Nadia Radzman

The current state of global food security requires urgent attention. In countries across the world, we are failing to act in ways which ensure not just that we can grow “more” food, but that we can grow nutritious food in sustainable ways. Plant biotechnology can help us tackle these pressing problems and, if we embrace innovation, we can pioneer resilient and socially beneficial food systems. Read more about Nadia’s research to do just this as she works with new technologies to tackle insecurity.

Charles Emogor

A few months into his postdoc monitoring wildlife hunting in Nigeria, Charles and his team spent many hours travelling narrow tracks and stopping in remote forest communities to hold tense but hopeful meetings with hunting groups. By night, he scrambled to keep the pangolin conservation organisation he’d founded running. Physically and mentally drained, he began to wonder: was his vision of combining a research career with directing a grassroots non-profit unrealistic?

Coco Newton

Only 1 in 10 people know that dementia is the leading cause of death in the UK; we are only beginning to comprehend the complex causes of this silent global trend. In fact, the magnitude of recent discoveries mean researchers, doctors, and public health bodies alike are struggling to agree on what dementia even means and how we should diagnose it. Yet our choice of definition can have a potentially devastating impact; a radical rethink on traditional approaches is required.

James Beattie

Healthcare start-ups often encounter an implicit message: to work with the NHS, you must implement full medical-grade compliance from the outset. This complexity creates friction, reduces the diversity of innovation, and disengages aspiring innovators. While the NHS must be cautious, the current system results not in safer innovation, but stalled innovation. Institutional clarity in public healthcare is essential to widen participation, support innovators, and ultimately strengthen the NHS.

MONTH, DAY

Our brilliant CRA, Nadia, the resident ‘Bean Queen’ was featured in the Chew a magazine for children and their families that is on a mission to inspire and reconnect children with the universal foods that we take for granted: fruits, grains, vegetables.

JANUARY, 2025

Coco and her team were awarded £400,000, by the Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA), to expand their work to include neurotechnologies like brain computer interfaces and deep brain stimulation.

JANUARY 2025

In January 2025, Charles received the ZSL Thomas Henry Huxley Award and Marsh Prize, presented annually for the "best PhD thesis in zoology and conservation science submitted to a UK university".

MONTH, YEAR

Chris has received £500,000 for ARIA’s Programmable Plants Opportunity Seed. His project aims to pioneer a new direction in synthetic biology through stochastic synthetic biology: the design of gene circuits that use noise, instead of suppressing it.

NOVEMBER, 2024

The Rising Star of the Year Awards recognised emerging talent at various career stages, with winners receiving a year’s free BNA membership.