̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Barry Everitt

Gates Cambridge: Class of 2022

mjg209 — Thu, 21 Apr 2022 10:30:21 +0000

Meet some of this year’s 79 new scholars from 30 countries – including Sanjiv Ranchod from South Africa who will be starting a PhD in Computer Science in October.

Gates Cambridge class of 2021

mjg209 — Wed, 14 Apr 2021 09:39:01 +0000

Gates Cambridge, Cambridge's leading international postgraduate scholarship programme, announces its Class of 2021: 74 new Gates Cambridge Scholars-Elect will take up their postgraduate studies in October.

Nine Cambridge researchers among this year’s Royal Society medal and award winners

Anonymous — Tue, 04 Aug 2020 05:00:00 +0000

He is one of the 25 Royal Society medals and awards winners announced today, nine of whom are researchers at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. ̽��ֱ��annual prizes celebrate exceptional researchers and outstanding contributions to science across a wide array of fields.

President of the Royal Society, Venki Ramakrishnan, said:

" ̽��ֱ��Royal Society’s medals and awards celebrate those researchers whose ground-breaking work has helped answer fundamental questions and advance our understanding of the world around us. They also champion those who have reinforced science’s place in society, whether through inspiring public engagement, improving our education system, or by making STEM careers more inclusive and rewarding.

"This year has highlighted how integral science is in our daily lives, and tackling the challenges we face, and it gives me great pleasure to congratulate all our winners and thank them for their work."

Sir Alan Fersht FMedSci FRS, Emeritus Professor in the Department of Chemistry and former Master of Gonville and Caius College, is awarded the Copley Medal for the development and application of methods to describe protein folding pathways at atomic resolution, revolutionising our understanding of these processes.

"Most of us who become scientists do so because science is one of the most rewarding and satisfying of careers and we actually get paid for doing what we enjoy and for our benefitting humankind. Recognition of one’s work, especially at home, is icing on the cake," said Sir Alan. "Like many Copley medallists, I hail from a humble immigrant background and the first of my family to go to university. If people like me are seen to be honoured for science, then I hope it will encourage young people in similar situations to take up science."

As the latest recipient of the Royal Society’s premier award, Sir Alan joins an elite group of scientists, that includes Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein and Dorothy Hodgkin, and more recently Professor John Goodenough (2020) for his research on the rechargeable lithium battery, Peter Higgs (2015), the physicist who hypothesised the existence of the Higgs Boson, and DNA fingerprinting pioneer Alec Jeffreys (2014).

Professor Barry Everitt FMedSci FRS, from the Department of Psychology and former Master of Downing College, receives the Croonian Medal and Lecture for research which has elucidated brain mechanisms of motivation and applied them to important societal issues such as drug addiction.

Professor Everitt said: "In addition to my personal pride about having received this prestigious award, I hope that it helps draw attention to experimental addiction research, its importance and potential."

Professor Herbert Huppert FRS of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, and a Fellow of King’s College, receives a Royal Medal for outstanding achievements in the physical sciences. He has been at the forefront of research in fluid mechanics. As an applied mathematician he has consistently developed highly original analysis of key natural and industrial processes. Further to his research, he has chaired policy work on how science can help defend against terrorism, and carbon capture and storage in Europe.

In addition to the work for which they are recognised with an award, several of this year’s recipients have also been working on issues relating to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Professor Julia Gog of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics and a Fellow of Queens’ College, receives the Rosalind Franklin Award and Lecture for her achievements in the field of mathematics. Her expertise in infectious diseases and virus modelling has seen her contribute to the pandemic response, including as a participant at SAGE meetings. ̽��ֱ��STEM project component of her award will produce resources for Key Stage 3 (ages 11-14) maths pupils and teachers exploring the curriculum in the context of modelling epidemics and infectious diseases and showing how maths can change the world for the better.

̽��ֱ��Society’s Michael Faraday Prize is awarded to Sir David Spiegelhalter OBE FRS, of the Winton Centre for Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication and a Fellow of Churchill College, for bringing key insights from the disciplines of statistics and probability vividly home to the public at large, and to key decision-makers, in entertaining and accessible ways, most recently through the COVID-19 pandemic.

̽��ֱ��full list of Cambridge’s 2020 winners and their award citations:

Copley Medal
Alan Fersht FMedSci FRS, Department of Chemistry, and Gonville and Caius College
He has developed and applied the methods of protein engineering to provide descriptions of protein folding pathways at atomic resolution, revolutionising our understanding of these processes.

Croonian Medal and Lecture
Professor Barry Everitt FMedSci FRS, Department of Psychology and Downing College
He has elucidated brain mechanisms of motivation and applied them to important societal issues such as drug addiction.

Royal Medal A
Professor Herbert Huppert FRS, Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, and King’s College
He has been at the forefront of research in fluid mechanics. As an applied mathematician he has consistently developed highly original analysis of key natural and industrial processes.

Hughes Medal
Professor Clare Grey FRS, Department of Chemistry and Pembroke College
For her pioneering work on the development and application of new characterization methodology to develop fundamental insight into how batteries, supercapacitors and fuel cells operate.

Ferrier Medal and Lecture
Professor Daniel Wolpert FMedSci FRS, Department of Engineering and Trinity College
For ground-breaking contributions to our understanding of how the brain controls movement. Using theoretical and experimental approaches he has elucidated the computational principles underlying skilled motor behaviour.

Michael Faraday Prize and Lecture
Sir David Spiegelhalter OBE FRS, Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication and Churchill College
For bringing key insights from the disciplines of statistics and probability vividly home to the public at large, and to key decision-makers, in entertaining and accessible ways, most recently through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Milner Award and Lecture
Professor Zoubin Ghahramani FRS, Department of Engineering and St John’s College
For his fundamental contributions to probabilistic machine learning.

Rosalind Franklin Award and Lecture
Professor Julia Gog, Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, and Queens’ College
For her achievements in the field of mathematics and her impactful project proposal with its potential for a long-term legacy.

Royal Society Mullard Award
Professor Stephen Jackson FMedSci FRS, Gurdon Institute, Department of Biochemistry
For pioneering research on DNA repair mechanisms and synthetic lethality that led to the discovery of olaparib, which has reached blockbuster status for the treatment of ovarian and breast cancers.

̽��ֱ��full list of medals and awards, including their description and past winners can be found on the Royal Society website: https://royalsociety.org/grants-schemes-awards/awards/

Adapted from a Royal Society press release.

A leading pioneer in the field of protein engineering, Sir Alan Fersht FMedSci FRS, has been named as the 2020 winner of the world’s oldest scientific prize, the Royal Society’s prestigious Copley Medal.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 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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Cocaine addiction: Scientists discover ‘back door’ into the brain

cjb250 — Tue, 12 Jan 2016 00:17:37 +0000

A second study from the team suggests that a drug used to treat paracetamol overdose may be able to help individuals who want to break their addiction and stop their damaging cocaine seeking habits.

Although both studies were carried out in rats, the researchers believe the findings will be relevant to humans.

Cocaine is a stimulant drug that can lead to addiction when taken repeatedly. Quitting can be extremely difficult for some people: around four in ten individuals who relapse report having experienced a craving for the drug – however, this means that six out of ten people have relapsed for reasons other than ‘needing’ the drug.

“Most people who use cocaine do so initially in search of a hedonic ‘high’,” explains Dr David Belin from the Department of Pharmacology at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. “In some individuals, though, frequent use leads to addiction, where use of the drug is no longer voluntary, but ultimately becomes a compulsion. We wanted to understand why this should be the case.”

Drug-taking causes a release in the brain of the chemical dopamine, which helps provide the ‘high’ experienced by the user. Initially the drug taking is volitional – in other words, it is the individual’s choice to take the drug – but over time, this becomes habitual, beyond their control.

Previous research by Professor Barry Everitt from the Department of Psychology at Cambridge showed that when rats were allowed to self-administer cocaine, dopamine-related activity occurred initially in an area of the brain known as the nucleus accumbens, which plays a significant role driving ‘goal-directed’ behaviour, as the rats sought out the drug. However, if the rats were given cocaine over an extended period, this activity transferred to the dorsolateral striatum, which plays an important role in habitual behaviour, suggesting that the rats were no longer in control, but rather were responding automatically, having developed a drug-taking habit.

̽��ֱ��brain mechanisms underlying the balance between goal-directed and habitual behaviour involves the prefrontal cortex, the brain region that orchestrates our behaviour. It was previously thought that this region was overwhelmed by stimuli associated with the drugs, or with the craving experienced during withdrawal; however, this does not easily explain why the majority of individuals relapsing to drug use did not experience any craving.

Chronic exposure to drugs alters the prefrontal cortex, but it also alters an area of the brain called the basolateral amygdala, which is associated with the link between a stimulus and an emotion. ̽��ֱ��basolateral amygdala stores the pleasurable memories associated with cocaine, but the pre-frontal cortex manipulates this information, helping an individual to weigh up whether or not to take the drug: if an addicted individual takes the drug, this activates mechanisms in the dorsal striatum.

However, in a study published today in the journal Nature Communications, Dr Belin and Professor Everitt studied the brains of rats addicted to cocaine through self-administration of the drug and identified a previously unknown pathway within the brain that links impulse with habits.

̽��ֱ��pathway links the basolateral amygdala indirectly with the dorsolateral striatum, circumventing the prefrontal cortex. This means that an addicted individual would not necessarily be aware of their desire to take the drug.

“We’ve always assumed that addiction occurs through a failure or our self-control, but now we know this is not necessarily the case,” explains Dr Belin. “We’ve found a back door directly to habitual behaviour.

“Drug addiction is mainly viewed as a psychiatric disorder, with treatments such as cognitive behavioural therapy focused on restoring the ability of the prefrontal cortex to control the otherwise maladaptive drug use. But we’ve shown that the prefrontal cortex is not always aware of what is happening, suggesting these treatments may not always be effective.”

In a second study, published in the journal Biological Psychiatry, Dr Belin and colleagues showed that a drug used to treat paracetamol overdose may be able to help individuals addicted to cocaine overcome their addiction – provided the individual wants to quit.

̽��ֱ��drug, N-acetylcysteine, had previously been shown in rat studies to prevent relapse. However, the drug later failed human clinical trials, though analysis suggested that while it did not lead addicted individuals to stop using cocaine, amongst those who were trying to abstain, it helped them refrain from taking the drug.

Dr Belin and colleagues used an experiment in which rats compulsively self-administered cocaine. They found that rats given N-acetylcysteine lost the motivation to self-administer cocaine more quickly than rats given a placebo. In fact, when they had stopped working for cocaine, they tended to relapse at a lower rate. N-acetylcysteine also increased the activity in the brain of a particular gene associated with plasticity – the ability of the brain to adapt and learn new skills.

“A hallmark of addiction is that the user continues to take the drug even in the face of negative consequences – such as on their health, their family and friends, their job, and so on,” says co-author Mickael Puaud from the Department of Pharmacology of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. “Our study suggests that N-acetylcysteine, a drug that we know is well tolerated and safe, may help individuals who want to quit to do so.”

Reference
Murray, JE et al. Basolateral and central amygdala differentially recruit and maintain dorsolateral striatum-dependent cocaine-seeking habits. Nature Comms; 16 December 2015

Ducret, E et al. N-acetylcysteine facilitates self-imposed abstinence after escalation of cocaine intake. Biological Psychiatry; 7 Oct 2015

Individuals addicted to cocaine may have difficulty in controlling their addiction because of a previously-unknown ‘back door’ into the brain, circumventing their self-control, suggests a new study led by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Most people who use cocaine do so initially in search of a hedonic ‘high’. In some individuals, though, frequent use leads to addiction, where use of the drug is no longer voluntary, but ultimately becomes a compulsion

David Belin

D. Sinclair Terrasidius

relaxing after work_MMVI (cropped)

̽��ֱ��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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New US Gates Cambridge Scholars announced

pbh25 — Wed, 12 Feb 2014 11:08:06 +0000

̽��ֱ��40 Scholars represent 35 institutions, five of which have never had a Gates Cambridge Scholar before.

̽��ֱ��five new institutions are the ̽��ֱ�� of Puget Sound in Washington, the ̽��ֱ�� of Wyoming, California State ̽��ֱ�� in Fresno, Carleton ̽��ֱ�� in Ontario, Canada and the Medical College of Georgia.

Professor Barry Everitt, Provost of the Gates Cambridge Trust, said: "We are delighted to announce our new US Scholars. They are an outstanding group of individuals from a very diverse range of backgrounds who are both intellectually exceptional and show a dedication to improving the lives of others. We look to them as future leaders who will change the world for the better.”

Twenty-two of the institutions where the new Scholars have studied previously are private, with 13 being public. Six are Ivy League colleges. ̽��ֱ��Scholars come from 21 US states.

̽��ֱ��gender ratio continues to be in favour of women with 23 of the 40 being women. This is broadly consistent with the last three years of the total intake which have seen women make up the majority of Scholars.

While 18 of the 35 colleges and universities are in the Times Higher Education’s top 100 world university rankings, 11 do not even rank in the top 400, highlighting the broad range of institutions and the high level of access for outstanding candidates from any college or university.

̽��ֱ��postgraduate scholarship programme was established through a US$210 million donation to the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2001, which remains the largest single donation to a UK university.

Competition for places is fierce and the programme is unique in its emphasis on social leadership as well as outstanding academic ability.

̽��ֱ��successful 40 candidates, 28 of whom will study for one-year master's degree courses and 12 of whom will pursue PhD degrees, were whittled down from an initial field of 800 applicants.

̽��ֱ��89 shortlisted candidates were interviewed by US and Cambridge academics at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s offices in Seattle on 31 Jan and 1 Feb 2014.

̽��ֱ��US Scholars will join 55 Scholars from other parts of the world, who will be announced later this year.

At any one time the Gates Cambridge Trust aims to support 225 Scholars at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

For this reason its Trustees have increased the total number of Scholarships from 90 to 95 for 2014 entry with the hope that this will be sustainable in the longer term, given the mix of one-year and PhD courses being undertaken.

To view a full list of the Scholars click here.

Forty of the most academically brilliant and socially committed young people in the USA will take up a Gates Cambridge Scholarship to study at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge this autumn as the programme continues to expand to a diverse range of institutions across North America.

We look to them as future leaders who will change the world for the better.

Professor Barry Everitt, Provost of the Gates Cambridge Trust

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Addiction treatment – genes can play a part

bjb42 — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 16:14:42 +0000

Professor Barry Everitt and Dr Jonathan Lee of the MRC-Wellcome Behaviour and Clinical Neuroscience Institute have shown that they can selectively impair memories associated with drug addiction and PTSD by inactivating a specific gene in the brain.

Anxiety disorders, such as phobias and PTSD, and also drug addiction are disorders characterised by the persistent impact on behaviour of memories laid down earlier in the lives of affected individuals.

In the case of drug addiction, addicts crave drugs and suffer relapse not just because of the alluring high of drugs, but also because they are compelled by the powerful, haunting memory associations with the stimuli closely associated with their drug taking (e.g. the paraphernalia of syringes, aluminium foil, specific people) and, indeed, the environment in which their drug taking occurs.

For many years it has been assumed that once memories are formed, they become fixed – ‘consolidated’ – forever. However, recent research has shown that when memories are reactivated through recall, or simply being exposed to stimuli that elicit memories, as in drug addicts, the memories become malleable and subject to disruption by certain drugs.

Everitt and Lee saw a long-lasting change in behaviour of rats that had had a specific gene in the amygdala – a part of the brain where emotional memories are formed and stored – inactivated. Of course, selective inactivation of genes in the brain is not a viable treatment option and so current research is aimed at identifying the neurochemical mechanisms in the brain that underlie memory reconsolidation and thereby drugs that can be taken systemically to interfere with those mechanisms. ̽��ֱ��great advantage of this potential new treatment is that it could be given on very few, perhaps even one, occasion, thereby eliminating the need for chronic drug therapy and all the problems that can bring.

www.psychol.cam.ac.uk/BCNI

Imagine a one-off cure for drug addiction or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) instead of today’s life-long therapy regimes.

Credit joeflintham on flickr

20ml

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"Academic Incubator" to develop new medicines of value

bjb42 — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 09:00:10 +0000

̽��ֱ��ground-breaking concept of the ‘Academic Incubator’ will tap into the highest quality thinking in academia to optimise the early clinical development of new GSK medicines in a model of shared risk and reward. ̽��ֱ��new agreement provides a framework for a team of academic experts led by Professors Ed Bullmore, Barry Everitt, Trevor Robbins, Paul Fletcher and Stephen O’Rahilly, from the Departments of Psychiatry and Experimental Psychology and the Institute of Metabolic Science, to develop a novel centrally acting agent with therapeutic potential for obesity and addictive disorders.

"Sometimes drug development needs to cut across traditional boundaries, and the development of drugs that act on the brain to deliver health benefits in terms of reduced body weight is a good example," said Professor Bullmore. " ̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� has established expertise in both neuroscience and metabolic science and, importantly, there is already a strong track record of interdisciplinary research between these groups. This was particularly attractive to GSK as a scientific environment to support the innovative development of centrally acting anti-obesity drugs."

Although Cambridge is the first academic institution to pioneer the incubator model of working with GSK, it is not expected to be the only one if the model proves successful here. Clinicians and scientists at carefully selected academic institutions worldwide will be expected to challenge industry norms and set a unique path for preclinical and early clinical development activities that will deliver on the promise of an asset at the earliest stage. Importantly, the agreement also allows the academic scientists freedom to publish results arising from their work on incubator projects.

‘This puts academia–industry relationships on a new footing and allows academics who are leaders in their fields the opportunity to become directly involved in developing medicines for patients and to have the freedom to take the programme in exciting new directions,’ said Patrick Vallance, Senior Vice President, Drug Discovery at GSK. In support of all its incubator projects, GSK will provide operational support, access to in-house clinical research and imaging facilities, and background preclinical data on the drug. For incubator projects based in Cambridge, an important component of GSK’s support for the academic teams will be provided by the facilities and staff of GSK’s Clinical Unit Cambridge. ̽��ֱ��Unit is embedded in the Cambridge Biomedical Campus in close physical proximity to departments of the School of Clinical Medicine and the Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility.

Patrick Sissons, Regius Professor of Physic and Head of the School of Clinical Medicine in Cambridge, said: "We place great value on our relationship with GSK and are delighted to be working with them in this innovative new partnership between leading clinical scientists in the ̽��ֱ�� and industry."

For more information, please contact Professor Ed Bullmore (etb23@cam.ac.uk).

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has signed its first agreement with the ̽��ֱ�� to optimise the early clinical development of new GSK medicines for obesity and addictive disorders.

Sometimes drug development needs to cut across traditional boundaries, and the development of drugs that act on the brain to deliver health benefits in terms of reduced body weight is a good example,

Ed Bullmore

̽��ֱ��Wandering Angel

Mouths

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