Filter

Blog

The Babraham Institute works to deliver impact by translating our science and understanding of fundamental biology to promote lifelong health and wellbeing. Our blogs offer scientists, staff and guests the chance to share their individual views and experiences on the Institute's efforts to deliver research impacts and to build a welcoming and diverse community.

 

 

05/10/2022

Top tips for new PhD students

As our new PhD students arrive at the Institute, Laura reflects on her experience so far

14/09/2022

One log decade: My odyssey at the Institute

This month marks the ten year anniverary of our Flow Cytometry Facility Head, Rachael Walker, starting work at the Institute. Here she reflects on her journey over that time, both professionally and personally.

07/09/2022

Asma's story: Research Access Programme 2022

Asma, one of our 2022 cohort of Research Access Programme students, discusses her time in the Houseley lab and the highlights of her experience.

24/08/2022

Mentorship – working across the Babraham Research Campus to nurture scientific careers

How the Babraham Research Campus Mentorship Scheme is sharing perspectives between academic and commercial researchers to support career explorations, knowledge exchange and network building.  

17/08/2022

An evolutionary battle of the sexes: The epigenetic phenomenon of genomic imprinting

Epigenetic researchers Leah McHugh and Christian Belton provide a potted history of the discovery of genomic imprinting, how it’s achieved and why understanding this and other epigenetic phenomena is important for health.

08/08/2022

Climate solutions in Cameroon – community forestry and rural women

In this guest blog post, Green Labs invited Ewi Lamma to share her experiences and insights on the power and potential of rural women and community forestry in Cameroon.

21/07/2022

From Benjamin Britten to Neale-Wade: Why I see working in Public Engagement as my duty and a privilege

Jake Cross, a PhD student in the Florey lab, shares his experience of public engagement and working with educational charity The Brilliant Club.

14/07/2022

Having a PIPS at something new: From the lab to Knowledge Exchange and Commercialisation

Jaspreet Bansal, a PhD student from Aston University undertook a Professional Internship for PhD students (PIPS) project with the Institute's Knowledge Exchange and Commercialisation team and describes her experiences of being part of the Institute professionally and personally.

19/06/2022

Using the roving researcher scheme during paternity leave

After the success of our Roving Researcher scheme to support scientists on leave, we have opened the scheme up to other types of leave. In this blog, Aled shares his experience using the scheme for paternity leave.

16/06/2022

Why I work in animal research

One of our colleagues who works in our animal facility shares why they decided to work in the field.

01/06/2022

The splice of life

Most of the genes in our body can generate multiple distinctive messenger RNAs through a process called alternative splicing. We use a number of tools and techniques which are always improving, and have recently developed our own.

25/05/2022

Sustainable science: Tips from the Raff Lab

Guest blogger Saroj Saurya, a Lab Manager based at the University of Oxford, shares some insights into how we can do more sustainable scientific research.

18/05/2022

From Zimbabwe to Cambridge: my global scientific journey

One of our PhD students Tombi shares how her passion for science and helping others has taken her around the world and offered a range of exciting opportunities.

09/05/2022

Locked indoors? Design an escape room!

Epigenetics researcher Laura shares her experience of creating a science themed escape room.

20/04/2022

Learning to grow human skin in a petri dish

PhD student Tiffany recently spent six weeks on placement at the University of Edinburgh to learn a new technique and bring that expertise back to the Institute. In this blog, she shares more about how that opportunity came about and how this will support her research.

15/04/2022

Can we reverse ageing and make our cells young again?

An ageing population poses a major challenge to our society as this also increases the risk of many diseases such as heart disease, neurodegeneration, and cancer. If we could reverse ageing, that could have a huge impact on preventing age-related diseases and increasing our healthy lifespan. But is reversing ageing even possible? Here post-doc Diljeet Gill shares some of his latest work that is taking us one step closer to achieving this goal.

13/04/2022

Our Imaging Facility: 18 Years Old and Still Growing

Today marks World Microscope Day and we are celebrating by taking a look back at how our cutting-edge Imaging Facility has changed over the past 18 years.

06/04/2022

Students find out about life as a scientist

‘Meet a Bioscientist’ was the Public Engagement team’s flagship schools’ engagement event for 2022. For British Science Week, we spoke to over 900 young people across 15 schools and sixth forms about our research, careers in science, and what being a scientist is really like. Discover more about the event in this blog post.

30/03/2022

Women and the climate crisis

In this edition of our Green Labs blog series, we’re exploring the important intersection between gender and climate change. How and why are these key issues connected?

23/03/2022

Meet a Bioscientist: a student's perspective

For British Science Week 2022, researchers from 14 of our amazing research groups and facilities held conversations with school groups across Cambridgeshire and beyond so the students could explore more about the research here at the Institute and what being a scientist is like. Eleanor, a Year 12 student at Comberton Village College, shares her experience of meeting the bioscientists from the Hawkins lab.

18/03/2022

‘We need to talk’: how and why cells communicate and what happens when things go wrong

In this post, we are going to take you through the types of cell signalling, the importance of this communication and what can happen when things go wrong.