̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - UKRI-BBSRC

Cambridge Pro-Vice-Chancellor appointed Executive Chair of Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council

sb726 — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 11:01:11 +0000

̽��ֱ��Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, Michelle Donelan, appointed Professor Ferguson-Smith to the post.

Michelle Donelan said: "Professor Anne Ferguson-Smith’s appointment is great news for UK bioscience, which is delivering transformative discoveries that will benefit our country and beyond – from creating new life-saving vaccines to developing sustainable food production.

" ̽��ֱ��Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council is a key funder and driving force of this world-leading sector and Professor Ferguson-Smith’s experience will be a major asset in building on that work to support a healthy, prosperous and sustainable future."

Professor Ferguson-Smith, a developmental geneticist and epigeneticist, and currently Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics at the ̽��ֱ��, is a member of the BBSRC Council, an elected member of EMBO, a Fellow of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences, and a Fellow of the Royal Society.

A Fellow of Darwin College, she was appointed Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and International Partnerships from January 2022, having been Acting PVC for Research since January 2021, following the death of Professor Chris Abell in October 2020. Professor Ferguson-Smith was this year made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to Biomedical Research.

UKRI Chief Executive Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser said: "I am delighted by the appointment of Professor Anne Ferguson-Smith as BBSRC’s new Executive Chair. Professor Ferguson-Smith is an inspiring leader who brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the role.

"I am deeply grateful to Professor Guy Poppy for his excellent service as BBSRC’s interim Executive Chair. His leadership of BBSRC and on the UKRI Executive Committee has been greatly appreciated."

Professor Ferguson-Smith said: "It’s a privilege to be chosen for such an important role, and to be able to champion the BBSRC’s research strategy in alignment with national and global challenges. I’ve been supported by and been working within the BBSRC for a number of years now in a range of contexts, so I’m delighted I will be leading such a connected and effective community, with such a strong legacy created by the previous Executive Chair.

"I’m looking forward to working within UKRI to support talent development and end-to-end impactful research, from discovery to application. I will be connecting with ministers and other partners to drive an ambitious national agenda in research innovation."

Professor Deborah Prentice, Vice-Chancellor at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: "I am thrilled that Anne has been appointed as Executive Chair of the BBSRC. ̽��ֱ��appointment underscores what those of us who have worked with her know so well – her personal experience in excellent research, her deep knowledge of the wider research sector, and her ability to bring together colleagues across many fields in pursuit of an institution’s strategic needs. She will be a boon to the BBSRC, and to the UK’s research and innovation landscape more widely, and we are all immensely proud of her."

Professor Ferguson-Smith will take up post as BBSRC’s Executive Chair on 1 July 2024.

Professor Anne Ferguson-Smith, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and International Partnerships at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, has been appointed Executive Chair of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).

It’s a privilege to be chosen for such an important role, and to be able to champion the BBSRC’s research strategy in alignment with national and global challenges.

Professor Anne Ferguson-Smith

̽��ֱ��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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Dementia patients struggle to cope with change because of damage to general intelligence brain networks

cjb250 — Tue, 08 Mar 2022 18:00:44 +0000

There are many different types of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal dementia (FTD), which are characterised by the build-up of different toxic proteins in different parts of the brain. This means that the symptoms of dementia vary, and can include problems with memory, speech, behaviour or vision. But one symptom seen across every type of dementia is a difficulty in responding to unexpected situations.

Dr Thomas Cope from the MRC Cognition and Brain Science Unit and Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge said: “At the heart of all dementias is one core symptom, which is that when things change or go unexpectedly, people find it very difficult. If people are in their own environment and everything is going to plan, then they are OK. But as soon as the kettle’s broken or they go somewhere new, they can find it very hard to deal with.”

To understand why this happens, Dr Cope and colleagues analysed data from 75 patients, all of whom are affected by one of four types of dementia that affect different areas of the brain. ̽��ֱ��patients, together with 48 healthy controls, listened to changing sounds while their brain activity was recorded by a magnetoencephalography machine, which measures the tiny magnetic fields produced by electrical currents in the brain. Unlike traditional MRI scanners, these machines allow very precise timing of what is happening in the brain and when. ̽��ֱ��results of their experiment are published today in the Journal of Neuroscience.

During the scan, the volunteers watched a silent film – David Attenborough’s Planet Earth, but without its soundtrack – while listening to a series of beeps. ̽��ֱ��beeps occurred at a steady pattern, but occasionally a beep would be different, for example a higher pitch or different volume.

̽��ֱ��team found that the unusual beep triggered two responses in the brain: an immediate response followed by a second response around 200 milliseconds – a fifth of a second – a later.

̽��ֱ��initial response came from the basic auditory system, recognising that it had heard a beep. This response was the same in the patients and healthy volunteers.

̽��ֱ��second response, however, recognised that the beep was unusual. This response was much smaller among the people with dementia than among the healthy volunteers. In other words, in the healthy controls, the brain was better at recognising that something had changed.

̽��ֱ��researchers looked at which brain areas activated during the task and how they were connected up, and combined their data with that from MRI scans, which show the structure of the brain. They showed that damage to areas of the brain known as ‘multiple demand networks’ was associated with a reduction in the later response.

Multiple demand networks, which are found both at the front and rear of the brain, are areas of the brain that do not have a specific task, but instead are involved in general intelligence – for example problems solving. They are highly evolved, found only in humans, primates and more intelligent animals. It is these networks that allow us to be flexible in our environment.

In the healthy volunteers, the sound is picked up by the auditory system, which relays information to the multiple demand network to be processed and interpreted. ̽��ֱ��network then ‘reports back’ to the auditory system, instructing it whether to carry on or to attend to the sound.

“There's a lot of controversy about what exactly multiple demand networks do and how involved they are in our basic perception of the world,” said Dr Cope. “There's been an assumption that these intelligence networks work ‘above’ everything else, doing their own thing and just taking in information. But what we've shown is no, they're fundamental to how we perceive the world.

“That's why we can look at a picture and immediately pick out the faces and immediately pick out the relevant information, whereas somebody with dementia will look at that scene a bit more randomly and won't immediately pick out what’s important.”

While the research does not point to any treatments that may alleviate the symptom, it reinforces advice given to dementia patients and their families, said Dr Cope.

“ ̽��ֱ��advice I give in my clinics is that you can help people who are affected by dementia by taking a lot more time to signpost changes, flagging to them that you’re going to start talking about something different or you’re going to do something different. And then repeat yourself more when there's a change, and understand why it’s important to be patient as the brain recognises the new situation.”

Although their study only looked at patients with dementia, the findings may explain similar phenomena experienced by people living with conditions such as schizophrenia, where brain networks can become disrupted.

̽��ֱ��research was funded by the Medical Research Council and National Institute for Health Research, with additional support from Wellcome, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the James S McDonnell Foundation.

Dr Cope is a fellow at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge.

Reference
Cope, TE at al. Causal Evidence for the Multiple Demand Network in Change Detection: Auditory Mismatch Magnetoencephalography across Focal Neurodegenerative Diseases. JNeuro; 8 March 2022; DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1622-21.2022

People with dementia struggle to adapt to changes in their environment because of damage to areas of the brain known as ‘multiple demand networks’, highly-evolved areas of the brain that support general intelligence, say scientists at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

At the heart of all dementias is one core symptom, which is that when things change or go unexpectedly, people find it very difficult

Thomas Cope

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Elderly couple

̽��ֱ��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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New report confirms Babraham Research Campus at forefront in supporting UK’s early-stage bioscience enterprises

jg533 — Tue, 16 Jun 2020 07:00:00 +0000

The report, published today, quantifies the strong contribution the Babraham Research Campus makes to both the commercialisation of life science research and the life science knowledge base, enabling entrepreneur-driven businesses - including academic spin-outs - to form, and facilitating collaboration. It was commissioned by the Campus partners Babraham Bioscience Technologies (BBT) - the organisation which develops and manages the Babraham Research Campus, UKRI-BBSRC, and the Babraham Institute.

̽��ֱ��report’s key findings* include:

• Company fundraising for those based on Campus is accelerated by an average of 5.1 months.

• ̽��ֱ��market value of the top 14 companies on Campus is over £4 billion: an average 7.2 x return for investors.

• 47% of funds raised in the Cambridge region were to those ventures located at the Babraham Research Campus.

• ̽��ֱ��number of people employed on-site increased by over 90% from approximately 900 employees in 2011/12 to 1,700 employees in 2017/18.

• Campus based companies are 20% larger by headcount than they otherwise would be if the Campus did not exist.

• ̽��ֱ��total gross value added (GVA) impact of the Campus on the UK economy is £285 million.

In addition, over 75% of companies based on Campus who were surveyed as part of the research project considered their location on the Babraham Research Campus as either a very important or critically important factor in helping them access laboratory and office space on flexible and affordable terms. ̽��ֱ��ability to attract and retain talent was also highlighted as being greatly enhanced by being part of the Babraham Research Campus community.

“Investment in the Life Sciences Sector is clearly of fundamental importance to the growth of the UK economy and the well-being of its citizens," said Professor Pete Tyler at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge's Department of Land Economy, who led the report.

Derek Jones, CEO, BBT commented: “I am delighted to see that the findings from this report confirms our own internal data and anecdotal evidence of the impact of the Campus. We have tried to ensure that the support we offer to life science companies, whether it be the provision of flexible lease structures; access to science capabilities; or the nurturing and engaging community, is impactful in terms of jobs, scientific progress and increased economic activity, both locally and for the UK as a whole. It appears in many respects that we have succeeded. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the BBT staff on Campus for the part they have played in making the Campus the success which from this evidence it is.”

Andy Richards, CBE, life science entrepreneur, investor and Chair of BBT added: “This impact report is based on a thorough quantitative and qualitative study. It provides an analysis that validates many of the hypotheses postulated as to why life-science companies in a concentrated and supportive ecosystem, such as that forged at the Babraham Research Campus within a vibrant cluster, have a differential advantage. New ventures are able to start-up and develop rapidly with access to science, technology, talent and capital with fewer barriers allowing them to get into the all-important scale-up phase. It is good to see that those on the Campus value the initiatives that have been adopted and the special culture that has been created. As an investor it is a great place to nurture innovative start-ups and a fruitful place to have fast growing scale-ups. A truly low risk environment for ambitious impactful Bioscience.”

Dr Karen Lewis, Executive Director, UKRI- BBSRC said: “I am very pleased to see publication of this report, which highlights the significant contribution the Babraham Research Campus makes to the local and national research and innovation ecosystem. UKRI-BBSRC is delighted that the report recognises the Campus as a dynamic place where institute researchers are able to deliver world leading bioscience, and life science companies can develop their science, build and scale-up their business, in a highly connected and collaborative community. ̽��ֱ��findings from this study highlight the vital role that long-term public and private investment has played in developing the Campus. ̽��ֱ��insights will help to ensure continued success in delivering economic growth and societal benefits.”

Professor Wolf Reik FRS, Acting Director, Babraham Institute said: "We are excited to see publication of this informative report, which highlights key impacts created by collaborations across the Babraham Research Campus. ̽��ֱ��Babraham Research Campus is unique in bringing together the world-leading academic research of the Babraham Institute and the vibrant and growing ecosystem of the Campus, with meaningful links existing at many different levels. These links are seen in collaborations, spin-out companies, joint funding, access to world class scientific facilities, training, and generally a better understanding of how fundamental science feeds into commercial developments with huge potential societal benefit."

Download a copy of the Executive Summary: ‘ ̽��ֱ��Economic Impact of the Babraham Research Campus: An exploration of key findings’, access the full report and view the Babraham Research Campus Impact film.

*Report data collated in 2019 covering the period 2011-2018.

Research led by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge has demonstrated the benefits and outputs from the significant taxpayer investment into the Babraham Research Campus; evidencing the overall economic, social and scientific contribution the Campus makes to the UK economy.

̽��ֱ��evidence from this study shows how well-targeted public sector support over a sustained period of time can add real value by enhancing the creation of knowledge, driving innovation and enabling entrepreneur driven life science businesses to flourish.

Pete Tyler

Aerial view of Babraham Research Campus

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