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If you have been accepted for publication - upload your manuscript by  clicking here

What is open access.

Open Access is simply making published research results freely available to anyone with an internet connection rather than keeping those results hidden behind a subscription paywall. The term open access was coined in 2002 as part of the  Budapest Open Access Initiative .

The majority of scholarly journals are only available to people who pay a subscription or who are members of an institution who pays a subscription. Open Access uses digital technology to make research findings widely available. There are two ways to make work available: either by depositing a copy of their published work in a repository or by publishing in a journal that makes the work freely available immediately.

Why Open Access?

A large proportion of the research undertaken in the UK is supported by public funds. The researchers do the research and write up their work into journal articles, conference papers, books chapters or books. Once submitted for publication editors (other researchers) assess the work and send it out for peer review which is conducted by the academic community. Researchers do not receive payment or royalties for their published articles. In addition, the tasks of peer review and editing are considered to be part of the scholarly process and are undertaken without payment.

Once the work is published, institutional libraries (which are publicly funded) pay large amounts for subscriptions to journals. This means that people affiliated with these institutions can access the research but those without an affiliation cannot. Practitioners such as pharmacists, teachers, nurses, business people are unable to see the latest developments in their field.

How do we make work Open Access?

Making a copy of published work available in a subject-based or an institutional repository is referred to as ‘green’ Open Access. The  Cambridge repository  contains many thousands of open access items. You can deposit your work to the repository  here . Examples of subject-based repositories include such as  arXiv  in the high energy physics and mathematics disciplines, Social Science Research Network ( SSRN ), Research Papers in Economics ( RePEc ) and  PubMed Central . 

Alternatively researchers can publish in an Open Access journal, where the publisher of a scholarly journal provides free online access to the full content of the journal.  Business models for this form of Open Access vary.  In some cases, the publisher charges the author’s institution or funding body an article processing charge (APC). All Public Library of Science ( PLOS ) journals use this model. This is referred to as ‘gold’ Open Access.

A relatively new model is 'hybrid' journals, where publishers offer the option of paying to make a particular article Open Access within an otherwise subscription journal. This does open up the question of 'double dipping' - where the publishers receive payment for both the subscription and the article processing charges. In order to address this issue, there have been several offsetting arrangements negoatiated for UK universities.

Benefits of Open Access

Open Access makes published research freely available to people without a subscription. The philosophical basis for Open Access is that publicly funded research should be publicly available. In addition, humanity is facing considerable challenges in relation to food, water, energy and transport into the future. We need the research community to work together to devise solutions, and excluding a significant number of researchers from the discussion because research output is behind paywalls does not work towards this end goal.  This image demonstrates some of the benefits of Open Access .

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The Quality of life and Psychosocial Wellbeing of Burn Survivors: A Systematic Review

This study has been conducted to evaluate factors that affect the quality of life (QoL) of burn survivors in relation to long-term recovery and psychosocial wellbeing. These factors include sexual function, cultural variations, family life, and education. This research has been performed as a systematic review to assess the available research on evaluating health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and psychological outcomes in burn survivors.

• Research Article
• Read more about The Quality of life and Psychosocial Wellbeing of Burn Survivors: A Systematic Review
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Assessment of Psychological Status (PTSD and Depression) Among The Terrorism Affected Hazara Community in Quetta, Pakistan

• Read more about Assessment of Psychological Status (PTSD and Depression) Among The Terrorism Affected Hazara Community in Quetta, Pakistan

Continuity of Care in Elective Hernia Repair Surgery

• Read more about Continuity of Care in Elective Hernia Repair Surgery

Specialty Stereotypes held by Medical Students

• Read more about Specialty Stereotypes held by Medical Students

Arterial calcifications in a 96-year-old vasculopathic lady

• Read more about Arterial calcifications in a 96-year-old vasculopathic lady

Complex atypical hyperplasia of the endometrium: The significance of patient demographics, treatment decisions, and the use of Myosure in the incidence of complex atypical hyperplasia

• Read more about Complex atypical hyperplasia of the endometrium: The significance of patient demographics, treatment decisions, and the use of Myosure in the incidence of complex atypical hyperplasia

In children in the care system, how can we improve mental health services for the treatment of mental health disorders in this paediatric subpopulation?

• Read more about In children in the care system, how can we improve mental health services for the treatment of mental health disorders in this paediatric subpopulation?

The benefits of reflection and role models in learning medicine: An interview with Dr Paquita De Zulueta

1. Comfort, Panic and Learning Medicine

Paquita was thrown into the deep end as a final year medical student, while working as a locum foundation year doctor (“house officer” in those days). On one occasion, she witnessed a death on the operating table and was entrusted with breaking the bad news to the family. She still vividly recalls the neurosurgical operation, which involved the clipping of a berry aneurysm:

• Read more about The benefits of reflection and role models in learning medicine: An interview with Dr Paquita De Zulueta

Variation in management of breast lesions with ultrasound appearances typical of a fibroadenoma

1. INTRODUCTION

Conventionally, all women presenting with a palpable breast lesion undergo a triple assessment, consisting of clinical examination, imaging and needle biopsy. Mammography is usually used in older women, while ultrasound is the imaging test of choice in younger women as their denser breast tissue limits mammographic sensitivity  [1] .

• Read more about Variation in management of breast lesions with ultrasound appearances typical of a fibroadenoma

Detection of Coeliac Patients at Risk of an Osteoporotic Fracture: A Two-Cycle Clinical Audit

Introduction.

Osteoporotic fractures are a common problem presenting to health services in the UK: Around 300,000 osteoporotic (or ‘low-impact’) fractures, defined as those resulting from a force equivalent to falling from a standing position, occur each year [1].

• Read more about Detection of Coeliac Patients at Risk of an Osteoporotic Fracture: A Two-Cycle Clinical Audit
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Copyright © Cambridge Medical Journal | ISSN 2046-1798

Release Summary

Majority of Cambridge research papers now open access

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Research strategy

The Department of Psychology Research Strategy involves three research themes to foster integration, strengthen collaborations and increase the impact of our research projects.

Our Research Strategy aims to • Enhance interactions and develop new links among researchers across levels within the Department • Enhance links to other Departments across Schools and involvement in large-scale funding initiatives. • Develop an outward-looking research profile for the Department 

Following extensive consultation, Spring 2021 saw the establishment of six new cross-cutting Research Themes in the School of Biological Sciences, designed to provide research integration across the School, encourage new conversations and enhance interdisciplinary networking critical for major innovation.

Research Themes - Year in Review:  A comprehensive update and progress on Research Theme activities over the course of their first year can be found in the report ' Research Themes - Year in Review '. You can also watch a highlight  video .

Current research themes in Psychology

Brain-language-and-bilingualism.jpg.

Research areas:  Behavioural Neuroscience, Cognitive Neuroscience, Perceptual and Cognitive Systems, Brain Computations, Neuropsychiatry and disease models

Research in this group focuses on understanding the mechanisms that underlie behaviour, perception and cognition in human and animal models. We bring together interdisciplinary methodologies that range from behavioural testing, state-of-the-art imaging, genomic and neurobiological measures to computational approaches.

Research groups and labs associated with this theme

Blakemore Lab: Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Group

Brain, Language and Bilingualism lab

Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience (Cam-CAN )

Centre for Neuroscience in Education (CNE)

Centre for Speech, Language and Brain (CSLB)

Comparative Cognition Lab

Davis Lab (Visual Cognition Lab)

Emotional Cognition Lab

NeuroInformatics Research Group

Core members

• Dr Stephanie Archer
• Dr Paul Bays
• Dr David Belin
• Dr Richard Bethlehem
• Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore
• Dr Mirjana Bozic
• Dr Tristan A. Bekinschtein
• Dr Lucy Cheke
• Professor Nicola S. Clayton
• Professor Jeff Dalley
• Dr Greg Davis
• Professor Pasco Fearon
• Professor Usha Goswami
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• Dr Rebecca Lawson
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• Professor Jon Simons
• Dr Dénes Szücs
• Dr Deborah Talmi
• Dr Varun Warrier

Affiliated members

• Professor Melissa Hines
• Professor Brian C. J. Moore
• Dr Simone Schnall
• Dr Jason Rentfrow
• Dr Sander van der Linden

nerual-connections-in-the-human-brain.jpg

Research areas:  Genes and Environment, Foundational Development, Children and Families, Adolescence, Ageing

Research in this group asks how the brain and behaviour develop over time. We focus on critical developmental periods, including early life and adolescence, ageing, and developmental disorders. We also investigate interactive effects, e.g., between genes and the environment and between families and children.

Applied Developmental Psychology Research Group

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forking-road-839830_640.jpg

Research areas:  Social cognition, Emotion, Personality and individual differences, Judgement and decision-making, Communication, Big-data analytics.

Research in this group focuses on interactions between psychological and social processes and their impact on judgements, decisions, and behaviour. We use experimental, observational, and computational methods to examine psychological processes and outcomes at multiple levels of analysis, including physiological, experiential, and behavioural.

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Summer 2024 Admissions Open Now. Sign up for upcoming live information sessions here (featuring former and current Admission Officers at Havard and UPenn).

Discourse, debate, and analysis

Cambridge re:think essay competition 2024.

Competition Opens: 15th January, 2024

Essay Submission Deadline: 10th May, 2024 Result Announcement: 20th June, 2024 Award Ceremony and Dinner at the University of Cambridge: 30th July, 2024

We welcome talented high school students from diverse educational settings worldwide to contribute their unique perspectives to the competition.

Entry to the competition is free.

About the Competition

The spirit of the Re:think essay competition is to encourage critical thinking and exploration of a wide range of thought-provoking and often controversial topics. The competition covers a diverse array of subjects, from historical and present issues to speculative future scenarios. Participants are invited to engage deeply with these topics, critically analysing their various facets and implications. It promotes intellectual exploration and encourages participants to challenge established norms and beliefs, presenting opportunities to envision alternative futures, consider the consequences of new technologies, and reevaluate longstanding traditions. 

Ultimately, our aim is to create a platform for students and scholars to share their perspectives on pressing issues of the past and future, with the hope of broadening our collective understanding and generating innovative solutions to contemporary challenges. This year’s competition aims to underscore the importance of discourse, debate, and critical analysis in addressing complex societal issues in nine areas, including:

Religion and Politics

Political science and law, linguistics, environment, sociology and philosophy, business and investment, public health and sustainability, biotechonology.

Artificial Intelligence 

Neuroengineering

2024 essay prompts.

This year, the essay prompts are contributed by distinguished professors from Harvard, Brown, UC Berkeley, Cambridge, Oxford, and MIT.

Essay Guidelines and Judging Criteria

Review general guidelines, format guidelines, eligibility, judging criteria.

Awards and Award Ceremony

Award winners will be invited to attend the Award Ceremony and Dinner hosted at the King’s College, University of Cambridge. The Dinner is free of charge for select award recipients.

Registration and Submission

Register a participant account today and submit your essay before the deadline.

Advisory Committee and Judging Panel

The Cambridge Re:think Essay Competition is guided by an esteemed Advisory Committee comprising distinguished academics and experts from elite universities worldwide. These committee members, drawn from prestigious institutions, such as Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, and MIT, bring diverse expertise in various disciplines.

They play a pivotal role in shaping the competition, contributing their insights to curate the themes and framework. Their collective knowledge and scholarly guidance ensure the competition’s relevance, academic rigour, and intellectual depth, setting the stage for aspiring minds to engage with thought-provoking topics and ideas.

We are honoured to invite the following distinguished professors to contribute to this year’s competition.

The judging panel of the competition comprises leading researchers and professors from Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Cambridge, and Oxford, engaging in a strictly double blind review process.

Keynote Speeches by 10 Nobel Laureates

We are beyond excited to announce that multiple Nobel laureates have confirmed to attend and speak at this year’s ceremony on 30th July, 2024 .

They will each be delivering a keynote speech to the attendees. Some of them distinguished speakers will speak virtually, while others will attend and present in person and attend the Reception at Cambridge.

Why has religion remained a force in a secular world? 

Professor Commentary:

Arguably, the developed world has become more secular in the last century or so. The influence of Christianity, e.g. has diminished and people’s life worlds are less shaped by faith and allegiance to Churches. Conversely, arguments have persisted that hold that we live in a post-secular world. After all, religion – be it in terms of faith, transcendence, or meaning – may be seen as an alternative to a disenchanted world ruled by entirely profane criteria such as economic rationality, progressivism, or science. Is the revival of religion a pale reminder of a by-gone past or does it provide sources of hope for the future?

‘Religion in the Public Sphere’ by Jürgen Habermas (European Journal of Philosophy, 2006)

In this paper, philosopher Jürgen Habermas discusses the limits of church-state separation, emphasizing the significant contribution of religion to public discourse when translated into publicly accessible reasons.

‘Public Religions in the Modern World’ by José Casanova (University Of Chicago Press, 1994)

Sociologist José Casanova explores the global emergence of public religion, analyzing case studies from Catholicism and Protestantism in Spain, Poland, Brazil, and the USA, challenging traditional theories of secularization.

‘The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere’ by Judith Butler, Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor, and Cornel West (Edited by Eduardo Mendieta and Jonathan VanAntwerpen, Columbia University Press, 2011)

This collection features dialogues by prominent intellectuals on the role of religion in the public sphere, examining various approaches and their impacts on cultural, social, and political debates.

‘Rethinking Secularism’ by Craig Calhoun, Mark Juergensmeyer, and Jonathan VanAntwerpen (Oxford University Press, 2011)

An interdisciplinary examination of secularism, this book challenges traditional views, highlighting the complex relationship between religion and secularism in contemporary global politics.

‘God is Back: How the Global Rise of Faith is Changing the World’ by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge (Penguin, 2010)

Micklethwait and Wooldridge argue for the coexistence of religion and modernity, suggesting that religious beliefs can contribute to a more open, tolerant, and peaceful modern world.

‘Multiculturalism’ by Tariq Modood (Polity Press, 2013)

Sociologist Tariq Modood emphasizes the importance of multiculturalism in integrating diverse identities, particularly in post-immigration contexts, and its role in shaping democratic citizenship.

‘God’s Agents: Biblical Publicity in Contemporary England’ by Matthew Engelke (University of California Press, 2013)

In this ethnographic study, Matthew Engelke explores how a group in England seeks to expand the role of religion in the public sphere, challenging perceptions of religion in post-secular England.

Gene therapy is a medical approach that treats or prevents disease by correcting the underlying genetic problem. Is gene therapy better than traditional medicines? What are the pros and cons of using gene therapy as a medicine? Is gene therapy justifiable?

Especially after Covid-19 mRNA vaccines, gene therapy is getting more and more interesting approach to cure. That’s why that could be interesting to think about. I believe that students will enjoy and learn a lot while they are investigating this topic.

The Hall at King’s College, Cambridge

The Hall was designed by William Wilkins in the 1820s and is considered one of the most magnificent halls of its era. The first High Table dinner in the Hall was held in February 1828, and ever since then, the splendid Hall has been where members of the college eat and where formal dinners have been held for centuries.

The Award Ceremony and Dinner will be held in the Hall in the evening of  30th July, 2024.

Stretching out down to the River Cam, the Back Lawn has one of the most iconic backdrop of King’s College Chapel. 

The early evening reception will be hosted on the Back Lawn with the iconic Chapel in the background (weather permitting). 

King’s College Chapel

With construction started in 1446 by Henry VI and took over a century to build, King’s College Chapel is one of the most iconic buildings in the world, and is a splendid example of late Gothic architecture. 

Attendees are also granted complimentary access to the King’s College Chapel before and during the event. 

Confirmed Nobel Laureates

Dr Thomas R. Cech

The nobel prize in chemistry 1989 , for the discovery of catalytic properties of rna.

Thomas Robert Cech is an American chemist who shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Sidney Altman, for their discovery of the catalytic properties of RNA. Cech discovered that RNA could itself cut strands of RNA, suggesting that life might have started as RNA. He found that RNA can not only transmit instructions, but also that it can speed up the necessary reactions.

He also studied telomeres, and his lab discovered an enzyme, TERT (telomerase reverse transcriptase), which is part of the process of restoring telomeres after they are shortened during cell division.

As president of Howard Hughes Medical Institute, he promoted science education, and he teaches an undergraduate chemistry course at the University of Colorado

Sir Richard J. Roberts

The nobel prize in medicine 1993 .

F or the discovery of split genes

During 1969–1972, Sir Richard J. Roberts did postdoctoral research at Harvard University before moving to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was hired by James Dewey Watson, a co-discoverer of the structure of DNA and a fellow Nobel laureate. In this period he also visited the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology for the first time, working alongside Fred Sanger. In 1977, he published his discovery of RNA splicing. In 1992, he moved to New England Biolabs. The following year, he shared a Nobel Prize with his former colleague at Cold Spring Harbor Phillip Allen Sharp.

His discovery of the alternative splicing of genes, in particular, has had a profound impact on the study and applications of molecular biology. The realisation that individual genes could exist as separate, disconnected segments within longer strands of DNA first arose in his 1977 study of adenovirus, one of the viruses responsible for causing the common cold. Robert’s research in this field resulted in a fundamental shift in our understanding of genetics, and has led to the discovery of split genes in higher organisms, including human beings.

Dr Aaron Ciechanover

The nobel prize in chemistry 2004 .

F or the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation

Aaron Ciechanover is one of Israel’s first Nobel Laureates in science, earning his Nobel Prize in 2004 for his work in ubiquitination. He is honored for playing a central role in the history of Israel and in the history of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.

Dr Ciechanover is currently a Technion Distinguished Research Professor in the Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute at the Technion. He is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the Russian Academy of Sciences and is a foreign associate of the United States National Academy of Sciences. In 2008, he was a visiting Distinguished Chair Professor at NCKU, Taiwan. As part of Shenzhen’s 13th Five-Year Plan funding research in emerging technologies and opening “Nobel laureate research labs”, in 2018 he opened the Ciechanover Institute of Precision and Regenerative Medicine at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen campus.

Dr Robert Lefkowitz

The nobel prize in chemistry 2012 .

F or the discovery of G protein-coupled receptors

Robert Joseph Lefkowitz is an American physician (internist and cardiologist) and biochemist. He is best known for his discoveries that reveal the inner workings of an important family G protein-coupled receptors, for which he was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with Brian Kobilka. He is currently an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute as well as a James B. Duke Professor of Medicine and Professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry at Duke University.

Dr Lefkowitz made a remarkable contribution in the mid-1980s when he and his colleagues cloned the gene first for the β-adrenergic receptor, and then rapidly thereafter, for a total of 8 adrenergic receptors (receptors for adrenaline and noradrenaline). This led to the seminal discovery that all GPCRs (which include the β-adrenergic receptor) have a very similar molecular structure. The structure is defined by an amino acid sequence which weaves its way back and forth across the plasma membrane seven times. Today we know that about 1,000 receptors in the human body belong to this same family. The importance of this is that all of these receptors use the same basic mechanisms so that pharmaceutical researchers now understand how to effectively target the largest receptor family in the human body. Today, as many as 30 to 50 percent of all prescription drugs are designed to “fit” like keys into the similarly structured locks of Dr Lefkowitz’ receptors—everything from anti-histamines to ulcer drugs to beta blockers that help relieve hypertension, angina and coronary disease.

Dr Lefkowitz is among the most highly cited researchers in the fields of biology, biochemistry, pharmacology, toxicology, and clinical medicine according to Thomson-ISI.

Dr Joachim Frank

The nobel prize in chemistry 2017 .

F or developing cryo-electron microscopy

Joachim Frank is a German-American biophysicist at Columbia University and a Nobel laureate. He is regarded as the founder of single-particle cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2017 with Jacques Dubochet and Richard Henderson. He also made significant contributions to structure and function of the ribosome from bacteria and eukaryotes.

In 1975, Dr Frank was offered a position of senior research scientist in the Division of Laboratories and Research (now Wadsworth Center), New York State Department of Health,where he started working on single-particle approaches in electron microscopy. In 1985 he was appointed associate and then (1986) full professor at the newly formed Department of Biomedical Sciences of the University at Albany, State University of New York. In 1987 and 1994, he went on sabbaticals in Europe, one to work with Richard Henderson, Laboratory of Molecular Biology Medical Research Council in Cambridge and the other as a Humboldt Research Award winner with Kenneth C. Holmes, Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg. In 1998, Dr Frank was appointed investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). Since 2003 he was also lecturer at Columbia University, and he joined Columbia University in 2008 as professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics and of biological sciences.

Dr Barry C. Barish

The nobel prize in physics 2017 .

For the decisive contributions to the detection of gravitational waves

Dr Barry Clark Barish is an American experimental physicist and Nobel Laureate. He is a Linde Professor of Physics, emeritus at California Institute of Technology and a leading expert on gravitational waves.

In 2017, Barish was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics along with Rainer Weiss and Kip Thorne “for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves”. He said, “I didn’t know if I would succeed. I was afraid I would fail, but because I tried, I had a breakthrough.”

In 2018, he joined the faculty at University of California, Riverside, becoming the university’s second Nobel Prize winner on the faculty.

In the fall of 2023, he joined Stony Brook University as the inaugural President’s Distinguished Endowed Chair in Physics.

In 2023, Dr Barish was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Biden in a White House ceremony.

Dr Harvey J. Alter

The nobel prize in medicine 2020 .

For the discovery of Hepatitis C virus

Dr Harvey J. Alter is an American medical researcher, virologist, physician and Nobel Prize laureate, who is best known for his work that led to the discovery of the hepatitis C virus. Alter is the former chief of the infectious disease section and the associate director for research of the Department of Transfusion Medicine at the Warren Grant Magnuson Clinical Center in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland. In the mid-1970s, Alter and his research team demonstrated that most post-transfusion hepatitis cases were not due to hepatitis A or hepatitis B viruses. Working independently, Alter and Edward Tabor, a scientist at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, proved through transmission studies in chimpanzees that a new form of hepatitis, initially called “non-A, non-B hepatitis” caused the infections, and that the causative agent was probably a virus. This work eventually led to the discovery of the hepatitis C virus in 1988, for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2020 along with Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice.

Dr Alter has received recognition for the research leading to the discovery of the virus that causes hepatitis C. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, the highest award conferred to civilians in United States government public health service, and the 2000 Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research.

Dr Ardem Patapoutian

The nobel prize in medicine 2021 .

For discovering how pressure is translated into nerve impulses

Dr Ardem Patapoutian is an Lebanese-American molecular biologist, neuroscientist, and Nobel Prize laureate of Armenian descent. He is known for his work in characterising the PIEZO1, PIEZO2, and TRPM8 receptors that detect pressure, menthol, and temperature. Dr Patapoutian is a neuroscience professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California. In 2021, he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with David Julius.

Frequently Asked Questions

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The Re:think Essay competition is meant to serve as fertile ground for honing writing skills, fostering critical thinking, and refining communication abilities. Winning or participating in reputable contests can lead to recognition, awards, scholarships, or even publication opportunities, elevating your academic profile for college applications and future endeavours. Moreover, these competitions facilitate intellectual growth by encouraging exploration of diverse topics, while also providing networking opportunities and exposure to peers, educators, and professionals. Beyond accolades, they instil confidence, prepare for higher education demands, and often allow you to contribute meaningfully to societal conversations or causes, making an impact with your ideas.

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As long as you’re currently attending high school, regardless of your location or background, you’re eligible to participate. We welcome students from diverse educational settings worldwide to contribute their unique perspectives to the competition.

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There is no entry fee for the competition. Waiving the entry fee for our essay competition demonstrates CCIR’s dedication to equity. CCIR believes everyone should have an equal chance to participate and showcase their talents, regardless of financial circumstances. Removing this barrier ensures a diverse pool of participants and emphasises merit and creativity over economic capacity, fostering a fair and inclusive environment for all contributors.

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Paper: To understand cognition—and its dysfunction—neuroscientists must learn its rhythms

Thought emerges and is controlled in the brain via the rhythmically and spatially coordinated activity of millions of neurons, scientists argue in a new article. Understanding cognition and its disorders requires studying it at that level.

It could be very informative to observe the pixels on your phone under a microscope, but not if your goal is to understand what a whole video on the screen shows. Cognition is much the same kind of emergent property in the brain . It can only be understood by observing how millions of cells act in coordination, argues a trio of MIT neuroscientists. In a new article , they lay out a framework for understanding how thought arises from the coordination of neural activity driven by oscillating electric fields—also known as brain “waves” or “rhythms.”

Historically dismissed solely as byproducts of neural activity, brain rhythms are actually critical for organizing it, write Picower Professor Earl Miller and research scientists Scott Brincat and Jefferson Roy in Current Opinion in Behavioral Science . And while neuroscientists have gained tremendous knowledge from studying how individual brain cells connect and how and when they emit “spikes” to send impulses through specific circuits, there is also a need to appreciate and apply new concepts at the brain rhythm scale, which can span individual, or even multiple, brain regions.

“Spiking and anatomy are important but there is more going on in the brain above and beyond that,” said senior author Miller, a faculty member in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. “There’s a whole lot of functionality taking place at a higher level, especially cognition.”

The stakes of studying the brain at that scale, the authors write, might not only include understanding healthy higher-level function but also how those functions become disrupted in disease.

“Many neurological and psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia, epilepsy and Parkinson’s involve disruption of emergent properties like neural synchrony,” they write. “We anticipate that understanding how to interpret and interface with these emergent properties will be critical for developing effective treatments as well as understanding cognition.”

The emergence of thoughts

The bridge between the scale of individual neurons and the broader-scale coordination of many cells is founded on electric fields, the researchers write. Via a phenomenon called “ephaptic coupling,” the electrical field generated by the activity of a neuron can influence the voltage of neighboring neurons, creating an alignment among them. In this way, electric fields both reflect neural activity but also influence it. In a paper in 2022 , Miller and colleagues showed via experiments and computational modeling that the information encoded in the electric fields generated by ensembles of neurons can be read out more reliably than the information encoded by the spikes of individual cells. In 2023 Miller’s lab provided evidence that rhythmic electrical fields may coordinate memories between regions.

At this larger scale, in which rhythmic electric fields carry information between brain regions, Miller’s lab has published numerous studies showing that lower-frequency rhythms in the so-called “beta” band originate in deeper layers of the brain’s cortex and appear to regulate the power of faster-frequency “gamma” rhythms in more superficial layers. By recording neural activity in the brains of animals engaged in working memory games the lab has shown that beta rhythms carry “top down” signals to control when and where gamma rhythms can encode sensory information, such as the images that the animals need to remember in the game.

Some of the lab’s latest evidence suggests that beta rhythms apply this control of cognitive processes to physical patches of the cortex, essentially acting like stencils that pattern where and when gamma can encode sensory information into memory, or retrieve it. According to this theory, which Miller calls “ Spatial Computing ,” beta can thereby establish the general rules of a task (for instance, the back and forth turns required to open a combination lock), even as the specific information content may change (for instance, new numbers when the combination changes). More generally, this structure also enables neurons to flexibly encode more than one kind of information at a time, the authors write, a widely observed neural property called “mixed selectivity.” For instance, a neuron encoding a number of the lock combination can also be assigned, based on which beta-stenciled patch it is in, the particular step of the unlocking process that the number matters for.

In the new study Miller, Brincat and Roy suggest another advantage consistent with cognitive control being based on an interplay of large-scale coordinated rhythmic activity: “Subspace coding.” This idea postulates that brain rhythms organize the otherwise massive number of possible outcomes that could result from, say, 1,000 neurons engaging in independent spiking activity. Instead of all the many combinatorial possibilities, many fewer “subspaces” of activity actually arise, because neurons are coordinated, rather than independent. It is as if the spiking of neurons is like a flock of birds coordinating their movements.  Different phases and frequencies of brain rhythms provide this coordination, aligned to amplify each other, or offset to prevent interference. For instance, if a piece of sensory information needs to be remembered, neural activity representing it can be protected from interference when new sensory information is perceived.

“Thus the organization of neural responses into subspaces can both segregate and integrate information,” the authors write.

The power of brain rhythms to coordinate and organize information processing in the brain is what enables functional cognition to emerge at that scale, the authors write. Understanding cognition in the brain, therefore, requires studying rhythms.

“Studying individual neural components in isolation—individual neurons and synapses—has made enormous contributions to our understanding of the brain and remains important,” the authors conclude. “However, it’s becoming increasingly clear that, to fully capture the brain’s complexity, those components must be analyzed in concert to identify, study, and relate their emergent properties.”

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Will Cambridge Support Free Speech?

The university is investigating Nathan Cofnas, a research fellow who published a blog post advocating “race realism.” Were Cofnas to be dismissed, it would sound a warning to students and academics everywhere: even the world’s most renowned universities may no longer stand by their commitment to freedom of thought and discussion.

MELBOURNE – Nathan Cofnas is a research fellow in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. His research is supported by a grant from the Leverhulme Trust. He is also a college research associate at Emmanuel College. Working at the intersection of science and philosophy, he has published several papers in leading peer-reviewed journals. He also writes popular articles and posts on Substack .

In January, Cofnas published a post called “ Why We Need to Talk about the Right’s Stupidity Problem .” No one at Cambridge seems to have been bothered by his argument that people on the political right have, on average, lower intelligence than those on the left.

Some people at Cambridge were, however, very much bothered by Cofnas’s February post, “ A Guide for the Hereditarian Revolution .” To follow Cofnas’s “guide,” one must accept “race realism”: the view that heredity plays a role in the existing social and economic differences between different demographic groups. Only by challenging the taboo against race realism, Cofnas believes, can conservatives overcome “wokism,” which he sees as a barrier to understanding the causes of inequality and to allowing people to succeed on the basis of merit.

If Harvard University admitted students “under a colorblind system that judged applicants only by academic qualifications,” Cofnas asserted, Black people “would make up 0.7% of Harvard students.” He also wrote that in a meritocracy, the number of black professors at Harvard “would approach 0%.”

That post gave rise to a petition from Cambridge students demanding that the university dismiss Cofnas. The petition currently has about 1,200 signatures .

On February 16, the Master of Emmanuel College, Doug Chalmers, responded to the protests by saying that the college is committed to “providing an environment that is free from all discrimination.” The relevance of this comment is unclear; although there are many statements in Cofnas’s post that one can reasonably object to, it does not advocate racial discrimination. Importantly, though – or so it seemed at the time – Chalmers added that the college is also committed to “freedom of thought and expression,” and he acknowledged Cofnas’s “academic right, as enshrined by law, to write about his views.”

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On the same day, Professor Bhaskar Vira, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education at Cambridge, issued a brief statement that began: “Freedom of speech within the law is a right that sits at the heart of the University of Cambridge. We encourage our community to challenge ideas they disagree with and engage in rigorous debate.” He then made the obvious point that “the voice of one academic does not reflect the views of the whole university community,” adding that many staff and students “challenge the academic validity of the arguments presented.” His statement concluded by seeking to reassure students who were “understandably hurt and upset” by Cofnas’s views that “everyone at Cambridge has earned their place on merit and no one at this University should be made to feel like this.”

There was no suggestion, in the statements made by Chalmers or Vira, that either Emmanuel College or the University of Cambridge was considering dismissing Cofnas. Yet, in the face of continuing protests, both the college and the university bowed to the pressure and began their own inquiries, as did the Leverhulme Trust. The university’s inquiry and that of the Trust are, at the time of writing, ongoing, but on April 5 Cofnas received a letter notifying him that Emmanuel College had decided to terminate its association with him.

In justifying that decision, the letter informed Cofnas of the views of a committee that had been asked to consider his blog:

“The Committee first considered the meaning of the blog and concluded that it amounted to, or could reasonably be construed as amounting to, a rejection of Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion (DEI and EDI) policies ... The Committee concluded that the core mission of the College was to achieve educational excellence and that diversity and inclusion were inseparable from that. The ideas promoted by the blog therefore represented a challenge to the College’s core values and mission.”

These sentences imply that at Emmanuel College, freedom of expression does not include the freedom to challenge its DEI policies, and that challenging them may be grounds for dismissal. That is an extraordinary statement for a tertiary institution to make. It is even more surprising given that the adoption of DEI policies is a relatively recent phenomenon.

Emmanuel College’s decision does not prevent Cofnas from continuing to hold his research fellowship in the Faculty of Philosophy. But that would cease to be the case if the university inquiry were to reach the same conclusion as the college.

The academic world will be watching what happens. Were the University of Cambridge to dismiss Cofnas, it would sound a warning to students and academics everywhere: when it comes to controversial topics, even the world’s most renowned universities can no longer be relied upon to stand by their commitment to defend freedom of thought and discussion.

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AI and machine learning techniques have shown promise in speeding up the initial stage of this process, by discovering potential drugs for cancers and several other diseases, leading dozens of biomedical startup companies to bet on the potential of AI for drug discovery.

"One route to search for potential treatments for Parkinson’s requires the identification of small molecules that can inhibit the aggregation of alpha-synuclein, which is a protein closely associated with the disease," said Vendruscolo in a press release .

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The new study showed how an AI-based strategy sped up this process significantly and was a thousand times cheaper than traditional methods, identifying a small number of potentially useful compounds which were taken forward for laboratory testing. The results from these experiments were then fed back into the machine learning model to further optimize the predictions.

“The use of AI to develop machine learning approaches to drug discovery for protein aggregation diseases like Parkinson’s, has definitely arrived," said Michael S. Okun, M.D., National Medical Advisor for the Parkinson’s Foundation and Director of the Fixel Institute for Neurological Diseases at the University of Florida. "The over 20-fold improvement over typical high-throughput drug screening hit rates was impressive in this study and will add to the list of potential drugs to consider for clinical trials," added Okun, who was not involved in the research.

Nearly 90,000 Americans are diagnosed with Parkinson's disease annually, according to the Parkinson's Foundation, with a million people in the U.S. currently living with the disease. Despite this, there are currently no curative treatments for the disease, only drugs to manage symptoms which include tremors, balance and mobility issues and muscle stiffness.

"Machine learning is having a real impact on drug discovery – it’s speeding up the whole process of identifying the most promising candidates," said Vendruscolo. “For us, this means we can start work on multiple drug discovery programmes – instead of just one. So much is possible due to the massive reduction in both time and cost – it’s an exciting time."

However, discovering promising new compounds is only one, very early step in actually getting tried and tested drugs to patients.

“Whether this innovation however, will speed discovery of new Parkinson’s therapeutics is complicated, as introducing more compounds could actually slow the pipeline," said Okun. "Thus, a parallel and large investment will be needed in basic science research to better understand the pathogenesis of Parkinson’s disease and to more precisely apply this, and other novel AI derived drug discovery methodologies.”

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Advancing technology for aquaculture

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According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, aquaculture in the United States represents a $1.5 billion industry annually. Like land-based farming, shellfish aquaculture requires healthy seed production in order to maintain a sustainable industry. Aquaculture hatchery production of shellfish larvae — seeds — requires close monitoring to track mortality rates and assess health from the earliest stages of life. 

Careful observation is necessary to inform production scheduling, determine effects of naturally occurring harmful bacteria, and ensure sustainable seed production. This is an essential step for shellfish hatcheries but is currently a time-consuming manual process prone to human error. 

With funding from MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS), MIT Sea Grant is working with Associate Professor Otto Cordero of the MIT Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Professor Taskin Padir and Research Scientist Mark Zolotas at the Northeastern University Institute for Experiential Robotics, and others at the Aquaculture Research Corporation (A.R.C.), and the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance, to advance technology for the aquaculture industry. Located on Cape Cod, A.R.C. is a leading shellfish hatchery, farm, and wholesaler that plays a vital role in providing high-quality shellfish seed to local and regional growers.

Two MIT students have joined the effort this semester, working with Robert Vincent, MIT Sea Grant’s assistant director of advisory services, through the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP). 

First-year student Unyime Usua and sophomore Santiago Borrego are using microscopy images of shellfish seed from A.R.C. to train machine learning algorithms that will help automate the identification and counting process. The resulting user-friendly image recognition tool aims to aid aquaculturists in differentiating and counting healthy, unhealthy, and dead shellfish larvae, improving accuracy and reducing time and effort.

Vincent explains that AI is a powerful tool for environmental science that enables researchers, industry, and resource managers to address challenges that have long been pinch points for accurate data collection, analysis, predictions, and streamlining processes. “Funding support from programs like J-WAFS enable us to tackle these problems head-on,” he says. 

ARC faces challenges with manually quantifying larvae classes, an important step in their seed production process. "When larvae are in their growing stages they are constantly being sized and counted,” explains Cheryl James, A.R.C. larval/juvenile production manager. “This process is critical to encourage optimal growth and strengthen the population." 

Developing an automated identification and counting system will help to improve this step in the production process with time and cost benefits. “This is not an easy task,” says Vincent, “but with the guidance of Dr. Zolotas at the Northeastern University Institute for Experiential Robotics and the work of the UROP students, we have made solid progress.” 

The UROP program benefits both researchers and students. Involving MIT UROP students in developing these types of systems provides insights into AI applications that they might not have considered, providing opportunities to explore, learn, and apply themselves while contributing to solving real challenges.

Borrego saw this project as an opportunity to apply what he’d learned in class 6.390 (Introduction to Machine Learning) to a real-world issue. “I was starting to form an idea of how computers can see images and extract information from them,” he says. “I wanted to keep exploring that.”

Usua decided to pursue the project because of the direct industry impacts it could have. “I’m pretty interested in seeing how we can utilize machine learning to make people’s lives easier. We are using AI to help biologists make this counting and identification process easier.” While Usua wasn’t familiar with aquaculture before starting this project, she explains, “Just hearing about the hatcheries that Dr. Vincent was telling us about, it was unfortunate that not a lot of people know what’s going on and the problems that they’re facing.”

On Cape Cod alone, aquaculture is an $18 million per year industry. But the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries estimates that hatcheries are only able to meet 70–80 percent of seed demand annually, which impacts local growers and economies. Through this project, the partners aim to develop technology that will increase seed production, advance industry capabilities, and help understand and improve the hatchery microbiome.

Borrego explains the initial challenge of having limited data to work with. “Starting out, we had to go through and label all of the data, but going through that process helped me learn a lot.” In true MIT fashion, he shares his takeaway from the project: “Try to get the best out of what you’re given with the data you have to work with. You’re going to have to adapt and change your strategies depending on what you have.”

Usua describes her experience going through the research process, communicating in a team, and deciding what approaches to take. “Research is a difficult and long process, but there is a lot to gain from it because it teaches you to look for things on your own and find your own solutions to problems.”

In addition to increasing seed production and reducing the human labor required in the hatchery process, the collaborators expect this project to contribute to cost savings and technology integration to support one of the most underserved industries in the United States. 

Borrego and Usua both plan to continue their work for a second semester with MIT Sea Grant. Borrego is interested in learning more about how technology can be used to protect the environment and wildlife. Usua says she hopes to explore more projects related to aquaculture. “It seems like there’s an infinite amount of ways to tackle these issues.”

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Researchers redesign future mRNA therapeutics to prevent potentially harmful immune responses

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Researchers have discovered that misreading of therapeutic mRNAs by the cell’s decoding machinery can cause an unintended immune response in the body. They have identified the sequence within the mRNA that causes this to occur and found a way to prevent ‘off-target’ immune responses to enable the safer design of future mRNA therapeutics.

As billions of pounds flow into the next set of mRNA treatments, it is essential that these therapeutics are designed to be free from unintended side-effects. Anne Willis

mRNA - or ‘messenger ribonucleic acid’ - is the genetic material that tells cells in the body how to make a specific protein. Researchers from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Toxicology Unit have discovered that the cellular machinery that ‘reads’ mRNAs ‘slips’ when confronted with repeats of a chemical modification commonly found in mRNA therapeutics. In addition to the target protein, these slips lead to the production of ‘off-target’ proteins triggering an unintended immune response.

mRNA vaccines are considered game-changing. They have been used to control the COVID-19 pandemic and are already proposed to treat various cancers, cardiovascular, respiratory, and immunological diseases in the future.

This revolutionary class of therapeutics was made possible in part through the work of biochemist Katalin Karikó and immunologist Drew Weissman. They demonstrated that by adding chemical modifications to the bases – the building blocks of mRNA – the synthetic mRNAs could bypass some of our body’s immune defences allowing a therapeutic to enter the cell and exert its effects. This discovery led to their award of the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 2023.

The latest developments, led by biochemist Professor Anne Willis and immunologist Dr James Thaventhiran from the MRC Toxicology Unit at the University of Cambridge, build upon previous advances to ensure the prevention of any safety issues linked with future mRNA-based therapeutics. Their report was published on 6 December in the journal Nature .

The researchers identified that bases with a chemical modification called N1-methylpseudouridine – which are currently contained in mRNA therapies – are responsible for the ‘slips’ along the mRNA sequence.

In collaboration with researchers at the Universities of Kent, Oxford and Liverpool, the MRC Toxicology Unit team tested for evidence of the production of ‘off-target’ proteins in people who received the mRNA Pfizer vaccine against COVID-19. They found an unintended immune response occurred in one third of the 21 patients in the study who were vaccinated – but with no ill-effects, in keeping with the extensive safety data available on these COVID-19 vaccines.

The team then redesigned mRNA sequences to avoid these ‘off-target’ effects, by correcting the error-prone genetic sequences in the synthetic mRNA. This produced the intended protein. Such design modifications can easily be applied to future mRNA vaccines to produce their desired effects while preventing hazardous and unintended immune responses.

“Research has shown beyond doubt that mRNA vaccination against COVID-19 is safe. Billions of doses of the Moderna and Pfizer mRNA vaccines have been safely delivered, saving lives worldwide,” said Dr James Thaventhiran from the MRC Toxicology Unit, joint senior author of the report.

He added: “We need to ensure that mRNA vaccines of the future are as reliable. Our demonstration of ‘slip-resistant’ mRNAs is a vital contribution to future safety of this medicine platform.”

“These new therapeutics hold much promise for the treatment of a wide range of diseases. As billions of pounds flow into the next set of mRNA treatments, it is essential that these therapeutics are designed to be free from unintended side-effects,” said Professor Anne Willis, Director of the MRC Toxicology Unit and joint senior author of the report.

Thaventhiran, who is also a practising clinician at Addenbrooke’s hospital, said: “We can remove the error-prone code from the mRNA in vaccines so the body will make the proteins we want for an immune response without inadvertently making other proteins as well. The safety concern for future mRNA medicines is that mis-directed immunity has huge potential to be harmful, so off-target immune responses should always be avoided.”

Willis added: “Our work presents both a concern and a solution for this new type of medicine, and result from crucial collaborations between researchers from different disciplines and backgrounds. These findings can be implemented rapidly to prevent any future safety problems arising and ensure that new mRNA therapies are as safe and effective as the COVID-19 vaccines.”

Using synthetic mRNA for therapeutic purposes is attractive because it is cheap to produce, so can address substantial health inequalities across the globe by making these medicines more accessible. Moreover, synthetic mRNAs can be changed rapidly – for example to create a new COVID-19 variant vaccine.

In the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines, synthetic mRNA is used to enable the body to make the spike protein from SARS-CoV-2. The body recognises the viral proteins generated by mRNA vaccines as foreign and generates protective immunity. This persists, and if the body is later exposed to the virus its immune cells can neutralise it before it can cause serious illness.

The cell’s decoding machinery is called a ribosome. It ‘reads’ the genetic code of both natural and synthetic mRNAs to produce proteins. The precise positioning of the ribosome on the mRNA is essential to make the right proteins because the ribosome ‘reads’ the mRNA sequence three bases at a time. Those three bases determine what amino acid is added next into the protein chain. Therefore, even a tiny shift in the ribosome along the mRNA will massively distort the code and the resulting protein.

When the ribosome is confronted with a string of these modified bases called N1-methylpseudouridine in the mRNA, it slips around 10% of the time causing the mRNA to be misread and unintended proteins to be produced – enough to trigger an immune response. Removing these runs of N1-methylpseudouridine from the mRNAs prevents ‘off-target’ protein production.

This research was funded by the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome LEAP R3 programme, and supported by the NIHR Cambridge BRC.

Reference: Mulroney, T E et al: ‘ (N)1-methylpseudouridylation of mRNA causes +1 ribosomal frameshifting .’ Nature, Dec 23. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06800-3

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