HRESOEARRCH IZONS
In this issue CANCER plus news and views from across the University
University of Cambridge research magazine www.research-horizons.cam.ac.uk
Issue 11 | Spring 2010 eDitoRiAL P D R R o
P f A warm welcome to A e U S L S
D Research horizons o i R g
K A e
magazine. this issue R v D i n ,
D
we focus on cancer – B e R P i A n R
a significant research D t L m e
theme across many e n t
departments in the o f
P A
University and a t h o
clinical and healthcare strength within L o g the Cambridge University hospitals y nhS foundation trust. in the past decade, over £70 million has been invested in new cancer research buildings and facilities in Cambridge, including the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Watching cancer cells eat, From pandemic to policy: institute (CRi)/Li Ka Shing Centre, the breathe and die combating swine flu Strangeways Research Laboratory and the hutchison/medical Research Council Research Centre, as well as in new clinical facilities for cancer patients; Contents and annual cancer research funding in Cambridge now exceeds £40 million. Research News 3–7 Professor Sir Bruce Ponder, featured on our front cover, leads the CRi, which Spotlight: Cancer 8–19 hosts 250 scientists working within Cambridge Cancer Centre: the vision 8 21 research groups and is one of the Beacons of life and death: chromatin and cancer 9 principal cancer research facilities in Cancer: what’s on the cards? 10 europe. Understanding how cancer cells grow 12 We hope that our Spotlight section Data mining the complex cancer landscape 13 gives a sense of the partnerships that Smart testing for smart drugs 14 are proving vital for translating cancer research into real benefits for patients: Watching cancer cells eat, breathe and die 16 from understanding the fundamental Cut-and-paste cancer: lymphoma’s genetic blueprint 17 basis of cancer, to identifying those Hutchison/MRC Research Centre 18 individuals with the highest risk; and from diagnosing and treating cancer Knowledge Transfer 20 –21 early, to moving towards tailored treatment and monitoring of patients. Preview 22 –23 helping to connect this research The future of books community, a virtual Cambridge Cancer Centre was launched in 2006 by Professor Ponder to promote Features 24–31 interactions between researchers and Britain’s island heritage: reconstructing half a million years of history 24 clinicians working in diverse areas to A scriptorium of commonplace books 26 achieve the best possible results for Le bon usage: using French correctly 27 cancer patients. From pandemic to policy: combating swine flu 28 elsewhere in this issue, we bring The educational neuroscience of dyslexia and dyscalculia 30 you examples of some of the other remarkable research happening across In Focus: The British Academy 32–33 the University, on areas as diverse as the swine flu pandemic, how Britain became an island nation, handwriting Inside Out: Professor Jaideep Prabhu 34 in 500-year-old manuscripts, dyslexia and dyscalculia, the purity and linguistic Forthcoming Events 35 correctness of the french language, and the publishing of bestsellers. The Back Page 36 if you have any comments and Your way into Cambridge suggestions for future issues, please email them to me at [email protected] Cover photograph of Professor Sir Bruce Ponder. Edited by Dr Louise Walsh. Designed by Cambridge Design Studio (www.cambridgedesignstudio.org). Dr Louise Walsh Printed by Falcon Printing Services Ltd (www.falcon-printing.co.uk). editor ©2010 University of Cambridge and Contributors as identified. All rights reserved.
2 | issue 11 | Spring 2010 ReSeARCh neWS
New funding to untangle Alzheimer’s Professor disease Lynn Gladden: A major new drive to understand, diagnose and treat Alzheimer’s disease has begun in Cambridge. Cambridge’s P R o f
e new Pro-Vice- S S o R
P e
t Chancellor for e R
S t
g e
o Research R g e - h y S L o P
Brain of an Alzheimer’s patient (left), showing considerable cell loss, compared with a normal brain (right) funding from the Wellcome trust (Wt) to plug the gaps in knowledge, the and medical Research Council (mRC) has interdisciplinary research programme been announced for a £5 million builds on a collaboration that has been research programme on Alzheimer’s growing for several years in Cambridge, disease (AD) in Cambridge. the as co-investigator Professor Chris programme, which is led by Professor Dobson from the Department of Peter St george-hyslop in the Chemistry explained: ‘A fascination with Cambridge institute of medical Research how the fundamental molecular events and Department of Clinical that underlie AD relate to what is neurosciences, is a major collaborative happening in living systems has brought effort involving 15 scientists from seven together a group of people with research departments across Cambridge. interests that range from theory to the programme also involves scientists therapy.’ the consortium pulls in Professor Lynn gladden is one of the from the University of Bristol, the max expertise from biochemistry, genetics, University’s five Pro-vice-Chancellors, Planck Centre for Structural molecular clinical neuroscience, medical genetics, whose role is to take forward strategy Biology in germany and the University chemistry, chemical engineering, and policy development and to of toronto in Canada. neurophysiology, physics, biophysics AD is an increasingly common and pathology. support the vice-Chancellor in neurodegenerative disease of the brain the programme aims to lay the providing institutional leadership for that affects individuals in mid-to-late life, basis for both the development of the University, particularly in their impairing intellectual function and biological markers to detect disease at areas of responsibility. the Pro-vice- memory. the disease, which is incurable, an early stage, before widespread Chancellors work closely with the results when certain proteins in the brain damage has occurred, and the creation heads of Schools and senior become misfolded and form tangled of effective therapeutics. ‘Already, the professional administrators. As Pro- masses that are toxic. the resulting consortium is working well. the vice-Chancellor for Research, Professor progressive loss of cells in the brain atmosphere takes alight as people throw gladden succeeds Professor ian Leslie. gradually incapacitates patients for up to in ideas about novel experimental Professor gladden CBe, fRS, a decade before death. the incidence of approaches using tools from both fReng is the Shell Professor of AD is on the increase as populations live physical and life sciences that would not Chemical engineering, and head of longer: in the UK, 700,000 people have been possible until very recently,’ the Department of Chemical currently live with dementia, half of said Professor St george-hyslop. engineering and Biotechnology. She is whom have AD; in 30 years’ time, the Professor Patrick Sissons, head of the also a member of the Council of the estimates are that this number will have School of Clinical medicine and Regius engineering and Physical Sciences hit 1.4 million and be costing the UK Professor of Physic, added: ‘this initiative Research Council (ePSRC). Professor economy £50 billion per year. exemplifies the power of collaboration gladden was awarded a CBe in the Professor St george-hyslop between internationally leading Queen’s Birthday honours list in June explained the unique challenge the investigators who can look beyond their 2009 for services to chemical disease poses: ‘Although AD has been individual spheres, and work at the engineering, having been awarded an known about for over a century, it’s such boundaries of traditional disciplines to oBe in 2001 for services to chemistry. a complex disease that attempts to bring new insight to a notoriously her particular research interests are in understand the underlying mechanism complicated disease.’ applying magnetic resonance using conventional tools have yielded imaging techniques in the fields of confusing and conflicting answers. As a For more information, please contact heterogeneous catalysis and multi- consequence, there is currently no drug Professor St George-Hyslop phase transport in porous media. that can halt its progression.’ ([email protected]).
issue 11 | Spring 2010 | 3 ReSeARCh neWS
Evidence of the first modern humans in North Africa Excavation of the deepest archaeological trench in North Africa half a century after it was first dug is offering a glimpse of up to 200,000 years of human history. P R in 1948, Cambridge academic Professor o f e S
Charles mcBurney stumbled upon a large S o R cave on the north coast of Libya. g R A e
Returning to excavate it three years later, m e
B
he sank a trench 14 metres into the floor A R K of the cave, finding layer upon layer of e R
( L evidence of human occupation going e f t ) back thousands of years into deep A n D
prehistory. A D i
i
over 50 years later, excavation n S K resumed in 2007 when Professor graeme e e P
( Barker, Director of Cambridge’s mcDonald R i g h institute for Archaeological Research, led t ) an expedition of 30 academics from 10 research institutes back to the haua fteah Cave. now, mid-way through this five-year project, the researchers have made a fascinating discovery that sheds new light on when modern humans first arrived on Africa’s northern shores. ‘mcBurney’s work was a seminal contribution to world prehistory. With techniques available to him in the 1950s, he concluded that the trench spanned about 80,000 years of history. he believed Excavation of the Haua Fteah Cave, Libya, today (left) and by Charles McBurney in the 1950s (right) the human jaws that he discovered deep the trench, revealing the original walls of technologies and hunting practices and down were pre-modern in anatomy and the pit. they have now reached a depth of their level of cognition,’ explained Professor that modern humans ( Homo sapiens ) 10 metres, just below where the jaws were Barker. ‘And since we have another arrived in north Africa around 40,000 years discovered. Using dating technology such 6 metres to go before we hit bedrock, the ago, which is about when they reached as optical stimulated luminescence – deepest archaeological trench in north europe,’ explained Professor Barker. ‘the which essentially measures the last time a Africa has potentially a 200,000-year-old advent of new technologies has enabled grain of quartz saw the light of day – the story to tell.’ us to re-evaluate this. Already our findings researchers have established that they are showing that this site is probably far have reached sediment that is 90,000 years For more information, please older than mcBurney realised. the jaws are old. contact Professor Graeme Barker now recognised to belong to Homo ‘now that we have the first definite ([email protected]), the Disney sapiens , and we now have definite evidence for our species being in north Professor of Archaeology. This research evidence of our species being in north Africa at least 80,000 years ago, the was principally funded by the European Africa for at least 80,000 not 40,000 years.’ question is whether they were behaving in Research Council, with supplementary the team has painstakingly emptied ways we would recognise as modern. We funding from the Society of Libyan the sediment that mcBurney used to re-fill are looking for evidence of their Studies, the project’s sponsor. Investing in the future of maths A new Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in mathematical sciences will train the next generation of mathematical analysts. the engineering and Physical Sciences skills and enhance their technical and the Centre will provide opportunities Research Council (ePSRC) has interdisciplinary knowledge. for fundamental research, team-based announced the investment of the Cambridge Centre for Analysis will problem solving, industrial secondments £13 million to fund three new CDts at be directed by Professors Arieh iserles and and interdisciplinary collaboration . it the Universities of Cambridge, Lancaster James norris. it will aim to build up core will create a generation of independent- and Warwick. the new Centres will open expertise in mathematical analysis within minded mathematical researchers who at the beginning of the next academic a cohort of some of the best young will contribute to the long-term year and will each train at least 40 mathematical minds in the world. training scientific, technological and economic students over seven years. each PhD will cover the full range of modern well-being of the UK. student will develop an original research techniques of analysis for mathematical project and receive a formal programme modelling, spanning pure, stochastic, For more information, please visit of taught coursework to broaden their computational and applied analysis. www.maths.cam.ac.uk/cca/
4 | issue 11 | Spring 2010 ReSeARCh neWS
Earthquake research reaches across Europe Real-time transnational access will enable researchers to participate in experiments all over Europe without leaving the lab. D R
g o P A L
m A D A B h U S h i
Centrifuge at the Department of Engineering’s Schofield Centre in an underground chamber at the in a common experiment. in all, 23 UK’s three leading earthquake engineering ‘remotest part’ of the University lies the institutions, each with its own specialist laboratories at the Universities of UK’s largest centrifuge and the world’s equipment, are involved in research aimed Cambridge, oxford and Bristol with most productive machine for observing at answering questions about the funding from the engineering and Physical and measuring geotechnical phenomena. behaviour of shallow building foundations Sciences Research Council (ePSRC). this Located at high Cross on madingley Road, in earthquakes. showed the benefits of creating real-time, the turner centrifuge at the Department of the Seismic engineering Research grid-based communications to provide engineering’s Schofield Centre travels at infrastructures for european Synergies access to experimental facilities and data. speeds of 200 miles per hour and creates (SeRieS) project is being coordinated by for SeRieS, the efficiency and 150 times the earth’s gravity. the 10 metre Dr gopal madabhushi and Dr Stuart haigh. diameter centrifuge is being used to ‘european seismic engineering research cost-effectiveness of resource usage is model loads and pressures experienced has tended to suffer from extreme considerable: it’s been estimated that during earthquakes, and to simulate fragmentation of research infrastructures the annual cost to the eC of the four-year tunnels and wind farms. and limited access to equipment between programme is less than 1.35% of the now, thanks to funding from the countries,’ explained Dr madabhushi. total present value (€190 million) of the european Commission (eC), experiments ‘SeRieS answers this need by enabling the material resources to be shared by carried out in Cambridge will soon be key actors in europe’s seismic engineering the 23 participants. ‘talking’ to experiments happening at the research, including three industrial same time at sites across europe. Data will beneficiaries, to coordinate remote For more information, please contact be fed in real-time across the internet to research activities in real-time.’ Dr Gopal Madabhushi (mspg1@eng. other sites participating in the project, the project builds on the success cam.ac.uk) or visit the SERIES website allowing multiple institutions to take part of a smaller-scale initiative between the (www.series.upatras.gr/). Cambridge wins Grand Prize for iGEM 2009 A team of Cambridge students has been awarded the Grand Prize for their entry into an international synthetic biology competition. Against stiff competition from over 100 normally found in the gut, in order to teams in top international institutions, the generate multicoloured pigments and Cambridge team was awarded the grand provide improved biosensors. one Prize at the 2009 international genetically hypothetical application of the invention engineered machine (igem) competition was explored with Daisy ginsberg and played in finals at the massachusetts institute of James King from the Royal College of Art: Cambridge: ‘Since 2005, technology (mit) in november. As well as the engineered bacteria could be when Cambridge was the first UK team winning the overall prize for best project ingested as a probiotic to provide to take part in igem, the competition and the BioBrick trophy, the team was cheap, personalised disease monitoring. has brought together a network of awarded a gold medal and trophy for the Chemical changes in the gastrointestinal researchers interested in the interplay Best environment Project. tract caused by disease would result of biology and engineering, helping to the undergraduate students (vivian in a colour signal in faeces that is strengthen the emerging field of mullin, Alan Walbridge, Shuna gould, bright enough to be visible to the synthetic biology in Cambridge. the Siming ma, mike Davies, megan Stanley human eye. competition is a highly motivating and and Crispian Wilson) faced the challenge the team was supported throughout educational experience for all concerned of conceiving, designing and the project by faculty staff from the and we’re delighted that the innovative implementing a synthetic biological Departments of Plant Sciences, genetics, ideas of this year’s team have been so system using standard, interchangeable Pathology, engineering, and Chemical well received by the judges.’ DnA parts (‘BioBricks’) and operating it in engineering and Biotechnology. one of living cells. the advisors, Dr Jim haseloff from the For more information, please visit their winning idea, ‘e.Chromi’, is based Department of Plant Sciences, described www.synbio.org.uk/igem.html and on the engineering of bacteria that are the special role that the competition has www.echromi.com/
issue 11 | Spring 2010 | 5 ReSeARCh neWS
New Regius Professor of Botany Cambridge has a new Regius Professor, after Her Majesty the Queen conferred the royal title on the University’s existing Professorship of Botany.
to be fundamental, and for which there is a continuing and significant need. the new position links the University’s 800th Anniversary celebrations with the Darwin Anniversary in 2009 as J.S. henslow, Charles Darwin’s mentor, was Professor of Botany at Cambridge. Sir David Baulcombe is the first to hold the new Regius Professorship of Botany. he was knighted in the 2009 Queen’s Birthday honours list for services to plant science, and in 2008 was awarded the Albert Lasker Basic medical Research award for his discovery of how small molecules of ribonucleic acid (RnA) govern gene activity through a process known as RnA silencing. Professor Baulcombe’s research has unravelled how this mechanism is important in gene regulation and as a natural weapon in mechanisms of disease resistance and Cambridge’s Regius Professors: back row, from left, Sir David Baulcombe, Botany; Richard Hunter, defence against viruses in plants. Greek; David Ford, Divinity; David Ibbetson, Civil Law; front row, from left, Robert Gordon, Hebrew; Richard Evans, Modern History; Patrick Sissons, Physic For more information about the the new Regius Professorship of Botany founded by henry viii in 1540) and modern Department of Plant Sciences and brings the number of Regius Professors at history (founded by george i in 1724). Professor David Baulcombe’s Cambridge to seven, joining Civil Law, historically, Regius Professorships were research, please visit Divinity, greek, hebrew and Physic (all created by the Crown in disciplines judged www.plantsci.cam.ac.uk/research/
New blood test for schizophrenia The first objective means of diagnosing a disorder that affects over 24 million people worldwide has been discovered. finding an effective early way to diagnose schizophrenia has been a long-term dream of Dr Sabine Bahn at the Cambridge Centre for neuropsychiatric Dr Sabine Bahn (far right) and two member of her team Research, located in the Department of Chemical engineering and Biotechnology. of a combination of protein biomarkers ‘Schizophrenia is a tough condition to for the past 13 years, Dr Bahn and her that can be used as an adjunctive aid in diagnose and this discovery has the team have been progressing towards a the differential diagnosis of schizophrenia. potential to make a difference to those on achieving this milestone, texas-based greater understanding of the molecular who suffer from this incapacitating RBm announced additional investments in disease.’ the two companies are working processes that lead to the disorder. to Psynova and now has a controlling interest with leading psychiatric researchers to develop the research, Dr Bahn founded in the company. gain additional clinical input to maximise Psynova neurotech Ltd in 2005 with initial ‘While several psychiatric conditions the benefit for patients and the healthcare Cambridge enterprise Proof of Concept share symptoms, the clinical interventions system. funding, followed later by an investment vary, making it important to establish an from the Cambridge enterprise Seed accurate diagnosis as early as possible,’ For more information, please funds. explained Dr Bahn. ‘We intend to develop contact Cambridge Enterprise Ltd now, an objective blood test for the a minimally invasive, objective test to aid (Tel: +44 (0)1223 760339; email: diagnosis of schizophrenia is due to be the early diagnosis of schizophrenia and [email protected]) or visit launched in 2010. this follows a differentiation from bipolar disorder and www.enterprise.cam.ac.uk/ collaboration between Psynova and Rules- major depression.’ Based medicine inc. (RBm) which recently head of Seed funds at Cambridge led to the discovery and characterisation enterprise Dr geraldine Rodgers added:
6 | issue 11 | Spring 2010 ReSeARCh neWS R o L L S - Strategic research partnership drives R o y C materials science research and training e Rolls-Royce and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) will work jointly with the Universities of Cambridge, Birmingham and Swansea in a new £50 million strategic partnership. over the next 10 years, a Strategic one approach is to find materials that Partnership in Structural metallic Systems withstand gas combusting at higher for Advanced gas turbine Applications will temperatures, since this uses less energy develop materials skills and knowledge to and creates less Co 2.’ support the development of future gas to meet this challenge, the turbines. it builds on a highly successful programme brings together a critical mass University technology Partnership funded of researchers to increase the efficiency of by Rolls-Royce between the Universities of known materials or to find new materials Dr Cathie Rae, who is coordinating the Cambridge, Birmingham and Swansea. that can be used for the hottest parts of Cambridge DtP. A total of 60 students fundamental materials research is the engine. Cambridge’s contribution will across the three universities will undertake needed to develop materials that will be to develop and test new structural research of strategic value to Rolls-Royce improve the efficiency and environmental metallic materials that will withstand ever and the gas turbine industry in general, sustainability of gas turbines, which more extreme conditions of temperature as well as taught courses amounting to provide the power for many applications and pressure, as well as being safe and a year of training. ‘our goal is to equip including aircraft, ships and electricity economical. scientists of the future with the skills generation. Principal investigator the funding also includes a Doctoral needed to underpin industries as diverse Dr howard Stone, from the Department training Partnership (DtP) to help create as aeroengineering, nuclear power and of materials Science and metallurgy, the next generation of world-class construction.’ explained: ‘Dwindling resources and materials scientists and metallurgical climate change are forcing engineering engineers. ‘the UK is experiencing a For more information, please contact designers to utilise materials and energy chronic shortage of materials scientists Dr Howard Stone ([email protected]) supplies with ever-greater efficiency. despite a clear industrial need,’ said or Dr Cathie Rae ([email protected]).
Naked Scientist takes on materials science the Rolls-Royce Strategic Partnership includes funds to recruit a new member to the award-winning naked Scientists team, whose weekly radio programmes and podcasts reach a worldwide audience of more than 20 million people per week. Working with naked Scientist Dr Chris Smith, the new team member’s focus will be to publicise materials science research as a means to improving the general perception of metallurgical engineering and to encourage more young people into science and engineering. For more information, please contact Dr Chris Smith ([email protected]) or visit www.thenakedscientists.com/
Unlocking the history of the book A new chapter in textual scholarship is beginning, thanks to the launch of the Centre for Material Texts. Books and manuscripts of any period can the recently launched Centre will resources for manuscript research and have unique and complicated personal foster teaching and research in the study teaching. histories. ‘from the moment of inception, of material texts across Cambridge. it ‘the faculty has a strong track record a text becomes a material object that can will offer intellectual and practical in bibliographical scholarship, manuscript be subjected to a whole host of life support, as well as opportunities for studies and textual research of various events, which might encompass how it is collaboration through sharing of ideas kinds,’ explained Professor Adrian Poole, copied, edited, published, disseminated, and expertise. ‘our aspiration is to draw head of the faculty of english. ‘the reviewed, revised or preserved,’ explained in researchers working in different Centre will help us to coordinate and Dr Jason Scott-Warren, Director of the disciplines, different historical periods enhance this research, and to reach out new Centre for material texts in the and different manifestations of text,’ to other disciplines, united by a common faculty of english. ‘Whether the text is a said Dr Scott-Warren. fascination with the materiality of the medieval manuscript copied by monks, a one aim of the Centre will be to sources we work with.’ commonplace book passed from one coordinate web custodianship of owner to another, or a bestseller digitisation projects such as the recently For more information, please contact converted into a screenplay, each has an completed Scriptorium project (see page Dr Jason Scott-Warren embodied history.’ 26), which provides rich and varied ([email protected]).
issue 11 | Spring 2010 | 7 CAnCeR Cambridge Cancer Centre: the vision Professor Sir Bruce Ponder describes the vision of a Cambridge-wide initiative to link world-class cancer research to improved patient care.
Cancer will affect one in three of us focus on during our lifetime and is a leading cause cancer research: of death and disability worldwide. today the Cancer Research UK though, there is a new sense of optimism, Cambridge Research institute (CRi)/Li Ka as scientific advances have led us to the Shing Centre, the hutchison/medical between laboratory and clinic, and even point where an understanding of the Research Council Research Centre, and at the margins of conventional career molecular and cellular biology of cancer part of the Strangeways Research paths and funding. At the CRi, for is being translated into real benefits for Laboratory. together, they provide example, many researchers are also patients. space for almost 500 researchers, plus clinicians, and oncologists work alongside over the past 10 years, cancer state-of-the-art supporting facilities mathematicians, biochemists and cell biologists. Across Cambridge, an research efforts within the University, the for technologies such as genome important part of the long-term vision is Cambridge University hospitals nhS sequencing, molecular imaging, to stimulate training programmes to foundation trust (Addenbrooke’s) and the microscopy and computational biology. equip researchers to cross traditional many institutes and centres in Cambridge But more than this, the new laboratories academic boundaries. and nearby have been drawing science are bridging the interface between Playing to scientific strengths, much and medicine closer together. helping to science and the clinic. current research is focusing on achieving connect this research community, a earlier diagnosis and treatment in high- virtual Cambridge Cancer Centre was Translating research into risk groups, discovering the determinants launched in 2006 to promote interactions patient care of treatment resistance, and providing among researchers and clinicians working Successfully applying the results of individually tailored treatment in diverse areas, as well as with biotech research requires an excellent clinical (personalised medicine) based on and pharmaceutical companies. the service and clinical research environment. genomic information. By harnessing the virtual organisation promotes information Cambridge is very much a cancer centre catalytic effect of the Cancer Centre on exchange between members, hosts when it comes to strengths in clinical and Cambridge science, great opportunities cross-disciplinary scientific meetings (see healthcare innovation. Cancer was one of lie ahead in the development of powerful page 35) and makes available pump- three main themes when Cambridge new approaches to diagnosing and priming grants for new collaborative University health Partners, which includes treating cancer. research with potential clinical the Cambridge University hospitals nhS application. foundation trust and the University, was selected last year by the Department of Creating the research health as one of five Academic health environment Science Centres in the UK. it was also the Clinical research must be nourished and leading theme when an international renewed from fundamental research. panel selected Cambridge as one of five Across the University, cancer research is Biomedical Research Centres funded by strongly represented in many the nhS in 2006. departments – from the biomedical intensive studies in experimental sciences to the physical sciences, and medicine are being built up in collaboration with major pharmaceutical increasingly embracing mathematics, Professor Sir Bruce Ponder engineering and computational biology. companies and academic researchers. Research projects are investigating all multidisciplinary clinical teams for each For more information, please contact aspects of cancer, whether it’s at the level cancer type have been created that Professor Sir Bruce Ponder of DnA, cells or populations. Research include University and nhS staff working ([email protected]), the goals include identifying new closely together, enabling research and Li Ka Shing Professor of Oncology, therapeutics, imaging tumours, and clinical care to proceed side by side. Director of the Cancer Research UK devising computational approaches that CRI/Li Ka Shing Centre analyse vast amounts of data. Catalysing great ideas (www.cambridgecancer.org.uk/) and three major laboratories in new ideas are likely to lie at the Director of the Cambridge Cancer Cambridge have been created with a boundaries between disciplines or Centre (www.cancer.cam.ac.uk/).
8 | issue 11 | Spring 2010 CAnCeR h e n n i n g
Beacons of life and D A L h o f f / B o death: chromatin n n i e R
P U B L i C and cancer A t i o n S /
A new generation of S C i e n cancer therapeutics C e
P h is on the horizon o t o
L thanks to fresh i B R A R light being y shed on how DNA is coiled around histone proteins (shown here as genes are blue beads) and supercoiled into fibres of chromatin before being condensed into chromosome structures switched on and off.
the basic functioning of our cells is essentially, a component of the cell’s drawing signalling enzymes towards governed by complex signalling signalling pathways that converts one DnA, they are also beacons for cancer pathways that relay what’s happening type of signal to another. faulty JAK2 has researchers intent on increasing the around and within cells to their control been linked with leukaemia for a number arsenal of anticancer therapeutics. centre – the cell’s nucleus. the nucleus of years. responds by regulating which genes in the breakthrough came when the our DnA are switched on and off. When scientists found an unknown signalling this fine-tuned regulation goes wrong, function of JAK2. Previously, JAK2 had diseases such as cancer can result. been thought to transduce signals only At the heart of this gene regulation within the main part of the cell, but the are proteins called histones, around researchers showed that it can enter the which DnA is wrapped rather like beads nucleus and modify histones. importantly, on a string, before being supercoiled into they discovered that the modification a structure called chromatin. But histones normally switches on a gene that causes are not just a packing material. histones leukaemia, and makes it remain on also act as beacons, guiding enzymes to constantly. the researchers had specific locations on the genome in order uncovered a direct mechanistic link to turn genes on and off. Professor tony between a signal transducer, histone Kouzarides’ research group at the modification and cancer. Wellcome trust/Cancer Research UK Professor Tony Kouzarides gurdon institute discovered in the 1990s Towards therapeutics that this process is governed by the goal now is to continue their For more information, please enzymatic machinery that modifies the ongoing search for other enzymes that contact Professor Tony Kouzarides histone proteins. many of the pathways modify histone proteins (the group has ([email protected]), that lead to the modification of histones discovered several already). Professor the Royal Society Napier Professor, are deregulated in cancer. Kouzarides believes that these hold the at the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Professor Kouzarides’ latest discovery, key to a future generation of cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute in collaboration with Professor tony therapeutics. A University spin-out, (www.gurdon.cam.ac.uk/). This green’s group in the Department of Chroma therapeutics, was launched in research was published in Nature haematology, has made a crucial link 2001 to exploit his research and that of (2009), 461, 819–822. between a faulty histone-modifying others in the chromatin field, with the enzyme and leukaemia. aim of harnessing the new understanding Professor Kouzarides has recently of chromatin biology to develop novel founded ‘Vencer el Cancer’ (Conquer New route to leukaemia therapeutics to prevent, diagnose and Cancer), a cancer charity in Spain the research, funded by Cancer Research treat cancer. whose goal is to raise funds from UK and published recently in Nature, was Leaps in understanding the basic the public to fund cancer research carried out by Dr Andy Bannister and PhD molecular genetics that control and and drug discovery. The idea is to student mark Dawson. they studied an disrupt cell function are bringing a new emulate Cancer Research UK in the enzyme known as Janus kinase 2 (JAK2), generation of therapeutics closer. Just as fundraising strategies that have which functions as a signal transducer – histone proteins act as beacons for been so successful in the UK.
issue 11 | Spring 2010 | 9 CAnCeR © i S t o C K P h o t o . C o m / L A C h L A n
Scientists at Strangeways C U R R i Research Laboratory are e leading the search for the ‘genetic cards’ that determine an individual’s risk of cancer. Cancer: what’s on the cards?
how likely we are to develop cancer is ‘the trouble is, the individual effects determined by our genes and our lifestyle. of common genetic variants are small and Likening this to a hand of cards, the risk of to get reliable evidence about specific cancer depends on whether we inherit variants you need to sample large good cards or bad cards and also how we numbers of people,’ explained Professor play them (our lifestyle). Some genes carry easton, Director of the Cancer Research UK a very high risk, which is why some genetic epidemiology group. Key to individuals have a particularly strong family finding these mutations has been the history of cancer. most of the time, assembly at SRL of one of the largest however, cancer risk is determined by a population studies of cancer ever combination of genes conferring a more conducted, along with the unique moderate risk; nevertheless, the overall risk expertise that the team has gathered can be high (a bad hand) if there are together in cancer epidemiology, enough of these genes. biostatistics, large-scale genetic analysis At Strangeways Research Laboratory and public health medicine. (SRL) in Cambridge, the research groups of this work was started in 1996 by Professor Doug easton, Dr Paul Pharoah Professor Ponder and Professor nicholas BCAC: Breast Cancer Association and Dr Alison Dunning, supported with Day, who recruited Dr Paul Pharoah as a Consortium over £9 million of funding from Cancer Clinical fellow to enrol patients with breast BOADICEA: Breast and ovarian Research UK, are working out the role of cancer. the enrolment was later Analysis of Disease incidence and normal human genetic variation in cancer extended to include patients with Carrier estimation Algorithm risk – essentially, which hands of cards are ovarian, colorectal or uterine cancer, as worse than others. well as participants with no history of CIMBA: Consortium of cancer. the project, now called SeARCh, investigators of modifiers of The SEARCH begins was further extended five years ago to BRCA1/2 Several high-risk gene defects, such as include bladder, brain, kidney, EMBRACE: epidemiological Study mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2 in breast oesophageal and pancreatic cancers, of familial Breast Cancer cancer, have been identified through as well as melanoma and non-hodgkin’s family studies. Work in the 1990s at SRL by lymphoma. ‘our early investment in OCAC: ovarian Cancer Association Professor Sir Bruce Ponder, who is now well-curated and very large study sets, Consortium Director of the Cancer Research UK with blood samples, pathology review PRACTICAL: Prostate Cancer Cambridge Research institute (CRi), and and clinical data, has been absolutely Association group to investigate Professor easton helped track down these crucial as it has provided the statistical Cancer Associated Alterations in two genes. however, among the general power for reliable conclusions about the genome population, these defects are usually rare, common genetic variants,’ explained and most cancers are the result of Professor Ponder. today, SeARCh ProtecT: Prostate testing for inheriting several more-common gene numbers nearly 27,000 cases and normal Cancer and treatment mutations. for breast cancer, these more- controls from the east Anglia region, SEARCH: Studies of epidemiology common gene defects account for as providing a remarkable and growing and Risk factors in Cancer heredity much as 80% of inherited risk, according resource: by 2013, the hope is that this to findings at SRL. will have expanded to 35,000.
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Going global 2007 by the researchers and published in Worldwide consortia ‘SeARCh has shown that the size of the Nature . full genome scans of prostate dataset is really important for assessing and ovarian cancers have since followed led by Strangeways the impact of common genetic variants in Nature Genetics . in the latest scan, Research Laboratory accurately,’ explained Dr Pharoah, who published in october 2009, the genomes leads a research group at SRL from the of 38,000 men with and without prostate BCAC: 100,000 breast cancer cases Department of oncology. ‘the logical cancer were analysed for over 43,000 and controls; 55 study groups next step was to combine data from single differences in DnA (called single CIMBA: 25,000 breast cancer cases SeARCh with other studies that had nucleotide polymorphisms or SnPs), and controls; 42 study groups been happening worldwide.’ revealing multiple new cancer gene Cambridge now coordinates five regions. OCAC: 30,000 ovarian cancer cases international consortia of study groups: to date, 13 predisposing gene and controls; 34 study groups two consortia studying breast cancer, regions have been identified for breast one each studying ovarian and prostate cancer, five for ovarian cancer and 27 for PRACTICAL: 25,000 prostate cancer cancers, and a newly formed consortium prostate cancer, findings that have cases and controls; 27 study groups to examine genetic differences significant implications for targeted Radiogenomics Consortium: newly underlying adverse side-effects from screening and prevention in the future. formed; 23 study groups cancer radiotherapy (see right panel). Since most of these newly discovered from SRL, the consortia pull in not just regions contain genes that had not SeARCh but also other studies such as previously been considered in cancer, Protect, a prostate cancer study led by they will also provide new insights into Cambridge’s Professor of Surgical the biology of the disease. going forward, oncology, David neal, together with Professor Ponder’s group at the CRi is Professor freddie hamdy in oxford and developing phenotypic assays as a read- Professor Jenny Donovan in Bristol; and out of cancer risk, studying how risk the familial breast cancer study genes exert their function and searching emBRACe, led by Professor easton. the for molecular markers for future studies of scale of the endeavour is unprecedented early diagnosis and prevention. Professor in population studies, and the european fiona Watt at the Wellcome trust Centre Union has recently awarded €12 million for Stem Cell Research is also studying to coordinate these large-scale genetic the biological effects caused by these studies in breast, ovarian and prostate gene defects to understand what goes cancers. wrong in cancer. ‘Apart from increasing the reliability Professor neal, in the Department of of the data,’ said Professor easton, ‘the oncology and CRi, has been investigating international consortia afford the whether a protein made by one of the opportunity to study populations from newly discovered prostate loci can be different parts of the world where used as a screening and diagnostic different genetic and lifestyle factors marker in prostate cancer since it can are operating.’ be measured in serum and urine. early results suggest not only loss of the Gene hunting protein in prostate cancer, but also a improvements in technology that would decrease in men who possess the high- have been hard to imagine when risk form of the gene but who have not SeARCh began are now being used to yet developed prostate cancer. analyse the data, demonstrating the enormous foresight in setting up such Translational tools a resource a decade ago. But what does this all mean to ‘We know that there are about understanding our own risk? for breast Dr Alison Dunning, 10 million variants in the genome, but and ovarian cancer, Dr Antonis Antoniou choosing the right ones to test for and Professor easton have developed a Professor Doug Easton and association with cancer has in the past computer model named BoADiCeA that Dr Paul Pharoah owed a great deal to chance, with the can predict an individual’s risk of these (left to right) result that very few positive associations cancers. the tool is already being used were identified,’ said Dr Dunning, who by genetic counsellors to identify high- leads the high-throughput laboratory risk individuals, referring them for For more information, please team within the SRL. ‘now, though, counselling and regular screening if contact Professor Doug Easton thanks both to the ability to carry out appropriate, and providing advice about ([email protected]), Dr Paul genome-wide scans and the samples ways to lower their risk. As new data Pharoah ([email protected]) collected through the international come to light from the genome scans, and Dr Alison Dunning consortia, we can pinpoint the variants BoADiCeA will continually be improved, ([email protected]) at the that are definitively linked to the risk of providing increasingly accurate Strangeways Research Laboratory cancer.’ information to individuals wishing to (www.srl.cam.ac.uk/) or visit the SEARCH A full genome scan for breast cancer, know the hand of genetic cards that website (www.srl.cam.ac.uk/search/ the first of its kind, was completed in they’ve been dealt. Homepage.htm).
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Cambridge scientists m
C e are asking what role L L
R e S stem cells play in how e A R C cancer develops, h spreads and relapses. Understanding how cancer cells grow
Stem cells (shown here in red) are responsible for the maintenance and regeneration of all the cells in a tissue most tissues in the human body are different cell types found in blood are mechanisms underlying this resistance maintained by stem cells – master builders constantly replenished. Professor tony and to develop ways of killing these cells.’ and repairers that replenish different types green and Dr Brian huntly in the of cells when needed. the unique Department of haematology are using Driving new treatments properties of stem cells are of great this process as a paradigm for the current thinking is that cancer stem interest to scientists investigating the understanding leukaemias: ‘We are cells constitute a minority of the cells possibility of regenerating and repairing especially interested in the molecular within a tumour and, although they are human tissues. But stem cells have also rewiring that underlies the change from a capable of dividing continually, they may come under close scrutiny in relation to normal cell to a cancerous stem cell,’ do so relatively slowly. most therapies are cancer, since the ability to self-renew is a explained Professor green. A recent targeted towards rapidly dividing cells, characteristic of tumours. Research into success has been the discovery of a new which might kill the bulk of the tumour cancer stem cells is offering new insight molecular mechanism for leukaemia but not the cancer stem cells. into how cancer cells grow and how some (see page 9). Understanding more about cancer stem tumours relapse even following powerful to identify cancer stem cells and their cells is therefore crucial, as Professor Watt therapy. complex interactions, researchers explained: ‘future treatments that are Cambridge has a very active stem cell frequently develop biological models of specific for cancer stem cells will not only community, recognised as a centre of cancer. Dr Stephen goldie in Professor be more effective in treating the disease, excellence by the Wellcome trust (Wt) Watt’s lab, in collaboration with clinicians but will also incur less collateral damage and the medical Research Council (mRC). at Cambridge University hospitals nhS to the patient’s normal tissues.’ A major research theme within this foundation trust, is investigating cancer community is the Cancer Stem Cell stem cells in human head and neck Programme at the mRC Centre for Stem tumours by creating models that Cell Biology and Regenerative medicine. recapitulate the original human tumour. Professor fiona Watt, who directs the ‘interactions between the tumour and its Programme, explained why cancer stem environment are being tracked by state- cells are so interesting: ‘Pathologists have of-the-art imaging technology to known for centuries that within a single establish which cells are responsible for tumour there can be cells that differ in making the tumours and what can be maturity. it is now becoming clear that this done to make the tumour shrink and heterogeneity reflects, at least in part, the stop spreading,’ explained Dr goldie. existence of cancer stem cells and their Scientists from the Centre for Brain offspring, and that these cells play a crucial Repair in the Department of Clinical Professor Fiona Watt role in the life history of cancer. eradicating neurosciences and the Wt Centre for these master builders would strike at the Stem Cell Research are investigating stem For more information, please heart of the tumour.’ cells in brain cancer. ‘Brain cancer contact Professor Fiona Watt accounts for a disproportionate number ([email protected]), the Cancer stem cells of cancer deaths and new treatments are Herchel Smith Professor of Medical the Cancer Stem Cell Programme brings urgently required,’ explained Dr Colin Genetics, at the WT Centre for Stem together clinicians and scientists with Watts, Consultant neurosurgeon, from Cell Research (www.cscr.cam.ac.uk/) expertise in haematological, epithelial and the Centre for Brain Repair. ‘these and the Cancer Research UK brain cancers. tumours contain stem-like cells that are Cambridge Research Institute/ one of the best-studied adult stem cell resistant to current treatments. Work in Li Ka Shing Centre systems is the process by which the many the Centre aims to understand the (www.cambridgecancer.org.uk/).
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Computational biology is helping scientists to navigate through the data deluge generated from the analysis of cancer genomes. Data mining the complex cancer landscape
Searching for patterns in cancer genomes amid vast amounts of information the advent of new technologies has an Anglo-Canadian effort aimed at finding her team have defined additional subtypes enabled researchers to interrogate human the ‘needles’, and is funded by Cancer of breast cancer based on their unique genomes at unprecedented resolution. Research UK and the British Columbia molecular characteristics, providing fresh these technologies have led to a wealth of Cancer foundation. given the substantial insight into mechanisms of breast cancer genomic information that has the capacity molecular heterogeneity among breast tumourigenesis. future work will relate to shed new light on complex diseases, cancer patients, metABRiC seeks to these molecular profiles to specific clinical but they also generate far too much data interrogate the genomic and phenotypes and identify markers that to interpret by eye. Consequently, novel transcriptional landscape of over 2,000 improve the classification of breast cancer. computational and statistical techniques clinically annotated breast tumour importantly, the techniques employed for have evolved to extract meaningful specimens to generate a robust molecular metABRiC are sufficiently general to be patterns from the data (‘data mining’) and description of the disease. applied to a variety of other cancer to integrate this with other types of each sample is examined for datasets. biological information in an attempt to differences in gene expression levels, as Computational biology is providing make sense of what it all means. well as for alterations in the number of the means to navigate through large-scale, in Cambridge, a collaboration between copies of each gene, by combining multi-dimensional datasets. in doing so, it the Computational Biology group at the measurements from nearly two million can help to build a holistic, systems-level Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research probes that query the genome at perspective on cancer that will shape institute (CRi), led by Professor Simon sequential positions. Add to this a variety future clinical practice. tavaré (also at the Department of Applied of other data types and five years of mathematics and theoretical Physics), and clinical history, and you wonder how the Professor Carlos Caldas and Dr James sheer volume of data can be processed, Brenton (who are both at the CRi and the let alone interpreted. in fact, a major Department of oncology) seeks to do just challenge with such high-dimensional this, demonstrating the power of datasets is the identification of true combining expertise in statistics, differences amid inherent background computational and experimental biology, noise. how can one see the forest for the and clinical medicine to understand cancer. trees in the cancer genome landscape? METABRIC Seeing the forest for the trees Breast cancer, like other malignancies, is Dr Christina Curtis in the Computational driven by the progressive acquisition of Biology group is leading the analysis of Professor Simon Tavaré, key genetic alterations that confer growth massively parallel technologies using Dr James Brenton and advantages on the cell. most of the computational and statistical methods to acquired aberrations are merely make sense of this vast data deluge. much Professor Carlos Caldas ‘passenger’ events that do not influence of her research relies on high-performance (left to right) cancer progression, whereas the ‘driver’ computing to process these and other events are critical mediators of disease. it is large datasets. fortunately, the CRi houses For more information, please contact these ‘driver’ events and the effects they a computer cluster with nearly 500 cores Professor Simon Tavaré elicit that researchers seek to identify, the and multiple high-memory nodes that will ([email protected]) and Dr Christina problem being akin to searching for a expand to meet the growing need for Curtis ([email protected]) at the Cancer needle in a haystack. computational capacity. Research UK Cambridge Research metABRiC (molecular taxonomy of Using novel analytical approaches for Institute/Li Ka Shing Centre Breast Cancer international Consortium) is data integration and mining, Dr Curtis and (www.cambridgecancer.org.uk/).
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Which anticancer drugs should be progressed to clinical trials?
Given that it costs an Discovering and evaluating anticancer GEMs of discovery estimated $1 billion to bring drugs is a billion dollar business. much for many years, mouse models have effort is put into the discovery of novel a new cancer drug to been an invaluable resource to drug targets and then elegant chemistry understand the mechanisms that market, can better decisions approaches are used to design and underpin cancer in human patients. be made about which drugs synthesise new therapeutics. ‘With the these models have become increasingly to test in the clinic? increasing biological understanding of sophisticated, starting with xenograft cancer, an increasing repertoire of models, in which part of a tumour potential targets has been identified,’ removed from a patient is transplanted explained Professor Duncan Jodrell, at the into mice, through to the latest Smart Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research genetically modified mouse (gem) institute (CRi). ‘But, in the past, time and models, which carry the mutations that testing for money have been wasted performing have been associated with particular large-scale clinical trials on compounds human cancers. that end up not having a significant ‘one bottleneck for bringing new smart drugs impact on cancer. With many more therapies into the clinic is the extent to potential drugs, we need to avoid this which preclinical testing quickly and happening in the future’. therefore, a major accurately predicts how well a drug will question is which drugs should be perform once it enters clinical trials in progressed to clinical trials? patients,’ explained Dr tuveson, who leads Professor Jodrell and Dr David tuveson, the tumour modelling and experimental also at the CRi, believe that the answer lies medicine group. ‘our goal is to improve in re-designing the way that preclinical the ability to discriminate between drugs studies are performed and in developing that will have significant patient benefits more-relevant animal models of the and those that won’t.’ human disease. essentially, smart drugs Dr tuveson’s particular focus has been deserve smart evaluation. ‘the on pancreatic cancer and melanoma – development of anticancer drugs is two of the most difficult cancers to treat. therefore likely to have the highest impact Despite the fact that we now know when performed at centres that are world- which gene is predominantly responsible leading in preclinical cancer models, novel for each of these types of cancers, therapeutics, molecular imaging and patients have a poor prognosis as few ‘science-led’ clinical application of treatments are available and many novel therapies in patients,’ explained tumours do not respond to them. Dr tuveson. ‘All of these components are Recently, his group discovered a new coming together at the CRi and mechanism that might explain why laboratories close by.’ pancreatic cancer is often resistant to
14 | issue 11 | Spring 2010 CAnCeR © i S t gemcitabine, a commonly used progressing a drug through to later-phase o Entering a new phase C
K anticancer treatment. Working with clinical trials.’ for both the preclinical and P ‘Although the results are extremely h o clinical studies, novel imaging techniques t colleagues at Cambridge University promising,’ said Dr tuveson, ‘these are early o . C o hospitals nhS foundation trust days and we need to show that this devised by Professor Kevin Brindle (see m (Addenbrooke’s) and laboratories in the approach is safe to use in humans before page 16) and Professor John griffiths at USA and europe, the scientists found that we can consider adding the new the CRi may provide instantaneous resistance to chemotherapy is the result compound to cancer treatments.’ to do assessment of response to treatment. in of the pancreatic tumours having a poor this, Dr tuveson is working with Professor patients, these non-invasive imaging tools network of blood vessels, which makes it Jodrell, who leads the Cancer Research UK will hopefully maximise the information harder for drugs to reach the tumour. this Pharmacology and Drug Development accrued, yet avoid the discomfort for result, published a few months ago in group at the CRi and a closely associated patients of undergoing serial biopsies to Science , may also explain why anticancer early Phase trials team based in obtain tumour tissue. drugs targeted at blood vessels (which Addenbrooke’s hospital. information from the preclinical some tumours have in abundance) don’t Professor Jodrell is interested in what models of pancreatic disease developed work for pancreatic cancer. anticancer drugs do to the body by Dr tuveson will soon be integrated ‘Working out why some tumours (pharmacodynamics) and how the body into clinical trials. A clinical trial protocol show a disappointing response to handles the drug (pharmacokinetics). will commence in Cambridge in early chemotherapeutic drugs has enabled us ‘these are important determinants 2010 to test novel combinations of to look at what can be done to overcome of successful therapy since the gemcitabine and other drugs. this therapeutic intractability,’ said measurements provide information on Collaboration with Dr Adrian mander, Dr tuveson. ‘if the door has been closed whether the drug is hitting the right leader of the mRC Biostatistics Unit hub to therapy, perhaps we can find a way of target. We also learn how long the drug in trials methodology Research in reopening it?’ early studies have shown hangs around to do this before it’s Cambridge, is providing statistical that a compound called iPi-926, created metabolised or eliminated.’ approaches to maximise the information by infinity Pharmaceuticals, reduces the An oncology clinic for pancreatic derived from the trials. amount of tissue surrounding the cancer patients is being developed at tumour, allowing greater access for Addenbrooke’s hospital and early phase Anticancer cocktails gemcitabine. clinical trials are performed in the the unique mirroring arrangement Dr tuveson is also working with Wellcome trust Clinical Research facility between preclinical models and clinical colleagues at the Wellcome trust Sanger on the same campus. this allows the trials that is being created in Cambridge institute to identify genes and pathways preclinical studies initiated in CRi holds great promise for moving towards that influence cancer development – laboratories to be translated into clinical individualised therapy for cancer patients. information that will be used to develop benefits for patients. trials will be available novel and established drugs can be new models that mimic human cancers. for patients with both early and advanced tested quickly and effectively to work out the proximity in Cambridge of several disease. ‘We will be looking for biomarkers the appropriate combination that will drug development programmes – such that can identify which tumours will overcome lack of response to treatment. as the Cambridge molecular therapeutics respond to a particular treatment, as well ‘it’s now possible to imagine the day,’ said Programme at the hutchison/medical as markers that demonstrate early that the Professor Jodrell, ‘when each patient is Research Council (mRC) Research Centre treatment is working,’ explained Professor treated with a personalised cocktail of (see page 18) and groups within the Jodrell. ‘the goal is to identify which drugs that takes account of the specific Departments of Chemistry and patients will benefit from drugs, and to attributes of their cancer.’ Biochemistry – will offer broad access to get more information at an earlier stage novel therapeutic classes for this work. to inform those ‘go/no go’ decisions for K e n n e t h
P .
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L Professor Duncan Jodrell (left)
J A C
o and Dr David Tuveson B e t z For more information, please contact Dr David Tuveson ([email protected]) and Professor Duncan Jodrell ([email protected]) at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge
Recent research shows that the anticancer drug gemcitabine (stained green) Research Institute/Li Ka Shing Centre is unable to reach pancreatic tumours (stained blue) (www.cambridgecancer.org.uk/).
issue 11 | Spring 2010 | 15 CAnCeR P R o f e S S o R
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Watching cancer cells eat, Visualising treatment response: lymphoma responding to treatment, imaged using breathe and die hyperpolarised carbon (red signal indicates greater response) Cancer cells can now be viewed as never before, thanks to cutting-edge imaging tools being developed in Cambridge. increasing the speed and sensitivity of amounts compared with the protons in particularly acute. Professor Brindle is detecting how tumour cells are tissue water, making them hard to detect working with Professor Duncan Jodrell responding to treatment is something of and almost impossible to image at high and Dr David tuveson at the Cancer a holy grail in the field of oncology. resolution. to overcome this, the Brindle Research UK Cambridge Research treatment response is still largely group has been collaborating with ge institute to develop imaging methods assessed by looking for a reduction in healthcare to develop a technique that that allow treatment responses in tumour size using magnetic resonance increases mRi sensitivity by more than individual patients to be measured imaging (mRi) or X-ray computed 10,000 times. immediately (see page 14). Because tomography. But many tumours may take to achieve such a dramatic increase patients with similar tumour types can weeks or even months to show evidence in sensitivity, the scientists have turned to show markedly different responses to the of regression and, in some cases, may not nuclear spin hyperpolarisation. Before same therapy, imaging will be an regress at all despite a positive response intravenous injection, a molecule labelled important component of the armoury of to treatment. how can an earlier with an mR isotope of carbon is ‘personalised medicine’, enabling the indication of response be achieved so hyperpolarised so that a large proportion most effective treatment to be tailored to that clinicians can select the best of the carbon nuclear spins line up with specific patients. treatment for an individual patient? the magnetic field, as opposed to only a new techniques are being pioneered few in a million in a conventional mR in Cambridge to ‘see’ tumour cells as experiment. the resulting gain in never before. Research in Professor Kevin sensitivity means that the researchers can Brindle’s laboratory is developing a variety watch how the hyperpolarised carbon is of clinically applicable, non-invasive, metabolised by tumours, using this as a imaging techniques that measure tumour read-out for living and dying cells. Data cells ‘eating, breathing and dying’. published recently have shown how well this technique works for monitoring Spin doctor treatment response, and the first clinical one approach under investigation by the trials are planned to start in 2010. Brindle lab is based on mRi. Although this Personalising medicine technique has been around since the Professor Kevin Brindle 1970s, the new imaging method has a Different tumours are likely to require crucial difference – instead of detecting different imaging methods. With recent the distribution and properties of water funding from the Leukaemia and For more information, please contact protons in tissue, which conventional mRi Lymphoma Society, a new study has just Professor Kevin Brindle does, the new approach detects with begun in which several of the imaging ([email protected]) at the much greater sensitivity than ever before methods under development in the Department of Biochemistry the small molecules in tissues that are Brindle group are being validated in (www.bioc.cam.ac.uk/) and the Cancer fundamental to their biochemistry. these models of lymphoma (see opposite Research UK Cambridge Research are the carbon-based metabolites page), so that the best reagents and Institute/Li Ka Shing Centre involved in producing energy and in protocols can be selected for future (www.cambridgecancer.org.uk/). This making the constituents of the cell; a clinical trials. research was published in Proceedings change in how these metabolites are improved imaging methods are not of the National Academy of Sciences being used can signal that an effective only useful in the clinic, but will also be (2009) 106, 19801 –19806 and was therapy is starting to kill the cells. invaluable for early stage clinical trials of funded principally by Cancer Research the problem with carbon-based new drugs, where the need to establish UK, with material support from GE molecules is that they are present in tiny whether new treatments are working is Healthcare.
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t U R n e R Cut-and-paste Visualising chromosome translocations: cancer: nuclei of lymphoma cells (blue) in which chromosome 2 lights up in green and lymphoma’s chromosome 5 in red; a yellow signal indicates the presence of a genetic blueprint translocation Researchers in the Department of Pathology have established precisely how the ‘cutting and pasting’ of genetic material from one chromosome to another results in cancer.
Lymphoma is an umbrella term that Genesis of a lymphoma inhibit the nPm-ALK protein, are being describes cancer of the white blood cells of Although relatively rare in adults, ALCL tested with the long-term aim of taking the lymphatic system, which normally acts accounts for 1 in 10 cases of all these into the clinic. A collaboration with to protect the body against infection. in lymphomas in children. the most Dr Amos Burke, Consultant oncologist lymphoma, malignant changes in a white common type of ALCL is caused by the within the Department of Paediatric blood cell causes it to divide abnormally swapping of genetic material between haematology and oncology at Cambridge and out of control; not only are these cells chromosomes 2 and 5. Rather like the University hospitals nhS foundation trust, unable to protect the body against joining together of parts of two different provides an important clinical perspective infection, and in fact interfere with the sentences, swapping segments of on the work. And new imaging methods growth of healthy cells, but they also build chromosomes can sometimes result in developed by Professor Kevin Brindle in the up, often in lymph nodes, as tumours. nonsense. But in some cases, the two Cambridge Research institute (see Lymphoma accounts for more than parts produce an intelligible outcome, opposite page) are being used to detect 9,000 new cancer cases diagnosed each albeit with a different meaning. this is treatment response at an early stage. for ALCL, the long-term goal is to year in the UK alone and the incidence is what happens in ALCL: the altered develop a way of inhibiting nPm-ALK and rising by about 4% per year. Some of these genetic code, which juxtaposes the gene the catastrophic malignant effects that it cases appear to result following viral for nucleophosmin (nPm) on initiates within the white blood cell in infections, immunodeficiency or chromosome 5 with the gene for which it occurs. But these studies will also autoimmunity, but for the most part we anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) on complete a story – one that explains the don’t know what causes the genetic chromosome 2, generates a new gene way in which lymphoma can be set in alterations underlying the different subtypes product (nPm-ALK) at the fusion point motion… and be stopped in its tracks. of lymphoma, of which over 30 are now between the two chromosomes. known. however, progress is being made in Although only portions of the two genes understanding what effect the genetic remain, together they create a new alteration has on the cell in which it occurs. protein with altered functions. Dr Suzanne turner leads a group in the Dr turner’s group was one of the first Department of Pathology who are research groups in the world to interested in a subtype of lymphoma that, demonstrate that nPm-ALK can cause although rare, has become a paradigm cancer. they discovered that the errant for understanding the growth and protein sets off a cascade of events that development of lymphomas confers survival and growth properties on (lymphomagenesis) because of its well- the cells in which it is expressed. the cells defined genetic alteration. proliferate uncontrollably and a the many different subtypes of lymphoma is born. lymphoma have alterations that range from Dr Suzanne Turner single mutations, through loss and gain in A model system For more information, please contact regions of genetic material, to large-scale Dr turner’s group has developed model Dr Suzanne Turner ([email protected]) chromosomal changes. the cancer that systems to investigate both the specific at the Division of Molecular interests Dr turner, anaplastic large cell cell type in which the translocation and Histopathology in the Department of lymphoma (ALCL), falls into this last disease originate and whether the normal Pathology (www.path.cam.ac.uk/). category because it results when sections of functions of the immune system Dr Turner is a Leukaemia Research genetic material from two chromosomes contribute to the disease process. Bennett Fellow and is also funded by are essentially ‘cut and pasted’ in the wrong Potential new drugs and drug the Kay Kendal Leukaemia Fund and place. combinations, particularly those that Cancer Research UK.
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Hutchison/MRC Research Centre …where fundamental research is pioneering innovative approaches to cancer diagnosis and treatment. how do different forms of cancer arise? many groups have strong links to Which individuals are most likely to researchers in other University develop cancer? Why is cancer so difficult Departments such as Chemistry, to treat? the hutchison/medical Research Biochemistry, and Applied mathematics Council (mRC) Research Centre not only and theoretical Physics. Bringing these addresses these questions through world- different perspectives to the field of cancer class fundamental research, but is also research has had a major impact on our increasingly recognised for translating this understanding of the disease by information into improved diagnosis. contributing new insights into problems as diverse as cell division, protein Integrating science and behaviour and drug discovery. medicine this integrated, multidisciplinary approach to research also places the the hutchison/mRC Research Centre was hutchison/mRC Research Centre firmly at established in 2001 and is jointly directed the heart of the Cambridge Cancer Centre, by Professor Ashok venkitaraman, Professor whose overall aim is to harness Ron Laskey and Professor Sir Bruce Ponder. Cambridge’s wider strengths in it occupies a unique niche within the fundamental and applied sciences to cancer research community in Cambridge improve clinical outcomes for cancer because it houses three integrated patients. As part of this initiative, the components that bring together scientists hutchison/mRC Research Centre will and clinical staff working towards common continue to build on its reputation for goals. the mRC Cancer Cell Unit and identifying major clinical problems in the laboratories of the University’s Department cancer field, addressing these problems of oncology are carrying out fundamental using fundamental research, and research on the mechanisms that regulate translating the solutions into diagnostic the division and fate of cancer cells, and tools and treatments that improve human are using this information to develop health. new tools for the early diagnosis of cancers (see opposite). the third component is the Cambridge molecular therapeutics Programme, which seeks to create innovative new platforms to make the next generation of cancer drugs (see opposite).
A multidisciplinary approach Cancer research today involves a variety of approaches – from chemistry and imaging, to mathematical modelling and cell biology, to clinical investigations and trials. Professor the hutchison/mRC Research Centre Ashok Venkitaraman provides an excellent example of the rapid and substantive progress that can be achieved through a multidisciplinary and For more information, please visit collaborative approach. www.hutchison-mrc.cam.ac.uk/ 18 | issue 11 | Spring 2010 CAnCeR
changes in the oesophagus. Cancer of the Improving cancer diagnosis oesophagus kills about 7,000 people each year in the UK, and the figure is increasing. Most common cancers are difficult to treat successfully once the two-thirds of cases develop through a cancer has spread. Scientists at the MRC Cancer Cell Unit in the recognisable pre-cancerous stage called Barrett’s oesophagus and Dr fitzgerald has Hutchison/MRC Research Centre have identified improved developed a means of detecting this methods to detect cancer early. without endoscopy. A sponge on a string A major goal in public health is to detect Professor Ron Laskey and Dr Coleman is swallowed and is then gently withdrawn cancer, or pre-cancerous changes, at an have discovered a biomarker that enables up the oesophagus, bringing with it early stage using methods that are screening for differences between normal samples of the lining cells to be examined effective and practical enough to roll out and diseased cells. normal cells don’t for evidence of biomarkers. following the to gP surgeries, medical screening express mini chromosome maintenance success of a pilot study of 500 patients laboratories and developing countries. (mCm) proteins, whereas cancerous and with a history of heartburn (associated ‘for cancer of the oesophagus,’ pre-cancerous cells express them in with the development of Barrett’s explained Dr Rebecca fitzgerald, ‘most abundance. Screening for the presence of oesophagus), a much larger study is being patients present with symptoms late on, mCm proteins in cervical smears can planned to see just how accurate the test when they are having trouble swallowing. substantially improve early diagnosis. the is in comparison with endoscopy. By then, the chance of surviving five years technology has been licensed to Becton, testing positive to early detection after therapy is only 20%, and yet the first Dickinson and Company, which is running tests will define much smaller groups of signs of disease in these patients are often large-scale trials for cervical cancer individuals who can then be offered visible 10–20 years beforehand.’ screening. meanwhile, the researchers are specialist investigation and treatment at a ‘Screening for cervical cancer using the now investigating the wider application of very early stage of the disease, when the smear test is a prime example of the this tool: in colorectal cancer, in chances of full recovery are high. success of early detection programmes,’ collaboration with mr Richard miller, added Dr nick Coleman, ‘but cervical Consultant Colorectal Surgeon in the For more information, please changes are subtle and a high degree of Department of Surgery, in lung cancer and contact Dr Rebecca Fitzgerald training is needed to recognise them. in anal cancer. ([email protected]) What’s needed is an effective way of mCm proteins are also being used by or Dr Nick Coleman automating screening.’ Dr fitzgerald to detect pre-cancerous ([email protected]).
target proteins by biophysical assays, New approaches to cancer cell-based assays and in silico screens, and elaborated further using structure determination. drug discovery the second major strand of work in the CmtP is to accelerate the early clinical The Cambridge Molecular Therapeutics Programme (CMTP) is development of new anticancer drugs developing innovative strategies to widen the repertoire of through improved understanding of their ‘druggable’ cancer targets and accelerate the clinical effects on normal and cancer cells. Several new approaches are being taken, development of new medicines. including the establishment of laboratory the discovery and clinical development mRC Research Centre led by Professor models that more accurately predict the of new medicines against human Ashok venkitaraman. effects of drugs on human cancers, and diseases such as cancer is long, expensive new approaches to widen the methods to screen for biomarkers that and inefficient. A major problem is that repertoire of ‘druggable’ targets start with determine which patients are most likely fewer than 10% of the proteins encoded the development of novel assay platforms to benefit from the drugs. this work has in the human genome have successfully to identify the hard-to-find targets that already led to the design of new types of been ‘drugged’ using conventional characterise different forms of cancer. A clinical trials that more effectively match methods, making it difficult to target platform of innovative screening methods the right drugs to the right cancer patients. those linked with cancer. A second is that is then used to discover chemical ‘leads’ early success in developing these new the failure rate during early clinical that can be used against them. these approaches has secured over £6 million in development of new anticancer drugs is include fragment-based methods, where funding for the CmtP from sponsors unacceptably high, largely due to poor small fragments (rather than complete including the mRC and the Wellcome understanding of their effects. the CmtP drug molecules) are soaked into crystals trust. harnesses the strengths of Cambridge of the target protein to identify the site academic sciences to address these key and nature of the binding interaction, and For more information about the CMTP, challenges, bringing together expertise in this information is used in the design and please visit www.cmtp.cam.ac.uk/ or chemistry, structural biology, physics and synthesis of the next generation of contact Professor Ashok Venkitaraman engineering (led by Professors Chris Abell, inhibitors. Another approach involves ([email protected]), tom Blundell and mike Payne) with the novel ‘libraries’ of drug-like chemicals, the Ursula Zoellner Professor of Cancer biomedical research in the hutchison/ which are screened for activity against Research.
issue 11 | Spring 2010 | 19 KnoWLeDge tRAnSfeR
BioBullets mussel in on water mains Pipes blocked by an invasion of freshwater mussels pose a severe problem to the water industry. A tiny, fat-coated capsule could provide the answer. D R
A combination of aquatic ecology and chemical engineering D A v i
has resulted in a novel means of combating an invasion of zebra D
A L
mussels into underground water mains. this non-native species D R i D
originates from central Asia and has become one of the world’s g most significant environmental pests. in the UK, zebra mussels e growing at high density cause problems when they occlude raw water mains that feed water-treatment works, water-cooling systems in power plants and water supplies for drinking. Dr David Aldridge, from the Department of zoology, and Dr geoff moggridge, from the Department of Chemical engineering and Biotechnology, have invented an environmentally sound control method called the BioBullet, now being manufactured by their spin-out company BioBullets Ltd. the fat-coated BioBullet capsule, which is released into the clogged pipe, contains salt-based toxins that are lethal to zebra mussels. the mussels are then flushed out of the water pipe; any BioBullets not taken up by mussels dissolve into harmless components. the technology provides a practical solution that does not affect the treatment process or water quality. the research has been of great interest to the UK water Dr David Aldridge and zebra mussels industry, with four companies funding the research to date. now, following approval by the Drinking Water inspectorate, receive the required volume of raw water by limiting the trials have begun with Anglian Water Services Ltd to use the infestation. the technology potentially provides an economic pellets in the UK for potable water systems. A new and environmentally sound solution to a persistent problem.’ manufacturing site is under way for BioBullets following an Dr Aldridge added: ‘Working closely with Anglian Water and award of £500k by the technology Strategy Board (tSB), which is other water industries is giving us new insight into how best to being match-funded by Anglian, thames Water and tastetech. formulate and deliver the BioBullets solutions.’ Barrie holden, Water innovation manager at Anglian Water, said: ‘We are very encouraged that this technology will have a For more information, please contact Dr David Aldridge significant impact on the ability of our water treatment works to ([email protected]).
A new model for industrial–academic partnership PneumaCare, the first company to receive funding from the University of Cambridge Discovery Fund, is a new model for utilising academic expertise.
PneumaCare is solving the problem of how to monitor lung PneumaScan will make monitoring feasible, effective and function in babies, children and chronically sick patients simpler, leading to better patient recovery,’ said Dr Roberts. ‘We using a non-invasive medical device. the idea for the device, have generated considerable interest in the investment which combines innovative image processing with community and are poised to go into full clinical development technologies from the gaming and movie industry, has and medical trials.’ been developed by a consortium of experts that includes Part of this investment has come from the newly created Dr Joan Lasenby at the Department of engineering, Dr Richard University of Cambridge Discovery fund, which is managed by iles at Cambridge University hospitals nhS foundation Cambridge enterprise Ltd. the fund was created to smooth the trust and Dr Colin Smithers of Plextek Ltd. path of transferring University-related technologies for the benefit the company represents a new and interesting departure of society by providing proof of concept, pre-licence, pre-seed from the usual spin-out model, as Dr gareth Roberts, and seed investments, and is capitalised from donations through PneumaCare Chief executive, explained: ‘Recognising an the University of Cambridge 800th Anniversary campaign. unmet medical need, the company consulted and utilised University expertise to create an innovative product. We have developed a close working relationship with the academics For more information about PneumaCare, please involved and, to cement this relationship, the academic visit www.pneumacare.com/ partners have become equity holders. the success of this For more information about the University of Cambridge model ensures that the University shares in the company’s Discovery Fund, please contact Cambridge Enterprise Ltd success.’ (Tel: +44 (0)1223 760339; email: PneumaCare will present data from its first product, [email protected]) or visit PneumaScan™, over the next few months. ‘We believe that the www.enterprise.cam.ac.uk/
20 | issue 11 | Spring 2010 KnoWLeDge tRAnSfeR
A measure of prison performance Pioneering research by Cambridge criminologists is helping prison managers to understand what makes a good prison.
the Prisons Research Centre in prisoners at public and private prisons receptive and are using the data as a Cambridge’s institute of Criminology has across the UK. the study, funded by the basis for strategic planning.’ been working in and with prisons for the economic and Social Research Council Phil Wheatley, Director general of the past decade, carrying out a programme (eSRC), draws on the trust and credibility national offender management Service, of empirical research that is helping to they have developed over many years which is responsible for delivering prison inform policy and operational decision through engagement with practitioners and probation services on behalf of the making in prisons. and prisoners. ministry of Justice, added: ‘this research ‘All prisons have strengths and in piecing together the complex has enabled the Prison Service to better weaknesses,’ explained Centre Director interplay of values, practices and understand how prison management can Professor Alison Liebling, ‘but how prison outcomes that define the relative success be more effective and to better authorities go about objectively and failure of prisons, the net result of this understand the complexity of the prison evaluating the quality of prisons has study, building on several others, has officer role. Specific deliverables include a suffered from a lack of systematic been the development of a survey-based new anti-suicide policy, which has research on what matters most, and has management tool with which prisons can substantially reduced suicide, and a failed to link differences in prison now measure their own performance. survey for measuring prisoner organisation and culture to outcomes ‘Using the tool, we’ve found some really perceptions, which has been used to such as suicide and reconviction.’ clear patterns that show what makes an judge the success of our prisons.’ Aiming to fill this gap, Professor establishment work well and where there Liebling and colleague Dr Ben Crewe is cause for concern,’ explained Professor For more information, please contact have spent almost three years Liebling. ‘the prison managers we’ve Professor Alison Liebling interviewing senior managers, staff and worked with have been extremely ([email protected]).
Innovative tool reveals the paintings hidden within The development of optics that ‘fly’ over paintings could revolutionise art conservation. C h
R at the hKi, explained: ‘the information that i S t i t SatScan provides guides the restoration m U
S process and enriches the history of the work. it can also help with authentication by revealing details that may show consistency with a certain artist.’ Detailed topographical surface data from the artwork are captured using a moving camera that, under computer control, ‘flies’ in front of the painting. high-resolution digital images in visible light, infrared and ultraviolet parts of the spectrum are used to visualise under- drawings or to examine previous re-touching. the system speeds up a previously manual, cumbersome process and extends the size and range of work that can now be scanned. SatScan in operation Dennis murphy, managing Director of An innovative tool to image artwork has instrumentation. But for this venture, they SmartDrive, said: ‘Without hKi’s expert resulted from a partnership between art turned to the hKi, a centre of excellence knowledge of the area, and capacity to conservators at the hamilton Kerr for conservation services and world put SatScan through its paces in a institute (hKi), a research department of renowned for its research on oil and working environment, we could never the fitzwilliam museum, and SmartDrive tempera easel paintings. have developed a tool that we feel is a Ltd, a Cambridge-based company that the aim of the joint venture was to significant breakthrough for art specialises in precise motor control use tools that SmartDrive had developed restoration.’ systems. for science and technology applications SmartDrive usually work with to create a scanning system to guide art For more information, please contact electromechanical companies needing conservation. the result, SatScan, is Chris Titmus ([email protected]) or visit precise motion control for robotic capable of revealing hidden layers of www-hki.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/ or assembly lines and scientific paint, as Chris titmus, imaging consultant www.smartdrive.co.uk/
issue 11 | Spring 2010 | 21 PRevieW
for centuries, books have played a central role in education, the spread of knowledge and the cultivation of literary and scholarly debate. With its origins dating back to the 15th century, the publishing of books is the oldest of the media industries and one which has The book publishing continued to flourish despite the industry has gone through profusion of other media forms. however, over the last 30–40 years, the industry has more change during the gone through a process of turbulent past few decades than in change stemming from forces that are any comparable period in partly commercial, partly technological. its 500-year history. thanks to these developments, it bears little resemblance today to the industry Professor John Thompson that existed in the 1960s and before. examines this change and Despite these changes and despite asks what impact it will the continuing importance of books in have on the future of contemporary culture, there has been very little systematic research on the books. modern book publishing industry. historians have studied the book trade and the impact of books in earlier centuries, but the modern publishing The future business has been largely neglected by researchers. of books it was partly to fill this gap in our knowledge that i began in 1999 to study the changing structure of the industry in york, as well as many staff working in Britain and the United States. the small and medium-sized publishing research, spanning a decade, was funded houses; i also interviewed agents, authors, by two grants from the economic and scouts and booksellers – altogether, i did Social Research Council (eSRC). While the more than 250 interviews with key first phase of the research focused on players in the industry. this enabled me academic publishing, the second phase, to build up a detailed picture of how the begun in 2005, was concerned with industry works, how it has changed over mainstream trade publishing – the world the past few decades and how it is of general interest books, aimed at the changing today. wider public and sold through high-street i was able to show that three key bookstores, supermarkets and the developments have shaped the evolution internet. this is the sector of publishing of trade publishing in the english- that produces bestsellers like Dan Brown’s speaking world since the 1960s. the first The Da Vinci Code – books that are widely was the growth of the retail chains, like reviewed in the press, prominently Waterstones in the UK and Barnes & displayed in bookstores and, in some noble in the USA. these nationwide cases, turned into films. chains of book superstores transformed What makes a bestseller? Why do the landscape of bookselling in the 1980s some books take off and become and 1990s; they made books much more runaway successes while thousands of widely available, but at the same time others vanish without a trace? What are they drove many smaller independent the changes that have swept through the booksellers out of business. industry and how have they affected the the second development was the rise nature of what gets published and what of the literary agent. Although not new – succeeds? What impact have these the first agents appeared in London at changes had on the character of our the end of the 19th century – literary literary culture, and what impact are they agents have, since the 1970s, become likely to have in the years to come? much more powerful brokers in the field of trade publishing. they control access Three key developments to new content and, through auctions, to address these and other questions are able to raise the stakes for books that i immersed myself in the world of trade are perceived to have high sales potential. publishing in Britain and the USA. the final development was the i interviewed senior managers, editors consolidation of publishing houses under Merchants of Culture: the Publishing Business in the 21st Century by Professor John B. Thompson will and other staff at all of the large trade the umbrella of large multimedia be published in 2010 by Polity publishing groups in London and new corporations. many of the great
22 | issue 11 | Spring 2010 PRevieW
the printed page. Although ebook sales have increased significantly in recent years, especially in the USA, they still account for only around 1% of the revenues of trade publishers – a tiny fraction. this is bound to increase as reading devices become more widely available but no-one knows exactly how significant it will eventually become. Whatever happens, it seems likely that books will continue to play an important role in our cultural and public life for the foreseeable future. Books have been, and remain for many, a privileged form of communication, one in which the genius of the written word can be inscribed in an object that is at once a medium of expression, a means of communication and a form of art. for the telling of extended stories or the sustained interrogation of our ways of thinking and acting, the book has proven to be a most satisfying and resilient cultural form, and it is not likely to disappear soon. But how books will be produced and delivered, publishing houses whose names are well anything solid, the expressed enthusiasm and where they will fit in the new known to us all – Penguin, Jonathan Cape, (or lack of it) of trusted others is decisive. symbolic and information macmillan, Knopf – are today owned by the focus on big books is exacerbated environments that are emerging large corporations and survive as imprints by the financial pressures on the publishing today, are questions to which there rather than as independent publishing houses owned by large corporations and are, at present, no clear answers. houses. by the practices of the retail chains, which order large quantities of some new books, Making bestsellers charge publishers a premium for front-of- together, these developments have store displays and expect them to turn over created a field of cultural activity that has a quickly. many new books fail to take off and distinctive structure and dynamic – a ‘logic are sent back to publishers in large of the field’. they have led, for instance, to numbers, resulting in historically high levels the polarisation of the industry, with four or of returns. But in those cases where they five large corporate groups dominating the do take off, publishers and booksellers field and a plurality of small independent mobilise quickly behind them, with publishers on the margins. very few additional resources and promotion, medium-sized independent publishers pouring more fuel on the flames – this in remain active: in this new world of trade part is how bestsellers are made. publishing, it is very difficult to be medium- sized. The end of the book? these developments have also led to a today trade publishers are faced with preoccupation with what in the industry unprecedented challenges. the economic are commonly known as ‘big books’. these climate is tough, overall sales (especially in are not yet bestsellers but rather ‘hoped-for north America) are down and the arrival of bestsellers’. given the unavoidable role a new generation of ebook readers has played by serendipity in trade publishing, raised fresh questions about the future of it is simply unclear how well many new printed books. Do these developments books will do in the marketplace – no-one mean that the world of the book as we’ve Professor really knows. known it is about to undergo a further John Thompson So how do publishers decide how transformation, even more radical than that much they’re willing to pay for them? which has characterised the industry in various factors come into play here, but a recent decades, perhaps even leading to crucial role is played by ‘the web of the eclipse of the printed book as such? For more information, please collective belief’ which is built up through Despite widespread speculation about contact the author Professor John the numerous conversations that take the ‘end of the book’, we are still a long way Thompson ([email protected]) at place between agents, editors and other from a world in which trade books are the Department of Sociology players in the field. in the absence of routinely read on screens rather than on (www.sociology.cam.ac.uk/).
issue 11 | Spring 2010 | 23 feAtUReS
Britain’s island heritage: reconstructing half a million years of history The latest instalment of a 20-year study to understand how Britain became an island completes a tale of megafloods and super-rivers.
Deep below the Bay of Biscay, where the When Britain actually was in readings of the floor of the english english Channel meets the Atlantic Europe Channel, showing the topography of ocean, layers of sediment hold precious deep valleys running the length of the But the story really starts 500,000 years information about how Britain came to be waterway), it has been possible to build ago, five ice ages before present times, separated from mainland europe. Until up a detailed picture of the conditions of when Britain was connected to europe recently, the clues had remained hidden, through a land mass that stretched from the region: where rivers drained, glaciers off limits owing to the impracticalities and the netherlands to the Dover Strait. formed and landmasses changed. cost of obtaining long-piston core Between Britain and france was a wide most recently, the scientists have samples and high-resolution acoustic data shallow area into which southerly rivers been able to build up a continuous in this area. however, thanks to an Anglo- like the Somme and the Seine drained, record of the earth’s climate variability for french collaboration between Professor while the thames and the Rhine drained the past 1,200,000 years, showing a Phil gibbard, who leads the Quaternary northwards into the north Sea. correspondence between temperature Palaeoenvironments group in the indications as to what happened to changes caused by the waxing and Department of geography, and PhD the landmass over the ensuing half a waning of the glaciers and the peaks and student Sam toucanne and his colleagues million years have been found in lows in sedimentary deposits. the data from the University of Bordeaux, the sedimentary investigations of the show that three of the five ice ages – seabed has now yielded its secrets. in geological history of the southern north 450,000 years, 160,000 years and 30,000 doing so, it provides the final instalment Sea region and neighbouring areas by years ago – seem to have had the most in a story that has been unfolding for two Professor gibbard. these provided a read- dramatic impacts on the sedimentary decades, since Professor gibbard first out of past environments, including deposits. Could one or more of these ice began his detailed palaeogeographic and climatic changes, and of how and where ages have precipitated the events that paleoenvironmental reconstructions of the rivers flowed during the past. resulted in Britain becoming separated the southern north Sea. together with bathymetric maps (sonar from europe?
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issue 11 | Spring 2010 | 25 feAtUReS R e P
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26 | issue 11 | Spring 2010 feAtUReS P R o f
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A y R e
The purity and linguistic correctness of the S - B e n
French language has been closely guarded n e t by the French for centuries. Professor Wendy t Ayres-Bennett is exploring the reasons behind this national preoccupation. in these globalised times, when to understand the international communication has taken appeal and influence some endangered languages to the point of such works in their of extinction, it is fascinating to consider day and beyond is to how one nation has resisted the examine the social encroachment of other languages in the and cultural interests of keeping its language pure. history of france. the french have long been keen in a period of advocates of linguistic correctness or great social ‘good usage’. indeed, it is often said that mobility, when france provides the most extreme nobility could be example of a prescriptive, interventionist purchased by the and purist attitude to use of language. newly rich, the even today, ministerial commissions volumes acted recommend acceptable terminology for as a kind of fields as diverse as it and nuclear energy, linguistic and the Académie française (the french courtesy book. language academy) advises on proper Someone usage of french vocabulary and spelling, arriving new to the as it has done since the 17th century. King’s court would need to know not Frontispiece of in a major research project funded by only how to dress and eat properly, but Vaugelas’s Remarques sur la langue the Arts and humanities Research Council perhaps above all how to speak correctly, française (1647) (AhRC), Professor Wendy Ayres-Bennett so as not to offend polite society. the writers of remarks continually is directing a collaborative project strived to define what is french and to researching the origins of this concern for A rich resource exclude the unwanted ‘other’, whether linguistic correctness and the broader many volumes of remarks and this is regional, low-register or foreign symbolic values associated with it. observations have been published by usage. notions of language, nation and various authors down the centuries. identity are thus closely intertwined. in Remarks and observations All are typically intended not for short, to research the history of the french preoccupation with language foreigners but for competent native standardisation and linguistic correctness purity is reflected in the founding of the speakers who wish to perfect their in france involves consideration of what Académie française in 1635 and, perhaps usage of french. it is to be french. above all, in the publication of a these volumes provide the focus of particular type of metalinguistic work. in the research project, which brings 1647, Academy member Claude favre de together scholars from north America, vaugelas published his Remarques sur la france and other parts of europe to langue française , a collection of short, address key questions about the genre randomly ordered remarks and and to create a corpus of the principal observations intended to resolve points texts, to be published online and as of doubtful usage and provide clear critical editions. this valuable research guidance on the good use of french. tool will provide those working on vaugelas’s book quickly became a contemporary french with a historical bestseller and was highly influential. We perspective to their research: many of the know, for instance, that in 1660 the great most troublesome rules of french playwright Pierre Corneille reworked the grammar used today, including past Professor Wendy language of his plays to take account of participle agreement, date from these Ayres-Bennett vaugelas’s judgements and that Jean early remarks on the french language. Racine, author of some of france’s finest moreover, one of the most fascinating For more information, please contact tragedies, is said to have taken a copy of aspects of the research is that the the author Professor Wendy Ayres- the work with him to the south of france volumes of remarks provide unique data Bennett ([email protected]) so as not to become ‘contaminated’ by on how people actually wrote and spoke at the Department of Linguistics regional speech. in the period. (www.mml.cam.ac.uk/ling/).
issue 11 | Spring 2010 | 27 feAtUReS D R
P A coordinated research A U L
D response i g A
R in what has been described as among D ,
D
e the fastest reactions of the UK science P A R
t and funding community to an emerging m e n disease threat, leading UK research t o
f funders announced in november 2009
P A t
h funding of £7.5 million aimed at o L o understanding the development and g y spread of pandemic influenza. this coordinated response from the research community was catalysed by the medical Research Council (mRC), Wellcome trust, Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), Department of From health and Department for environment, food and Rural Affairs (Defra). the result has been the funding of four major pandemic collaborative projects (see panel). in Cambridge, Professor James Wood at the Department of veterinary medicine to policy: leads a study to monitor the spread and evolution of influenza in infected UK pig herds and farm workers, bringing combating together a multidisciplinary team of 18 researchers from Cambridge, oxford, edinburgh and London. A sister project swine flu led by Professor ian Brown at the veterinary Laboratories Agency (vLA), Weybridge, focuses on the transmission, Influenza virus infection dynamics and immunopathology of h1n1 in pigs compared with human ‘This is amongst the Pandemic h1n1 virus infection – or infection. together, the two projects fastest I have ever seen ‘swine flu’ – has spread globally form the Combating Swine influenza (CoSi) initiative. the UK science following its emergence in mexico in march 2009. millions of people have community react to an been infected and, as of December Viral ‘mixing vessels’ emerging disease threat. 2009, over 9,500 deaths have been the new research builds on a programme Turning around a reported to the World health of study carried out by the Cambridge funding initiative in a organization (Who). infectious Diseases Consortium (CiDC), governments and individuals are which has been investigating infectious matter of months while understandably concerned: this is the animal viruses that pose a major disease ensuring we are first human influenza pandemic in more threat to both animal and human supporting the best than 40 years. Although a ‘bird flu’ populations. the CiDC is led by Professor pandemic has been feared since 1997, science has been a huge Wood in the Department of veterinary no more than a few hundred people medicine and operates in close achievement by the died of avian h5n1 influenza, despite collaboration with the Animal health scientific community being spread by migratory birds and trust (Aht) in newmarket. and the funders.’ the international poultry trade. Putting A large part of research within the this in context, hundreds of thousands Professor Douglas Kell, BBSRC CiDC focuses on swine h1n1 and of people globally continue to die from Chief Executive, commenting equine h3n8 viruses. Swine flu is seasonal influenza each year. on four new collaborative common in pigs in europe and not only do severe pandemics have projects being funded across circulates through farms on at least an far-reaching repercussions for human the UK, one of which is being annual basis. equine influenza virus health, the health sector and the led by Cambridge. also circulates endemically in the UK, economy, but influenza outbreaks in predominantly affecting younger farmed animals also have a profound horses. Working closely with the impact on the consumer market and international and national reference loss of business. new research on the laboratories for swine and equine origins, spread and prevention of swine influenza – the vLA and the Aht, flu is urgently needed to inform respectively – and collaborating with government policy on how future the Wellcome trust Sanger institute, pandemics like the one we are currently researchers at the CiDC are aiming to experiencing can be detected, examine genetic variation within controlled and ultimately prevented. endemic viruses.
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with pigs will be identified. Data from affected farms will be used to make accurate models of transmission and dynamics to help inform intervention strategies.
Informing policy together, the four newly funded collaborative projects aim to understand how the virus mutates and jumps the species barrier and how it spreads through communities; how the virus causes disease in both pigs and humans and why it affects some individuals more than others; and which interventions are Scientists from the Department of Veterinary Medicine and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute will be working together to understand swine flu; left to right: Professor James Wood, Dr Greg Baillie (Sanger), most effective at preventing infection or Dr Pablo Murcia, Dr Paul Kellam (Sanger) treating the disease. the intention is for the results to feed directly into wider this latest strain of swine flu, for the infection of pig farmers who have policy analysis on dealing with instance, is known to have arisen from the then transmitted the virus to pigs. in pandemics, for the long-term benefit of combination of two swine influenza Britain, many pigs are farmed in large human and animal health. viruses, one originating in the USA and populations and, if these farms were to the other in europe. it seems that become infected with the pandemic flu progenitor viruses were circulating virus, then large amounts of virus would undetected, probably in pigs, for around be produced with unpredictable nine years before the jump to humans consequences. took place. Pigs are especially likely to be Detailed genetic studies of archived a ‘mixing vessel’ for viruses because they samples from previous swine influenza are more susceptible to a range of outbreaks will be carried out, as well as influenza viruses than most other animals. an investigation of the health of pig By examining genetic variation within farmers and vets who are exposed endemic swine and equine viruses, the through their occupation to these scientists hope to understand how virus outbreaks. this will provide a better variants, which usually arise at a low explanation of how the pandemic virus frequency, end up being spread between arose and spread, including where the animals and populations. Using initial virus combination took place. With epidemiological and experimental data, this information, the likelihood of similar Professor James Wood they are constructing mathematical events reoccurring can be predicted and models of virus infections, examining recommendations for minimising the For more information, please questions relating to the control of ongoing risk can be made. contact Professor James Wood infection within the host animal, the Another important area will be to ([email protected]), the Alborada spread and control of viruses through predict the immediate threat if the Professor of Equine and Farm populations and how the gradual pandemic virus mutates to become a Animal Science, at the Department evolution of the influenza virus reaches a more virulent form, particularly if of Veterinary Medicine, or threshold before large-scale outbreaks or pandemic h1n1 becomes endemic in the visit the CIDC website epidemics are likely to be observed. pig population. the rates of viral (www.vet.cam.ac.uk/cidc/). mutation will be studied and any specific The COSI Initiative is funded by The COSI Initiative virus mutations associated with the the BBSRC, Defra, MRC and the newly funded research initiative is spread between pigs and people working Wellcome Trust. intended to develop a vital new understanding of how the pandemic h1n1 virus behaves in pig populations Newly funded collaborative projects on H1N1 and how interaction with farm workers may help it to evolve and spread. With Combating Swine Influenza (COSI) Initiative: the role of pig –pig and this information, it should be possible to pig –human interactions in the development and spread of pandemic h1n1: move a step closer to developing • epidemiological and evolutionary investigations in pigs and farm workers strategies to slow or prevent the spread (University of Cambridge ) of the virus in both pig herds and the • immunological and dynamic modelling of infection in pigs compared with human population. humans ( Veterinary Laboratories Agency , Weybridge) the collaboration led by Professor Wood aims to define the consequences FluWatch: study of the transmission of pandemic h1n1 within households in of what would happen if the pandemic england ( University College London ) h1n1 virus spreads from humans to pigs, as has happened in countries as diverse MOSAIC: study of hospitalised cases of severe infection ( Imperial College as Argentina, USA, Canada, northern London ) ireland and Australia, probably following
issue 11 | Spring 2010 | 29 feAtUReS P R o f e S S o R
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The educational neuroscience of dyslexia and dyscalculia
A special hairnet collects data from a young participant in the developmental dyslexia project For some children, Developmental dyslexia, which manifests A world first acquiring the important as a difficulty in reading and spelling, the Centre for neuroscience in education affects about 7% of schoolchildren, mostly skills of learning to read or was the first neuroscience laboratory in boys, and presents a major obstacle to the world to be established within a do arithmetic is fraught educational success, future mental health faculty of education. Launched formally in with difficulty. Educational and lifetime earning. its mathematical 2005, with an inaugural conference that neuroscience is helping to counterpart, developmental dyscalculia, attracted 220 teachers and educators from affects about 6% of schoolchildren and is understand why. over 15 countries, the Centre now has a found equally in boys and girls. According team of 24 students and researchers. Staff to figures released from the UK are trained in a variety of disciplines, government office for Science, dyscalculia spanning psychology, education, has an even higher impact on educational medicine, linguistics and physics. the success than dyslexia. Centre is directed by Professor Usha early diagnosis and appropriate goswami, with Dr Dénes Szűcs as educational support are known to have University Lecturer in neuroscience and lasting benefits for children and adults education. affected by these disorders. to get this right, a better understanding is needed of how the brain acquires reading and From electrochemical signals maths skills, and the new field of to education educational neuroscience is helping to the main brain imaging technology find the answers. in the forefront of used in the Centre is the these studies is Cambridge’s Centre for electroencephalogram (eeg), a technique neuroscience in education. With that can measure the voltage changes £2 million recent funding from the that are caused by the electrochemical medical Research Council (mRC), the activity of brain cells. Whenever a child researchers at the Centre aim to (or adult) is thinking or feeling, tiny discover neural markers for dyslexia electrical changes occur in the brain. these and dyscalculia through brain imaging changes can be measured by sensitive techniques. this will enable affected electrodes that are placed on the skin of children to be identified as early as the scalp, mounted in a special hairnet possible and for targeted remediation to that enables direct recordings of brain be delivered. activity to be taken. the technique is
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to keep relevant information in mind and to recognise mistakes. When children start learning maths at school, changes largely occur in the language areas of the brain. the ensuing neural connections that form between memory, magnitude and decision-making processes may underlie what goes wrong in dyscalculia. this hypothesis will be explored using a variety of non-invasive imaging techniques at the Centre and in collaboration with the mRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in The Centre for Neuroscience in Education team Cambridge, in an effort to use spatial imaging technologies to deliver exact painless, the electrodes are easy to put on way in which the literate brain represents information about where the affected and the children enjoy the measurement language. Learning to read changes the networks are in the brain. sessions. brain because learning an alphabet makes But how can these electrical us conceptualise spoken words in terms of With foresight measurements tell us anything about the their spelling patterns. We automatically the Centre is also beginning to have process of learning? A developmental hear spoken language as a series of the an input into government policy. dyslexia project is making this link by kinds of sounds represented by letters (e.g. Professor goswami was the scientific following over 100 children on a yearly we hear cat as c + a + t); this connection co-ordinator for Learning Difficulties basis for five years, making brain between sounds and letters is called within the government office of measurements at the same time as phonics. the dyslexic brain does not have Science ‘foresight’ project on mental analysing speech processing, auditory the auditory distinctions efficiently in place Capital and Wellbeing in 2008, one of processing, reading and spelling. one to which phonics instruction can be easily three Cambridge scientists in the lead area of particular focus is a specific difficulty linked. team (along with Professors Barbara in processing the sound patterns of words, Currently, the main remediation offered Sahakian and felicia huppert). if the a skill called phonological awareness, to children with developmental dyslexia is recommendations of the foresight which has been known for over 20 years to yet more intensive instruction in phonics. project are implemented nationally, be the hallmark of developmental dyslexia. instead, the research in Cambridge then the insights from brain science for suggests that interventions based on education will eventually be reflected The sound of syllables rhythm and even music may be beneficial, in the basic training of all the teachers Children with dyslexia find it difficult to at much earlier ages. Rhythm is more overt in the country. When that happens, all decide whether words rhyme and to in music than in language, and other University Departments of education count the number of syllables in a word projects at the Centre have shown that will need some expertise in brain like oasis . one reason is that aspects of being able to sing in time with music is science – and Cambridge will be in the the auditory signal in speech are predictive of syllable and rhyming skills, vanguard once again. processed less efficiently by the dyslexic and that training in rhythm improves brain. phonological awareness. Several in a simple auditory tone task that has educational interventions based on now been used with dyslexic children musical and speech rhythms are learning languages as diverse as english, currently being developed at the Spanish, Chinese and finnish, scientists at Centre. the Centre have shown that one particular sound parameter is more difficult to Magnitude of the problem discriminate. A bit like the difference in the the mRC project on dyscalculia is just onset of loudness between a trumpet note beginning but, here too, the neurological and a violin note, there is a difference in basis of the disorder is under scrutiny the rate of onset of loudness that occurs as because a distinct area in the brain’s we produce syllables; the Cambridge parietal cortex seems to be specialised for Professor Usha Goswami researchers have found that this is impaired understanding magnitude. Children with For more information, please contact in developmental dyslexia. in fact, this dyscalculia have enormous difficulties in the author, Professor Usha Goswami processing difficulty means that children making decisions about quantities, such ([email protected]), at the Centre for with dyslexia are impaired in any auditory as ‘how much is four?’ intriguingly, Neuroscience in Education rhythmic task – including perceiving however, scientists at the Centre have (www.educ.cam.ac.uk/centres/ metrical structure in music and tapping shown that the main sensory marker of neuroscience/) in the Faculty of along to a beat. magnitude difficulties – being slower to Education. Research at the Centre is make judgements about numbers that are funded by grants from the MRC, Reading in rhythm closer together than further apart – is Economic and Social Research to further complicate matters, the way in not deficient in children with dyscalculia. Council (ESRC), European Union, which the pre-literate brain represents But these children do have very poor Leverhulme Trust and Nuffield language is fundamentally different to the working memories, finding it both difficult Foundation.
issue 11 | Spring 2010 | 31 in foCUS
Polish cinema in the frame Cinema was a central means of cultural expression in post-war Poland. Dr Matilda Mroz is asking how and why.
‘Watch them closely, for these are the last The UK’s national academy for the humanities and social hours of their lives…,’ commands the sciences seeks to recognise and support leading-edge narrator at the beginning of the Polish research within these fields, championing their importance film Kanal (1956), directed by Andrzej and the vital role they play in raising and answering Wajda. And watching closely, frame by frame, is precisely what Dr matilda mroz fundamental questions facing society today. is doing, as she examines post-war Polish the British Academy receives £22 million institutional links and promotes new films for the nuances that escaped in government grant to support understandings and interchange Socialist censorship and gave cinema of the time a unique political resonance. UK-based research and international between participating countries. in ‘Cinema is the most important art collaboration in the humanities and Cambridge, Dr Devon Curtis is using this form to emerge in the 20th century,’ social sciences. from this, over 1,000 award to collaborate with scholars in explains Dr mroz, from the Department awards are made each year, benefiting Uganda and Botswana on a study of of Slavonic Studies. ‘in Poland, unable to individuals based in more than 120 rebel movements and post-conflict communicate resistance to the Socialist universities and research institutions peace building in Africa . regime through open political channels, across the UK. the British Academy is the oppositionists often chose to express counterpart to the Royal Society, which themselves through culturally symbolic supports the natural sciences. the Supporting research actions. Cinema became their most one of the most popular British Academy Academy partners with the Royal Society powerful tool, slipping subversive notions funding programmes is the Postdoctoral and the Royal Academy of engineering past the censors through subtle cinematic fellowship. these provide three-year for the esteemed newton international direction.’ career development opportunities to fellowships scheme, which aims to build scholars such as Dr Matilda Mroz and a global pool of research leaders and Dr Zoltán Tiba (see panels) to develop encourage long-term international Warsaw Uprising Memorial, research, teaching and publications at collaboration. Poland, on the 60th anniversary an early career stage. Around 45 new of the Uprising awards are made annually under this Championing humanities and exceptionally competitive flagship social sciences scheme, including seven to Cambridge this year. each year, the Academy elects 38 British Academy Research outstanding UK-based scholars to be Development Awards (BARDAs) support fellows of the British Academy in established scholars wishing to develop a recognition of their research significant collaborative or individual achievements. today, there are over 900 research project . About 35 awards are fellows who take a lead in representing made each year under this comparatively the humanities and social sciences, and new scheme, which replaces large who contribute to public policy and research fellowships and research leave. debate. Seven Cambridge academics in Cambridge, BARDA-funded scholars were among the recently elected fellows: include Dr mandeep Dhami, who is Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, Professor evaluating apology in the context of Philip ford, Professor Jonathan haslam, restorative justice, Dr Claire Preston, who Professor mary Jacobus, Dr John is studying 17th-century english literature marenbon, Professor Susan Rankin and and scientific investigation, and Dr Anna Professor John Duncan. Williams, who is researching the through investing in ideas, individuals architecture of theology. and intellectual resources, the Academy the Academy also offers Small aims to enhance the scholarly and Research grants (up to £7,500) to cultural resources of the UK, contributing stimulate interdisciplinary work, to quality of life, economic prosperity, collaborations or pilot studies, and several public policy, understanding of other schemes focus on encouraging societies and cultural enrichment. international collaboration, promoting capacity development and engagement. For more information about the for instance, the three-year UK-Africa British Academy, please visit Academic Partnership award encourages www.britac.ac.uk/
32 | issue 11 | Spring 2010 in foCUS D R
funded through a British Academy z o L t
Postdoctoral fellowship, Dr mroz has á n
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been tracing this trend in Polish film- i B making, a trend that is beautifully A exemplified by Kanal . Set among the ruins of wartime Warsaw, Kanal depicts the last days of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising and the attempt of the insurgents to reach another part of the city through the sewers, in which they get lost and perish. ‘it was the first film that addressed the previously taboo subject of the non- Communist resistance movement, and it traumatised many viewers because it showed the soldiers escaping and then dying in the filth of the sewers rather than fighting heroically,’ explains Dr mroz. ‘even the cinematography was such that viewers often spoke of feeling as lost and claustrophobic as the characters – a marked departure from the rigorously framed films beloved of the Socialist Children in Namasalima village, Malawi, eating movement.’ maize porridge Understanding how cinema-goers reacted to the films is an important aspect of the research, since it affords a unique opportunity to examine the Famine’s changing face intersection between cinematic experience, historical climate and Polish Dr Zoltán Tiba’s research on why famines happen is posing culture. Dr mroz’s funding enabled her to questions about the root causes and possible long-term travel to Warsaw to the national film interventions. Archives last year, where she made a ‘the nature of famine has changed,’ said and, yet, chronic food insecurity is a serious
D lucky discovery: ‘Sixty years ago, R m someone had diligently cut out every Dr zoltán tiba, a British-Academy-funded problem and the threat of famines is still A t i L Postdoctoral fellow in the Centre of African evident.’
D article and mention of the very films that A m i was interested in and pasted them into Studies. ‘today, famines happen not just ‘increasingly my research is R o z scrapbooks. there’s something very because there is a decline in the availability emphasising the role of local attitudes to exciting about opening these yellowing, or in the access to food, but because of diversification of diet and production,’ crinkled books and thinking about the factors such as the political economy and explained Dr tiba. ‘one possibility for long- archivists determined to preserve for the toll of hiv-AiDS on the working term change at the macro level is to focus posterity both the ‘official’ and the population.’ on the micro level – something as simple controversial responses to important Dr tiba’s research has set out to as individuals growing fruits and raising films.’ now, decades later, Dr mroz is develop fresh analytical tools to small livestock in addition to growing rediscovering these invaluable records understand famines. he takes malawi in cereals would add to the safety net to and their testimony to the enduring sub-Saharan Africa as his primary focus. subvert chronic food insecurity and power of cinema for the Polish people. ‘malawi is an interesting case since in many famines in a country like malawi.’ ways it challenges commonly accepted views about the causes of famine. the famine in 2002 demonstrated that democracy does not always ‘end famine’. Contemporary famines have multiple and complex causes, and traditional interventions such as food aid distributions are not necessarily the best solution to ‘new’ famines.’ for the past seven years, Dr tiba has been conducting research in a malawian village, where he has been interviewing villagers and carrying out household Dr Matilda Mroz surveys, as well as speaking to government Dr Zoltán Tiba officials and aid agencies. his findings are For more information, please contact building a unique picture of village life and For more information, please contact Dr Matilda Mroz ([email protected]) the malawians’ experiences of food Dr Zoltán Tiba ([email protected]) at at the Department of Slavonic Studies insecurity. ‘the area is a garden of eden, the Centre of African Studies (www.mml.cam.ac.uk/slavonic/). with lush vegetation and plenty of water (www.african.cam.ac.uk/).
issue 11 | Spring 2010 | 33 inSiDe oUt Professor Jaideep Prabhu Jaideep Prabhu is the first Jawaharlal Nehru Professor of Indian Business and Enterprise, which was endowed by the Government of India, and is Director of the Centre for India & Global Business at Judge Business School. With a passion for understanding and promoting India’s place in shaping the global knowledge economy, he leads an important component of the University’s long-standing partnership with India.
‘in two decades’ time, the expectation is more conventional route and ended up that india will have one of the world’s studying engineering and business, I’m still largest economies – a result of its fascinated by the written word. escalating engagement with innovation, its service economy and its young and Have you ever had a Eureka moment? dynamic population,’ explained Professor I’ve had moments of dawning realisation Prabhu. ‘it’s an incredibly exciting time to that have had a profound influence on me. be looking at the nation’s role in the Probably the most significant of these was global economy, both through the lens after moving from India to the US to study of innovation and from a systematic at the University of Southern California in business perspective.’ the early 1990s. I was swept away by the the Centre for india & global intellectual openness and I considered Business, launched in march 2009 with switching from engineering to philosophy. start-up funds donated by the BP group, I also saw at first hand how differently to has an overarching research theme of India the US operated in terms of the role of innovation and the role that it can play in the state versus free enterprise. It was my india. this stretches from how and why first introduction to the complexities the world’s largest multinationals are underlying political economies worldwide. increasingly locating their global R&D and innovation activities in india, What’s the best piece of advice you’ve how indian firms themselves are ever been given? internationalising and increasing their When I was wrestling with whether to provided a business solution can be found global competitiveness, to how embark on a philosophy doctorate, my to make them viable. Even something as organisations are actively innovating uncle (himself a philosopher) suggested that basic as using a mobile phone as a micro- with those in india who live below the I choose business instead. Deciding against payment system can open up enormous poverty line to make their lives better. philosophy was very hard to accept then, opportunities in a country like India, where Professor Prabhu brings to the Centre but, as it turns out, he was absolutely right. 60% of the population has no bank account his extensive research experience gained I had grown up questioning why there is and, as such, remains outside the formal in the USA, europe and the UK. As inequality in society, in particular why some economy. Director, his goal is to create a people and countries are wealthy and collaborative platform that draws in others are not. Studying business has given What’s your favourite research tool? multiple stakeholders from india, the UK me the tools to think about these questions It has to be statistics, both conceptually and and other countries. ‘it’s not just the systematically. I like the fact that business as a practical, computer-based tool. research that counts, it’s also how we engages with the world and its social and Without statistics it is very hard to do any promote and guide engagement with economic prospects, and the fact that there kind of systematic social science. innovation in india and, for this, the role are constantly new questions to ask and of other stakeholders will be crucial,’ he diverse theories and methods to use to find What will the future look like in 2050? explained. ‘By understanding some of the answers to them. The emerging markets will have emerged. challenges that lie ahead, we can help Nations like India and China, as well as to derive solutions that will be of What motivates you to go to work Russia, Brazil and countries in Latin America widespread benefit to the global each day? and Africa, will all have a bigger role to play economy.’ The idea that something I do might in on the global stage. There will be greater some small way make a difference to movement of people, more diversity at work, What would others be surprised to people’s lives. One aspect of the Centre’s increased democracy, and essentially a learn about you? research is looking at how business can more connected world. With climate When I was younger, I was obsessed with help improve the lives of people who live on change and population growth, we’ll face fiction and poetry. I was particularly fond of under $2 a day – about 2.5 billion people significant challenges, especially scarcity in the poetry of Auden, Brodsky and Walcott, around the world, many of whom are in energy, food and water. But necessity is the and the novels of Saul Bellow. I read widely India. If you think about innovation as the mother of invention and it is my belief that and went around with all these literary shaping of technology to deliver new we will see some significant entrepreneurial thoughts in my head, imagining that one benefits for people, then even the most and business solutions to the challenges day I might be a poet. Although I took a basic innovations will improve lives, ahead.
34 | issue 11 | Spring 2010 foRthComing eventS
Forthcoming events: Save the dates! t o P
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L U C K h U R S t ;
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o t h e R S :
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W o o L e R 8–21 March 2010 Cambridge Science Festival: ‘Diverse Science’ Join us for the UK’s largest free science take place on Science on Saturdays Risk) and a panel discussion entitled ‘What festival, exploring subjects from astronomy (13 and 20 march). price nature’ organised in conjunction with to zoology, with demonstrations, hands- the theme will be ‘Diverse Science’ to the Cambridge Conservation initiative. on experiments, talks from leading celebrate the international year of highlights for children include an hour of scientists, and visits to University and Biodiversity in 2010. there will be many explosive demonstrations with the naked partner facilities. over 180 events will be opportunities to delve into diversity at Scientists, and a food factory Workshop – on offer, designed to give families, adults events for all ages during our family fun where you’re the chef with the medical and children hands-on science and insight days and adult evening lecture series. Research Council human nutrition into the University’s cutting-edge scientific highlights for adults include lectures by Research Unit. the full programme is research. many of the activities, Professor David Spiegelhalter (the Winton available from www.cambridgescience.org/ demonstrations and children’s lectures will Professor of the Public Understanding of from January 2010. S t e P h e n
g o L D i e
cambridge cancer centre
25 June 2010 Cambridge Cancer Centre Symposium Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute, Li Ka Shing Centre, Cambridge the Cambridge Cancer Centre (CCC) in 2009 will showcase the latest barbecue, with delegates from University Symposium is a one-day event interdisciplinary cancer research departments, institutes and local biotech highlighting the interdisciplinary and undertaken in Cambridge. there will be a companies. the full programme will be collaborative cancer research being Keynote Lecture by Professor mariano available in spring 2010 and registration carried out in Cambridge. this is the Barbacid of the Centro nacional de will open shortly after this time on the fourth CCC Symposium to take place. investigaciones oncológicas in madrid. CCC website (www.cancer.cam.ac.uk/). talks from invited speakers and from the day will have ample opportunity for for more information, please email recipients of CCC pilot project funding networking during the poster session and katrien.vanlook@cancer. org.uk
issue 11 | Spring 2010 | 35 the BACK PAge
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