Natural Sciences

'I work at the Department of Biochemistry with strong ties to the CRUK Cambridge Institute. I am an RNA biochemist with a keen interest in mechanisms of disease, and in particular, in how understanding them can aid early diagnosis. I mostly work on breast cancer, but also contribute to collaborative efforts investigating various infectious diseases.'

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Dr Bridget Bannerman specialises in translational science, cheminformatics as well as in evolution and theoretical systems biology. She has successfully developed predictive models to support drug discovery initiatives towards infections caused by various protists and mycobacteria and most recently the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Other projects she has been involved in include clinical trials at the Cambridge University Hospitals and the UK Medical Research Council in The Gambia to heading capacity building and gender streaming initiatives at the Science Resources Africa programme. She has widespread collaborations at leading institutions in the USA, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Sweden, France and Brazil and partners with international organisations including UNESCO, WHO and Schlumberger.

Giovanna's multidisciplinary research encompasses biochemistry, biophysics, structural biology and synthetic chemistry, with the ultimate goal to develop molecules to treat human diseases such as cancer. In Cambridge she is a visiting researcher at the Department of Pharmacology.

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Dr Hunter worked for 12 years at the British Antarctic Survey on the evolution of the Antarctic continent over the last 200 million years. She worked on continental break up which left the Antarctic isolated over the South Pole and looked at how the continent has been affected by recent glacial cycles.

Her specialism is in understanding sedimentary rocks and their environment of deposition to then look at large scale changes such as plate tectonics or climate evolution.

Tomi Baikie received his BsC in Mathematics and Physics from the University of St Andrews. He completed his thesis at the Cavendish Laboratory working with Akshay Rao and Neil Greenham at the University of Cambridge. Tomi’s PhD focused on ultrafast spectroscopy elucidating the nature of charges in photosynthetic systems, investigating electronic-ionic conductors through transient surface photo-voltage measurements, and a theoretical and experimental investigation into solar concentrating systems. He has previously worked with NASA on topics relating to solar magnetohydrodynamics. Further, he has broad interest in access to higher education and was a postgraduate fellow in the House of Commons Select Committee for Education. Tomi is currently the NanoDTC Translational Prize Fellow which is awarded to exceptional researchers to carry out projects which enable the translation of cutting edge nanoscience research. His current research in the Bioelectronics and Cavendish Laboratories focuses on developing non-invasive techniques to understand the electrical properties of skin. He is the Director of Studies for Physics at Lucy Cavendish. 

'I work in the field of medical and pharmaceutical materials and direct the Cambridge Centre for Medical Materials in the Materials Science Department in Cambridge. My research concerns materials that interact therapeutically with the body.'

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I worked in the fast food industry before taking an Access to HE Diploma at Birmingham Metropolitan College and studying A-level Sciences, independently. I like the fact that I’m lectured by world experts here: they know the field, because they’re the ones doing critical research in it. There’s also a useful overlap between courses in Natural Sciences, meaning that scientific concepts are explored from a number of perspectives. And overall, it isn’t as scary as I’d anticipated: the material is delivered at a level people feel comfortable with, and I can manage most of my work within scheduled contact hours. Lucy Cavendish is definitely the prettiest ‘mature’ college, with the nicest buildings of all the modern colleges. Everyone knows each other, and the Library has great sofas!

I grew up in Lithuania and left my job as a technician in a medical device development company to come to Cambridge, having previously sat the International Baccalaureate.Since Lucy is a rather small college, you get to know most of the student population and have plenty of opportunities for exciting social life. Furthermore, your voice really matters in the decision making processes of the college and you can get big things accomplished through joining the Student Union committee or launching a new society/initiative. I loved the fact that the Natural Sciences course aims to develop scientists capable of asking critical questions and developing solutions to them – at all times you are encouraged to think independently and judge objectively, rather than learn by rote.

Fred Alford is a researcher in general relativity. He is currently researching Hawking radiation - this is the radiation given off by black holes due to interesting quantum effects in their formation. Fred is a HIMR Research Fellow at Imperial College London, having finished his PhD in mathematics at Jesus College, Cambridge in April 2022.He also continues to supervise at several Cambridge colleges.

Isabel teaches Natural Sciences at Lucy, and tutors students.

She was previously one of Postdocs, working on methods to transform the genome of dinoflagellates (algae at the base of coral reef ecosystems), unusual in being resistant to such transformations. The research team has recently succeeded in introducing novel genetic material into the dinoflagellate genome, allowing to genetically modify cultures that can then be grown with subculturing, maintaining the introduced genes and phenotypes. This will allow us (over time) to better understand the symbiotic relationship between the dinoflagellates and coral reefs.