The staff and students at Ludwig Oxford celebrated their achievements of 2024 at a festive event showcasing the achievements of the past year and promoting team-building to aid in years to come.
Kickstarting the event was a fascinating talk from invited keynote speaker Molly Ingersoll, who had impressed so much at a separate conference earlier in the year that our DPhil student and Retreat Committee member Amanda Wicki invited her to speak to the whole Institute. Her work into the immunology of the bladder and the biological sex differences that play a role in bladder cancer impressed everyone in attendance.
The Branch welcomed Ludwig staff Pär Olssen and Shayda Hemmati from the Ludwig central team in New York to talk to us about IP and patent applications, and Oxford's Kerry Fisher shared his experiences in Oxford biotech spinouts. Both sessions were highly informative and reminded our researchers of the wider reaching aspects of their work.
Our very own group leaders also took to the stage to showcase the experiment that changed the way they thought about science and their own research. These quickfire presentations restricted the use of visual aides to one slide with pictures and were judged by the researchers with the award for most inspiring talk going to Francesco Boccellato! His slide describing his inadvertent creation of mucosoids was excellent. Second prize was a tie between Marketa Tomkova and Richard White, and third prize was awarded to Peter Ratcliffe.
The Institute also took part in some lively debates around current issues in science and it was very interesting to hear the different viewpoints across our community. A team building exercise saw teams being randomly assigned and an array of tasks completed to find a missing key. Congratulations to team Snow Man who were the winners here!
The poster session was a success as always, with representatives from each group showcasing their work. Huge congratulations to the winner - postdoctoral researcher Samvid Kurlekur. Akbar Shahid was awarded second place.This year poster presenters gave out clues to those who asked the best questions and these were used for treasure hunting throughout the evening. Congratulations to our winning team here!
The many members of our community who take part in public engagement and help organise seminars to expand our research knowledge were also celebrated for their hard work throughout the year, and of course the committee who put the retreat together! Thank you to Richard White, Marie-Laure Foisneau-Bates, Michael McClellan, Jeremy Raymond, Amanda Wicki, Claudia Zagami, Antonella D'Amore, Felice Wallner, Emelie Shepherd, Joanna Correia Lima, Sara Abdel Malak and Vicky Tan.
2024 has been an excellent year for the science produced by Ludwig Oxford, and we as an Institute would like to thank everybody involved for their dedication and hard work! In particular, Professor Helen Byrne was recognised as an Honorary Doctor at Chalmers, Francesco Boccellato was awarded the Lee Placito Research Fellowship, Marketa Tomkova became the first recipient of the Czexpats in Science Award and Professor Yang Shi was both elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States and elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society.
Numerous excellent papers were produced, from determining that Factor-inhibiting HIF deficiency creates a tumour-promoting immune microenvironment to producing a technique for mapping the pseudouridine landscape across the human transcriptome. Research teams have worked together to find that human DNA polymerase ε is a source of some of the most prevalent mutations seen in human cancers, whilst collaborations with external institutions have led to the production of biocompatible multifunctional modular iontronics.
We look forward to seeing what 2025 brings!