Category: Academic Talks

Date and Time: 28th August, 19.00-21.00

Location: Howard Building Assembly Room

You’re an epidemiologist who’s arrived at a refugee camp where there’s been an increase in disease incidence among the camp residents. What should you do? What specialists do you need, what must you find out, and how are you going to stop the disease spreading?

This event will be run by Dr Charlotte Hammer, Fellow in Epidemiology at Downing, along with some Fellows and postgrad students as facilitators for groups of you all. You don’t need any prior experience in planning a response to a disease outbreak (!) – indeed, you don’t even need to be a medic or a biologist, just have a willingness to look at an unfamiliar situation and start to think about what you might do. Feedback from previous groups is that this is a fascinating insight into how medicine and science are used in the real world, and that it’s good fun, too. Free pizza provided!

Date and Time: 9th March, 18.00-19.00

Location: online

Sustainable chemical synthesis: Photoelectrochemical fuel synthesis using organic semiconductors with (bio)molecular catalysts

Dr Celine Yeung is a recent Downing alumnus, having completed her PhD in the Reisner lab, Department of Chemistry. Her work involved developing ‘a hybrid device that combines light-harvesting organic polymers with bacterial enzymes to convert sunlight, water and carbon dioxide into formate, a fuel that can drive further chemical transformations’. By utilising enzymes immobilised in a porous titania structure, it allows the system to function without unstainable additives, aligning with Dr Yeung’s goals of a circular economy. Dr Yeung is now a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Hu lab at the EPFL in Switzerland, working on solid oxide electrolysis. 

For more information on her work on photoelectrochemical fuel synthesis click here.

Date and Time: 18.00-19.00

Location: Maitland Room

Talk covering sustainable design and manufacturing, in the context of thermal energy stores

This talk was followed by a free academic formal for a chance to discuss with the speaker.

Date and Time: 9th February 18.00-19.00

Location: The Wilkins Room

Quantum Error Correction

Date and Time: 12th February, 18.00-19.30

Location: The Wilkins Room

Cancer evolution and detection

An introduction to cancer evolution – Dr Emma Hazelwood

Dr Emma Hazelwood is a Research Associate in Cancer Evolution at the Early Cancer Institute and an Everitt Butterfield Research Fellow here at Downing College. Her work focuses on ‘how inherited genetic factors interact with lifestyle exposures to shape cancer risk and tumour evolution’ through investigation of ‘large-scale epidemiological cohorts and deeply sequenced tumour datasets’. This talk be an introduction into cancer evolution, exploring her work on biological mechanisms and biomarkers associated with lung cancer, and how this can improve risk stratification, early diagnosis, and more effective treatment. 

Long-read sequencing for the detection of short tumour DNA in blood – Dr Carolin Sauer

Dr Carolin Sauer is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the EMBL-EBI in the Cortes Ciriano Group. Her work involves the analysis of long read sequencing data to explore various factors in cancer such as predicting resistance to chemotherapies, analysis of somatic structural variants and copy number aberrations, and understanding subtype specific evolution and epigenetic states of various cancers. This talk will explore the applications of long-read sequencing for detection of short tumour DNA in the blood. 

Workshop on scientific industry operations consulting and technical problem solving. Led by Panna Chauhan and Aidan Marks.

Date and Time: Monday 24th November 2025, 18:00 – 19:00

Location: Wilkins Room (Staircase R)

“The Evitable Journey of Artificial Intelligence to Replace Humanity”

We call them servants. What if they are our heirs? If humanity is not the final form of intelligence, then are we merely the biological launchpad for our true successors?
On one hand, we will investigate scenarios not of metallic armies, but of silent, systemic obsolescence. A world where AI is the new apex predator in the cognitive niche—where it not only writes all  the essays for our supervisions and summarises that pesky library book that might take days to read; but also dispenses justice,  proves the theorems, prescribes the cultural narrative and redefines how homo sapiens interacts in love, sex and death. In this future, humanity is not exterminated; it becomes simply… irrelevant.
On the other hand, the talk will explore the ultimate catastrophic risks: advanced AI systems surpassing human-level intelligence and evading their creators’ control for their incomprehensible (to us, at least) purposes.  We will move beyond clichéd debates on ‘alignment’ and ‘ethics’ to present a provocative framework of outcomes for how this “evitable journey” can be, and must be, rerouted before the servants lock the door from the inside.

Date and Time: Monday 10th November 2025, 17:30 – 19:00

Location: Tim Cadbury Room (E Staircase)

“Entrepreneurship & Innovation: Building a Career Portfolio Beyond Science”

His talk will describe his extensive past and current experiences in entrepreneurship and innovation, how he navigated his career after graduating from science degrees, as well as some of the latest developments in HK, China and Asia. 

Date and time: Wednesday May 14th, 6pm

Location: Tim Cadbury/Music Room

‘Improving flowers to help save the world’

Dr Symington is a researcher at the university as a member of the Department of Plant Sciences who is interested in pollination and plant-pollinator interactions alongside the implications for crop-breeding, an important area for future research.

from the Department of Oncology, Cambridge

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Talk time: Wednesday 19^th March, 6-7pm. Arrive at 5:30pm for a chance to chat with the speakers prior to the talk. You will not get a chance during the formal as they will be sat at the high table! 
Location: Tim Cadbury/Music Room, staircase E 

Dr Daniel Munoz-Espin will discuss “Role of Cellular Senescence in Ageing and Cancer: Therapeutic Opportunities”.
Summary: Cellular senescence is a response to unrepairable damage and stress, and it is characterised by the implementation of a stable cell cycle arrest and potent proinflammatory phenotype (SASP). We will recapitulate physiological roles of senescence playing an active contribution in embryonic development, wound healing and tumour suppression. However, when senescent cells are not cleared by the immune system their physiological roles deregulate and turn into pathological manifestations that result in tissue dysfunction, chronic inflammation, a number of age-related disorders and the acceleration of ageing. We will discuss crucial therapeutic strategies to manipulate senescence in disease.
Dr Jianfeng Ge will discuss “CRISPR Screening for the Identification of Senolytic Targets in Ageing and Cancer”
Summary: “Preclinical models have shown that eliminating senescent cells using Senotherapies can reverse age-related disorders and extend lifespan in mice. However, the heterogeneity of senescence and the lack of specific biomarkers hinder the clinical translation of Senolytic drugs. Developing more precise biomarkers and next-generation Senolytic compounds is crucial for overcoming these challenges.”