of language and memory from the study of neurological patients suffering from the onset of brain disease or damage in adulthood.

Professor Dame Clare Grey (Department of Chemistry), a materials chemist whose work has paved the way for less expensive, longer-lasting batteries and helped improve storage systems for renewable energy, she is Chief Scientist and co-founder of Nyobolt, a company that is developing ultrafast-charging batteries for electric vehicles.

Professor Sharon Peacock (Department of Medicine), who has built her scientific expertise around pathogen genomics, antimicrobial resistance, and a range of tropical diseases, was the founding director of the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium which informed the COVID-19 pandemic response.

Professor Maria Grazia Spillantini (Department of Clinical Neurosciences and Fellow of Clare Hall) has been researching the cause of dementia for many years and was the first to identify the specific protein deposit found in Parkinson’s disease.

Professor Dame Theresa Marteau (Department of Public Health and Primary Care and Honorary Fellow of Christ’s College), a behavioural scientist, focuses on the development and evaluation of interventions to change behaviour (principally food, tobacco and alcohol consumption) to improve population health and reduce health inequalities, with a particular focus on targeting non-conscious processes.

Speaking on publication of this year’s rankings, Imed Bouchrika, Co-Founder of Research.com and Chief Data Scientist, said: “ ̽��ֱ��purpose of this online ranking of the world's leading female scientists is to recognize the efforts of every female scientist who has made the courageous decision to pursue opportunities despite barriers.

“Their unwavering determination in the face of difficulties serves as a source of motivation for all young women and girls who pursue careers in science.”

Twelve academics from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge have been ranked among the top female scientists in the world - with one claiming the top spot for Europe.

Gonville & Caius College

Professor Kay-Tee Khaw who has been named as the top female scientist in Europe by Research.com

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Opinion: Dairy got the all-clear this week - but was it justified?

cjb250 — Wed, 17 May 2017 08:55:43 +0000

A new study, published recently in the European Journal of Epidemiology, appeared to give dairy products a clean bill of health. ̽��ֱ��researchers found no evidence for an increased risk of cardiovascular disease or death from consuming dairy products – even full-fat dairy products.

These findings were widely covered in the media – headlines mostly singled out cheese, saying it does not increase the risk of heart attack or stroke. Some of the reports claimed that saturated fats do not increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, but the study didn’t examine saturated fat consumption itself.

It’s worth taking a closer look at the science behind the headlines.

Key findings

This new study is a type of study known as a meta-analysis because it pools data from earlier studies and analyses the combined data. In this instance, there were 29 studies that the researchers felt were of sufficiently high quality to include in their analysis. There were 783,989 participants in all, with an average age of 57 years. Each of the studies had asked healthy people about their usual diet and then followed them up over five to 25 years. Over the course of the follow up, 93,158 participants died (from any cause), 28,419 developed coronary heart disease and 25,416 developed cardiovascular disease (heart attack and stroke).

̽��ֱ��international team of researchers who conducted the meta-analysis found no statistically significant link between any of total dairy consumption (high- and low-fat combined), high-fat dairy consumption, low-fat dairy consumption, and risk of death, risk of coronary heart disease or risk of cardiovascular disease.

Among individual dairy products, milk consumption was not associated with cardiovascular disease or death, and neither was yoghurt consumption. For cheese and fermented dairy products (including sour milk products, cheese or yoghurt), there was a minor reduction in the risk of cardiovascular disease, but it seemed to be because of one large study. When this study – which showed an extreme result – was removed from the analysis, the link disappeared.

Strengths and weaknesses

Although not new, this research included the largest sample of participants to date on this topic and investigated both total and individual types of dairy products. ̽��ֱ��researchers applied sound meta-analysis methods and were careful to use extra analyses (called sensitivity analyses) to check their initial findings. However, there are some limitations of the individual studies, and meta-analysis, which are worth mentioning.

Although up to 29 studies were identified for the meta-analysis, the actual number available for each analysis was considerably less than 29. For example, for high-fat there were five studies for looking at death, nine for heart disease and seven for cardiovascular disease. And for yoghurt consumption, there were only three studies. This can compromise the confidence we can place in some of the results. For example, we can’t be certain that the association of yoghurt intake with cardiovascular disease is indeed null, as fermented dairy products – especially yoghurt – have been associated with reductions in cardiovascular risk, weight gain and type 2 diabetes in other research.

Another weakness is that the meta-analysis combined data from observational studies. Observational studies are not as robust as clinical trials. But this is a common limitation of studies of diet as it’s often not possible to keep people under close scrutiny – as required in clinical trials – for many years while comparing one type of diet with another.

With observational studies, there is always a risk that some other factor – one not being investigated – is the actual reason for the observed associations. To get around this, researchers take “confounding factors” into account when analysing the data. In this instance, the studies took into account such factors to very different degrees – some only including a very limited number of factors such as age, sex, smoking, or social status (such as education), while there are also other important factors such as obesity, physical activity, alcohol intake, ethnicity and other foods consumed that were missed in some studies. It is possible such health and lifestyle factors not taken into account by the researchers may have influenced the results.

Inconsistency in the definitions of groups of dairy products might also obscure interpretation. For example, some studies might include full-fat yoghurt in high-fat dairy products, whereas other studies might include both types of yoghurt in low-fat dairy products. Some dairy products such as cream and butter were not individually assessed in the meta-analysis.

Wider context

There is emerging evidence from other research, that not all foods that are rich in saturated fats have the same impact on health. This is probably because foods rich in saturated fat also contain many other ingredients. For instance processed red meat is associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, whereas
dairy products, particularly yoghurt, are associated with a decrease in risk of type 2 diabetes, as we have also shown in two studies (EPIC InterAct and EPIC-Norfolk).

Most dietary research relies on people reporting their dietary habits, and this can be prone to error and inaccuracies, which can mask the detection of links between diet and health. Our own research has shown that measuring biomarkers of food intake in blood or urine can open up new possibilities for understanding links with disease and bypass errors due to self-reporting in questionnaires.

New evidence suggests that saturated fat in dairy may not be as bad for us as we once thought, but there isn’t enough evidence, just yet, to change dietary guidelines which, in the UK, recommend that saturated fats should make up fewer than 11% of all calories consumed from food.

Eirini Trichia, PhD student, MRC Epidemiology Unit, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and Nita Forouhi, Programme Leader, MRC Epidemiology Unit, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

This article was originally published on ̽��ֱ��Conversation. Read the original article.

̽��ֱ��opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author(s) and do not represent the views of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

When it comes to health claims around the food we eat, it’s worth taking a closer look at the science behind the headlines, say Eirini Trichia and Professor Nita Forouhi from the MRC Epidemiology Unit, writing for ̽��ֱ��Conversation.

Jules Morgan

Cheese

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Ten thousand reasons to celebrate Open Access at Cambridge

sjr81 — Mon, 03 Oct 2016 08:58:45 +0000

̽��ֱ��10,000th submission, reporting on the impact of eating a Mediterranean diet on the risk of developing cardiovascular disease in a UK population, was deposited by Signe Wulund at the MRC Epidemiology Unit, on behalf of Dr Nita Forouhi, Programme Leader in Nutritional Epidemiology at the MRC Epidemiology Unit, and several co-authors.

̽��ֱ��Open Access movement has been growing in strength in academia for many years, and it is increasingly being mandated by funding bodies and government.

Dr Forouhi said: “Through open access our research can reach a worldwide audience. It would be a huge pity if interested researchers, practitioners or policy makers could not read about new research, such as our latest findings on the link between the Mediterranean diet and cardiovascular health in a non-Mediterranean setting, because of something as simple as lacking a journal subscription.

“Open access enables wider dissemination of research findings, and in turn, facilitates better research and evidence-based policy and clinical practice.”

̽��ֱ��Cambridge Open Access Service was established within the ̽��ֱ�� Library in 2013 in response to Research Councils UK (RCUK) making Open Access mandatory for anyone accepting their funding. Many other major funders, including the Wellcome Trust, Cancer Research UK and the British Heart Foundation, have similar policies.

In 2014, the Higher Education Funding Council for England announced that Open Access would be compulsory for any article included in the next Research Excellence Framework (REF) exercise. This policy came into force on April 1, 2016, effectively meaning that all research in UK institutions now has to be made freely available.

Since its inception in 2013, the Open Access service has processed 10,000 manuscripts, across all ̽��ֱ�� faculties and departments and worked with 3,000 different members of staff. 6,000 of the papers were covered by the HEFCE open access policy; 4,000 acknowledged RCUK funding and 1,900 COAF (many papers fall into multiple categories, and some into none). More than £5.4 million of Open Access grants from funding bodies have also been distributed.

Meeting these requirements is a major task for the ̽��ֱ��, and one it has tried to make as simple as possible for researchers. Authors are simply required to upload their manuscript to www.openaccess.cam.ac.uk when it’s accepted for publication, and the Open Access team advise them on what they need to do to comply with funder requirements, eligibility for any funding body grants, and handle depositing the article into Apollo, the ̽��ֱ��’s institutional repository.

Ten thousand manuscripts have now been received in this way, and the vast majority of them have been able to be made Open Access, free for anyone who wants to read and benefit from them.

The 10,000th article: ‘Prospective association of the Mediterranean diet with cardiovascular disease incidence and mortality and its population impact in a non-Mediterranean population: the EPIC-Norfolk Study’ in BMC Medicine. [DOI:10.1186/s12916-016-0677-4] can be seen here: http://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-016-0677-4

̽��ֱ��Open Access team at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge is part of the Office of Scholarly Communication (OSC), within the ̽��ֱ�� Library. As well as assisting researchers with Open Access and Open Data compliance, it advises on scholarly communication tools, techniques, policies and practices, and provides training. For more details, visit www.osc.cam.ac.uk.

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge has received its 10,000th Open Access submission – highlighting its commitment to making research freely available to anybody who wants to access it, without publisher paywalls or expensive journal subscriptions.

Through open access our research can reach a worldwide audience.

Nita Forouhi

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Mediterranean diet could lower the risk of cardiovascular disease in the UK

cjb250 — Wed, 28 Sep 2016 23:01:59 +0000

In this study, the first of its kind carried out in a UK population, the researchers found that healthy individuals with greater adherence to a Mediterranean-type diet had 6 to 16% lower risk of future cardiovascular disease compared to individuals who had poor adherence.

Dr Nita Forouhi, lead author from the Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, UK, said: “We estimate that one in 25 of all new cardiovascular disease cases or one in eight cardiovascular deaths in our UK based study population could potentially be avoided if this population increased their adherence to the Mediterranean diet.”

̽��ֱ��Mediterranean diet is typically high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and olive oil, while low in red meats and moderate in dairy, fish, poultry and wine. ̽��ֱ��UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends a Mediterranean style diet for people already diagnosed with cardiovascular disease to prevent further episodes of heart attack or stroke. However, the association of the Mediterranean diet with preventing cardiovascular disease in the first instance or preventing further episodes has not been examined in the UK until now.

Dr Forouhi adds: “ ̽��ֱ��benefits of the Mediterranean diet for cardiovascular health are well documented in countries of the Mediterranean region, but this is the first study to evaluate this in the UK. If our findings are broadly representative of the overall UK population, then we can assume that higher level of adherence to the Mediterranean diet could have significant impact in lowering the cardiovascular disease burden in the UK.”

̽��ֱ��researchers collected data from 23,902 initially healthy Britons taking part in the EPIC-Norfolk prospective cohort study. ̽��ֱ��participants’ diets were measured using food frequency questionnaires and participants were followed up for an average of 12 to 17 years to investigate the association between adherence to the Mediterranean diet and the occurrence of new-onset CVD and deaths during that time.

̽��ֱ��Mediterranean diet was defined using a 15 point score based on guideline recommendations from a Mediterranean dietary pyramid published by the Mediterranean Diet Foundation. This is the first time these guidelines have been tested for their associations with health. There are other definitions of what constitutes a Mediterranean diet, but when alternative definitions were used in this study, the findings were broadly similar.

Dr Forouhi adds: “Encouraging greater adoption of the Mediterranean diet looks like a promising component of a of a wider strategy to help prevent cardiovascular disease, including other important factors such as not smoking and maintaining a healthy weight, blood cholesterol and blood pressure.”

̽��ֱ��authors acknowledge that these findings are based on an observational study and so a cause and effect relationship cannot be assumed. However, they were careful to make comprehensive adjustments for lifestyle and other factors that could potentially distort the findings, and together with the consistency of results with other studies elsewhere, their current findings provide robust evidence for a link.

Dr Forouhi concludes: “Our study shows that higher versus lower adherence to a Mediterranean-type diet is linked with lower future CVD risk in the UK but our challenge now is to understand the social, economic and cultural factors that might support or prevent people being able to keep to this dietary pattern in the UK.”

EPIC-Norfolk study is supported by the Medical Research Council and Cancer Research UK.

Adapted from a press release by BioMed Central.

Reference
Tong, T et al. Prospective association of the Mediterranean diet with cardiovascular disease incidence and mortality and its population impact in a non-Mediterranean population: the EPIC-Norfolk Study. BMC Medicine; 29 Sept 2016; DOI: 10.1186/s12916-016-0677-4

Britons eating a Mediterranean diet could lower their risk of developing heart disease and stroke, according to research published in the open access journal BMC Medicine.

̽��ֱ��benefits of the Mediterranean diet for cardiovascular health are well documented in countries of the Mediterranean region, but this is the first study to evaluate this in the UK

Nita Forouhi

Jan Fidler

Vegetable and fruits

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Winners announced in the inaugural Vice-Chancellor’s Impact Awards and Public Engagement with Research Awards

jeh98 — Tue, 21 Jun 2016 09:58:54 +0000

On Monday 20 June, the Vice-Chancellor and Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research presented two sets of inaugural awards; the Impact Awards run by the Research Strategy Office, and the Public Engagement with Research Awards run by the Public Engagement team in the Office of External Affairs and Communications.

Research at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge has had profound effects on society – it is a formal part of the ̽��ֱ��’s mission.

̽��ֱ��Vice-Chancellor’s Impact Awards have been established to recognise and reward those whose research has led to excellent impact beyond academia, whether on the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life.

In this, its inaugural year, there were 71 nominations across all Schools. Nominations were initially judged by School, with one overall best entry selected by external advisor Schlumberger. A prize of £1,000 was awarded to the best impact in each School, with the prize for the overall winner increased to £2,000.

̽��ֱ��winners were announced at an award ceremony on 20 June 2016, hosted by Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz. These winners, although very diverse, illustrate only a small part of the wide range of impact that Cambridge's research has had.

This year’s winners were:

Dr Mari Jones (Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages)

Norman French has been spoken in Jersey for over 1,000 years. Today, however, this language (Jèrriais to its speakers) is obsolescent: spoken by some 1% of the population. ̽��ֱ��research of Mari Jones has sought to preserve Jèrriais and has helped raise the profile of the language within Jersey and beyond, with impacts on local and national media, language policy and education, and cultural identity and development.

Dr Gilly Carr (Department of Archaeology and Anthropology)

̽��ֱ��Channel Islands have long had great difficulty in coming to terms with the darker side of the German occupation. ̽��ֱ��aim of Gilly Carr’s research is to increase awareness of Channel Islander victims of Nazi persecution through creation of a plural ‘heritage landscape’ and via education. ̽��ֱ��creation of this heritage is a major achievement and will be of significant impact for the Channel Islands.

Professor Steve Jackson (Wellcome Trust/CRUK Gurdon Institute)

Olaparib is an innovative targeted therapy for cancer developed by Steve Jackson. In 2014 Olaparib was licensed for the treatment of advanced ovarian cancer by the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency. ̽��ֱ��following year, NICE made the drug available on the NHS in England for specific ovarian cancer patients. 2015 saw promising findings from a clinical trial in prostate cancer and Olaparib received Breakthrough Therapy Designation earlier this year. Olaparib is currently in clinical trials for a wide range of other cancer types.

Professor John Clarkson and Dr Nathan Crilly (Department of Engineering)

It is normal to be different. ̽��ֱ��demographics of the world are changing, with longer life expectancies and a reduced birth rate resulting in an increased proportion of older people. Yet with increasing age comes a general decline in capability, challenging the way people are able to interact with the ‘designed’ world around them. ̽��ֱ��Cambridge Engineering Design Centre has worked with the Royal College of Art to address this ‘design challenge’. They developed a design toolkit and realised what was by now obvious, that inclusive design was simply better design.

Dr Nita Forouhi and Dr Fumiaki Imamura (MRC Epidemiology Unit)

Identifying modifiable risk factors is an important step in helping reduce the health burden of poor diet. Forouhi and Imamura have advanced our understanding of the health impacts of sugars, fats and foods, through both scale and depth of investigation of self-reported information and nutritional biomarkers. They have engaged at an international level with policy and guidance bodies, and have used the media to improve public understanding with the potential for a direct impact on people’s health.

In 2015, the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge received a one-year £65k Catalyst Seed Fund grant from Research Councils UK to embed high quality public engagement with research and bring about culture change at an institutional level.

̽��ֱ��Public Engagement with Research Awards were set up to recognise and reward those who undertake quality engagement with research. 69 nominations were received from across all Schools.

This year’s winners were:

Dr Becky Inkster (Department of Psychiatry)

Dr Inkster’s work work explores the intersection of art and science through the prism of mental health research. Dr Inkster has successfully collaborated with ̽��ֱ��Scarabeus Theatre in a performance called Depths of My Mind and founded the website HipHopPsych, showcasing the latest psychiatry research through hip hop lyrics. Her approach has allowed her to engage with hard-to-reach teenage audiences, encouraging them to reflect on their own mental health. Beyond this work she has explored the use of social media to diagnose mental illness, and has gathered patient perspectives on ethics, privacy and data sharing in preparation for research publication.

Dr Paolo Bombelli (Department of Biochemistry)

Dr Bombelli’s research looks to utilise the photosynthetic chemistry of plants to create biophotovoltaic devices, a sustainable source of solar power. For over five years, he has been taking his research out of the lab to science festivals, schools and design fairs; tailoring his approach to a wider variety of audiences. Through his engagement, he has reached thousands of people, in multiple countries, and is currently developing an educational toolkit to further engage school students with advances in biophotovoltaic technology. Dr Bombelli’s public engagement work has also advanced his research, namely through a transition from using algae to moss in live demonstrations.

Dr Ruth Armstrong and Dr Amy Ludlow (Institute of Criminology and Faculty of Law)

Dr Armstrong and Dr Ludlow have collaborated on a research project addressing the delivery of education in the prison sector. Their project, Learning Together, pioneered a new approach to prison education where the end-users, the prisoners, are directly engaged with the design, delivery and evaluation of the research intervention. Adopting this shared dialogue approach has yielded positive results in terms of prisoners’ learning outcomes and has gathered praise from prison staff and government policy makers. Through continued engagement and partnership working, Armstrong and Ludlow have managed to expand their initiative across a broad range of sites and institutional contexts.

Dr Hazel Wilkinson (Department of English)

Dr Wilkinson is investigating the history of reading and writing habits in the eighteenth century. In collaboration with Dr Will Bowers at the ̽��ֱ�� of Oxford, she has developed an online public platform, journallists.org, which allows readers to engage with installments of periodicals, diaries, letters, and novels, on the anniversaries of the day on which they were originally published, written, or set. Her approach has allowed members of the public to actively participate in research. She has also inspired thousands of readers to engage with under-read eighteenth and nineteenth century texts, often for the very first time.

Dr Paul Coxon (Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy)

Over the last ten years Dr Coxon has endeavored to engage with audiences often overlooked by traditional public engagement channels. He has given talks in venues as varied as bingo halls, working men’s social clubs and steam fairs to showcase his passion for solar research, steering clear of the “flashes and bangs” approach often associated with Chemistry. He has also designed a Fruit Solar Cell Starter Kit, used in fifty low-income catchment schools across the UK.

Mr Ian Hosking and Mr Bill Nicholl (Department of Engineering and Faculty of Education)

Ian Hosking and Bill Nicholl are cofounders of Designing Our Tomorrow, a platform for transforming D&T education in schools. Their public engagement initiative began in 2009 and brought together research around inclusive design and creativity in education. Through production of their DOT box, Hosking and Nicholl have taken active research questions into the classroom and given students control of designing technological solutions. Engagement with teachers, students and policymakers is integral to the success of their initiative and has resulted in engineering design being included in the national curriculum and GCSE qualifications.

Researchers from across the ̽��ֱ�� have been recognised for the impact of their work on society, and engagement with research in the inaugural Vice-Chancellor’s Impact Awards and Public Engagement with Research Awards.

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Dr Ruth Armstrong and Dr Amy Ludlow receive their award from the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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