Celebrating Student Research at the Cambridge Biosciences DTP Symposium 2025

On Tuesday 22 July, the Cambridge Biosciences Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) held its at Robinson College. The event celebrated the great research students are doing and helped bring people in the Cambridge Biosciences community closer together.

The symposium offered students a valuable chance to hear from leading voices in science and research. This year’s keynote speakers included:

• Professor Ben Lehner, Group Leader at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (Barcelona) and Head of Generative and Synthetic Genomics at the Sanger Institute
• Professor Hagan Bayley, Professor of Chemical Biology at the University of Oxford
• Professor Anne Ferguson-Smith, Executive Chair of the BBSRC
• Professor Alex Webb, Professor of Plant Biology at the University of Cambridge
• Dr Francesca Cesari, Chief Biological, Clinical and Social Sciences Editor at Nature

The event was attended by current DTP students as well as 15 Experience Postgrad Life Sciences interns, who are exploring postgraduate study in the life sciences. Students from the incoming 2025 DTP cohort were also welcomed, giving them a first look into the research culture at Cambridge. A drinks reception at the end of the day offered students the opportunity to connect, share ideas, and learn more about postgraduate life at the university.

As a student-led initiative, the symposium was organised by a dedicated committee of second-year DTP students: Julia Stewart-Wood (Department of Plant Sciences), Darius Hoven (Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology), and Michal Lihan (Department of Biochemistry).

The day featured an impressive line-up of student talks and research posters. These were reviewed by a panel of academic judges, and we’re delighted to congratulate this year’s award winners:

• Best Talk: Nicole Rudy
  
  "Cocaine- and amphetamine-regulated transcript (CART) peptide induces Ca2+ responses in sensory neurons innervating the colon"
• Runner-up, Best Talk: Sara Chelaghma
  
  "Functional rewiring of autophagy machinery for plastid organelle biogenesis in apicomplexan parasites"
• Best Poster: Tara Davis
  
  "The Role of the Gut Microbiota in Pyrrolizidine Alkaloid N-Oxide Toxicity"
• Runner-up, Best Poster: Rowda Dahir
  
  "Regeneration of the mouse heart 7-days Post-Myocardial Infarction through the activation of Myc and Cyclin T1"

A sincere thank you goes to all of our sponsors for making the event possible: BBSRC, New England Biolabs, Promega, BGI, Cambridge Enterprise, and Cytiva.