̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Mike Nicholson

Vice-Chancellor continues UK tour

ps748 — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 14:52:55 +0000

̽��ֱ��South West of England has one of the country’s lowest levels of student progression into higher education. One of the key objectives of the visit was to engage with pupils and teachers in an area that is conspicuously under-represented in applications and admissions to Cambridge.

First stop was Colyton Grammar School, in east Devon, where Professor Prentice talked to school leaders about the barriers encountered by students from the region wishing to attend university. Joining her were representatives from Downing College, which has a particular connection to the area. They were also joined by Mike Nicholson, the ̽��ֱ��’s Director of Recruitment, Admissions and Participation, and Tom Levinson, Head of Widening Participation and Collaborative Outreach.

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and Downing College have partnered with the ̽��ֱ�� of Bristol and the Sutton Trust to support the Colyton Foundation Your Future Story – a programme that aims to support high attaining students from under-resourced backgrounds in the South West to pursue higher education opportunities.

In the evening, the Vice-Chancellor attended a reception in Bristol which was attended by nearly 50 Cambridge alumni, including one who matriculated in 1949.

̽��ֱ��following day the Vice-Chancellor travelled to North Somerset for a visit to Priory Community School, part of an Academy Trust in Worle, near Weston-super-Mare. Mike Nicholson led a school assembly for year 11 students. Later that morning, Xanthe Robertson, Access and Recruitment Officer of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, led assemblies for 1,500 students in Years 7 through to 10.

̽��ֱ��Vice-Chancellor and colleagues were interviewed by members of a student news team named after the journalist Jill Dando, who grew up in Worle. ̽��ֱ��visitors noted that among the school’s notable alumni was Stephen Jenkins, Professor of Physical and Computational Surface Chemistry at Cambridge.

̽��ֱ��next stop was Weston College, a further and higher education College in Weston-super-Mare that provides education and vocational training to students from the age of 14 through to adulthood. There the group met Sixth Form students to hear about their aspirations.

̽��ֱ��final leg of the journey took the Cambridge delegation to St Bede’s Catholic and Sixth Form College in Bristol. ̽��ֱ��school is part of the HE+ network, through which the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and Colleges work together with schools FE establishments across the country to encourage applications from talented students.

Reflecting on her visit, the Vice-Chancellor said: “Travelling to the South West allowed me to learn more about the region and to understand some of the barriers to aspiration and attainment that prevent bright students from pursuing higher education. ̽��ֱ��students we met were impressive. Their teachers’ commitment to supporting their educational journey is outstanding. I hope that the outreach partnerships between the ̽��ֱ��, the Colleges and local schools will help us attract talented students to Cambridge, and will more generally encourage them to consider going to university.”

This visit to the South West followed the Vice-Chancellor’s trip to Rochdale, Manchester and Liverpool a year ago and her visit to Peterborough in the autumn of 2024.

̽��ֱ��Vice-Chancellor, Professor Deborah Prentice, has led a delegation to Devon, North Somerset and Bristol. It was the first time a serving Cambridge Vice-Chancellor had travelled to the region in an official capacity to engage with local schools and alumni.

̽��ֱ��students we met were impressive

Professor Deborah Prentice

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New admissions tests for 2024

ps748 — Thu, 18 Jan 2024 10:11:46 +0000

Cambridge and Imperial will provide two sets of tests. ̽��ֱ��Engineering and Science Admissions Test (ESAT) will be used for degree programmes in Engineering, Natural Sciences, Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, and Veterinary Medicine at Cambridge, and Physics and most Engineering degrees at Imperial.

̽��ֱ��Test of Mathematics for ̽��ֱ�� Admission (TMUA) will be used for Economics and Computer Science degrees at Cambridge, and both the Economics, Finance and Data Science and Computing degrees at Imperial. A number of other UK universities will also use the TMUA for assessing applications for mathematically-based courses.

Pearson VUE is the certification and licensure arm of Pearson, the world’s leading learning company, providing assessment services to many institutions in the academic and admissions space. From October 2024 students will take a new computer based assessment at a Pearson VUE test centre, selecting from a global network of more than 5,500 locations in more than 180 countries. Mike Nicholson, Director of Recruitment, Admissions and Participation at Cambridge said “We are delighted to be able to provide computer based admissions tests from 2024, and in locations that take the burden off teachers and schools to act as test centres.”

Cambridge and Imperial will also be using the UCAT assessment for admission to their medical degrees from 2024, also provided through Pearson VUE, and Cambridge will continue to use the LNAT test for Law admissions.

Applicants will be required to pay an administration charge to take the tests, in line with other comparable institutions, but a fee waiver will be applied for UK-based applicants who are eligible for free school meals or who meet a number of other widening participation criteria. Nicholson added that “It is important that cost is not a barrier to participation, and the model we are using for the fee waivers has been successfully used for other admissions tests supported by Pearson”.

Lizzie Burrows, Director of Marketing, Recruitment and Admissions at Imperial said “ ̽��ֱ��applicant experience is at the heart of our ambitions. With the number of applications expected to continue to rise over coming years, universities need to find ways to fairly select the best candidates while minimising the burden on our applicants.”

We hope that these tests, operating through Pearson VUE’s well established test centre network will encourage other universities to use the TMUA and ESAT as assessments and streamline the admissions process for students.”

To attract a wider range of applicants the TMUA and ESAT will run test-sittings in mid-October 2024 and early January 2025 to reflect the two main deadlines for courses in the UCAS admissions process. Applicants to Cambridge must take the Autumn sitting.

Matthew Poyiadgi, Vice President EMEA and Asia at Pearson VUE, commented “As academic settings and admissions programmes continue to evolve in an increasingly digital world, computer-based assessments drive greater efficiencies. We look forward to collaborating with Imperial and Cambridge on this transition and supporting applicants to these world-leading universities in proving their potential.’’

Learn about our admissions tests and assessments.

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and Imperial College London are to launch a new joint venture to deliver admissions tests for science, engineering and mathematics based degree courses. ̽��ֱ��tests, which will be delivered by global assessments leader, Pearson VUE, aim to improve the experience of students applying for highly competitive undergraduate courses while helping universities to fairly assess the skills of the brightest applicants.

We are delighted to be able to provide computer based admissions tests from 2024

Mike Nicholson

Senate House

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Applauding the teachers

ps748 — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 09:11:34 +0000

Cambridge hands out first Educator Awards to teachers who've been nominated by former pupils who are now studying at the ̽��ֱ��.

Cambridge researchers change donor kidney blood type

fpjl2 — Mon, 15 Aug 2022 10:18:07 +0000

Researchers have been able to alter the blood type of deceased donor kidneys using “molecular scissors”.

Wash cycle: making organs fit for transplantation

cjb250 — Wed, 20 Jul 2016 08:25:59 +0000

In a room in the Department of Surgery, a kidney sits inside a chamber connected to tubes and monitors. Solutions and gases are pumping through it and urine is coming out.

In fact, the chamber in itself is not particularly special – it’s an off-the-shelf machine used for cardiac bypass surgery in children: it’s how it has been adapted and the new uses it has found that make it so significant. This machine is able to rejuvenate kidneys deemed not fit for transplant, making them fit and healthy again – and suitable for a recipient.

Professor Andrew Bradley, Head of the Department of Surgery, is quick to point out that it is his team at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, part of Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Hospitals – particularly Professor Mike Nicholson and Dr Sarah Hosgood – who should take all the credit for this machine, which they refer to as an organ perfusion system.

There is a chronic shortage of suitable organs for transplant and something needs to be done. To help address the problem, in December 2015, Wales became the first country in the UK to make organ donation an ‘opt-out’ system – in other words, doctors would remove the organs from deceased individuals and provide them for use in sick patients unless the individual had explicitly refused consent before their death.

Unfortunately, not every donated organ is suitable for transplant – in the case of kidneys, for example, around 15% are deemed unsuitable. This can be for a variety of reasons, including the age of the donor, their disease history and the length of time the organ has been in cold storage.

“Grading organs is not an exact science – it’s a mixture of factors about the circumstance in which it became available, its storage and how it looks to a trained eye,” says Nicholson. “This isn’t good enough, particularly if it means we’re losing some potentially suitable organs.”

What if there was a way of taking these organs and assessing them systematically? And to take it a step further, could some of them even be rejuvenated? Before coming to Cambridge, Nicholson and Hosgood developed a system while at the ̽��ֱ�� of Leicester that effectively recirculates essential nutrients through the kidney, bringing it back to life.

“We use a combination of red blood cells, a priming solution, nutrients, protective agents and oxygen,” explains Hosgood. “We pump this through the kidney while maintaining a temperature close to our body temperature. It mimics being in the body.”

As the perfusion solution is being circulated, the kidney will begin to function and produce urine. By analysing the contents of this urine and monitoring blood flow, doctors can see how the kidney is performing and whether it might make a viable transplant organ. After just a 60-minute perfusion, the kidneys are resuscitated and are potentially ready for transplantation.

This is no longer just an experiment: since moving to Cambridge, with funding from Kidney Research UK and the National Institute for Health Research, the team has been able to take kidneys rejected from other transplant centres, resuscitate and assess them, then transplant them. In December last year, two individuals on the organ transplant waiting list received the perfect Christmas present courtesy of the Cambridge team: a new kidney.

So far, the team has taken five discarded kidneys and managed to rescue three. “We’re hoping to process another hundred over the next four years,” says Hosgood, who is also working with centres in Newcastle, Edinburgh and at Guy’s Hospital in London, in the hope of replicating their success.

̽��ֱ��current kit, which was not purpose-built for organ perfusion, is bulkier and clumsier than ideal, so the team is currently fundraising to help design a dedicated machine, in collaboration with colleagues from the Department of Engineering. “It’s not very mobile, so we couldn’t use it to help resuscitate organs in transit to other centres.”

Nicholson and Hosgood’s success has spurred on other colleagues. Professor Chris Watson describes himself as “piggybacking” on their work to develop a technique for perfusing livers. ̽��ֱ��situation for liver transplants is even more serious than it is for kidneys: as many as one in five patients on the waiting list will die before a liver becomes available.

So far, his team has taken 12 livers, all but one of which had been rejected by other centres, and successfully resuscitated and transplanted them using a system that builds on the pioneering work of his two colleagues.

“There’s a scene in the Woody Allen film Sleeper where Allen’s character stumbles across a 200-year-old Volkswagen Beetle and manages to start it first time,” he says. “ ̽��ֱ��liver is like that. You take it out of cold storage and expect it to start first time. By first assessing it on our machine, we can be more confident it will work first time.”

In some ways, this has proved more of a challenge than it did for kidneys, he adds. “With kidneys, you can put them in the machine for an hour, resuscitate them and then transplant them. If it doesn’t work immediately, the patient stays on dialysis until it picks up. With a liver, it takes longer to analyse and resuscitate the organ, and if it doesn’t work it’s a disaster for the patient.”

Now that the team has successfully revived and transplanted kidneys and livers, this is by no means the end of the story. There is still much work to be done to further improve the organ – and hence improve the function and prolong survival, says Hosgood.

Once transplanted, organs face a battle with the body’s immune system, which recognises its new occupant as a foreign body. This is one reason why the perfusion system uses only red blood cells, not white – to do so would risk an inflammatory response that could damage the organ.

“Of course, as soon as you transplant the kidney, it will face a similar inflammatory response, but by then it should be in an improved state and able to cope better with what the body throws at it,” she explains. ̽��ֱ��Department is in the process of recruiting 400 patients for a randomised controlled trial to test this technology.

̽��ֱ��perfusion system also enables therapies to be given directly to the kidney. This ensures optimal delivery of the treatment to the targeted organ and avoids any side effects in the patient. One promising avenue of research, in collaboration with Professor Jordan Pober at Yale ̽��ֱ�� (USA), is the use of nanoparticles that target the endothelial cells in the lining of the kidney. These cells play an important role in the inflammatory response after transplantation. “ ̽��ֱ��delivery of nanoparticles in this way may reduce damage to the organ after transplantation,” she adds.

̽��ֱ��shortage of suitable organs is not going away. Not even a UK-wide ‘opt-out’ system is likely to completely eradicate the problem. If anything, the crisis is likely to get worse – the flipside of good news stories such as fewer road traffic fatalities and better medicines that reduce the number of young people dying early. ̽��ֱ��team recognises that the system alone is not the answer, but it brings a new relevance to the old adage “waste not, want not”.

There’s a nationwide shortage of suitable organs for transplanting – but what if some of those organs deemed ‘unsuitable’ could be rejuvenated? Researchers at Addenbrooke’s Hospital have managed just that – and last year gave two patients an unexpected Christmas present.

Grading organs is not an exact science – it’s a mixture of factors about the circumstance in which it became available, its storage and how it looks to a trained eye. This isn’t good enough, particularly if it means we’re losing some potentially suitable organs.

Mike Nicholson

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'Tip Top Stomerij en Wasserette' Linnaeusstraat Amsterdam

̽��ֱ��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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