University of the Third Age visits Babraham Institute

On Monday 20^th July members of the University of the Third Age visited the Babraham Institute to learn more about our science and the facilities that support it
 
30 visitors, including several from Germany, were welcomed to the Institute by the Director, Professor Michael Wakelam, who explained the scientific remit of the Institute. His presentation, which gave rise to many questions, included references to current research, how we share our discoveries and try to commercialise them where possible. Dr Olivia Casanueva gave an overview on how her research is shedding new light on the ways in our bodies change as we age – which is a focus of the Institute’s research.
 
The visitors were then given a tour of the Institute’s laboratories and scientific facilities, guided by some of the Institute’s PhD students. Further detail of current work by the Signalling and Epigenetics groups was given, and the invaluable role that facilities such as Bioinformatics and Sequencing play in supporting the research was explained. The visitors were then shown live camera feeds from our Biological Support Unit to accompany a presentation by its managers and were able to ask questions about the use of animals in Babraham’s work.

During lunch the work of two of the commercial companies in the Campus Bio-incubator was described by Dr Marianne Bruggeman from Recombinant Antibody Technology Ltd and Dr Adam Collinson from Phico Therapeutics Ltd leading to further questions about commercial research and the benefits of working on the Babraham Research Campus. During a brief wrap up the visitors expressed their pleasure in being able to learn more about the Institute and the Campus and asked to be invited again.