9-13 June 2010
A record number of MRC scientists from across the South of England joined forces to entertain the crowds at this year’s Cheltenham Science Festival (CSF), which took place in June. Thirty researchers – an increase of 20 per cent on 2009 – from fields including neuroscience, oncology, genomics and epidemiology came together to demonstrate activities based on the MRC’s neuroscience portfolio, to give lectures and engage in CSF stakeholder events.
Among the VIPs at the festival this year was David Willetts, the new Universities and Science Minister, who used the occasion to advocate his support for the public engagement of science and to praise the researchers who do it. Also in attendance was MRC chief executive Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, who took part in a popular event on the future of vaccinations entitled To jab or not to jab.
Professor Chris Ponting of the MRC Functional Genomics Unit in Oxford and Dr Quentin Anstee, an MRC-supported scientist at Imperial College London, took to the stage at one of the festival’s more popular debates on the human genome. Alongside Professor Robert Winston and The Times journalist Mark Henderson, they answered questions from a large and inquisitive audience on what benefits the completion of the human genome had brought mankind over the past 10 years.
Inside the CSF Discover Zone, which brings scientists and the public together through hands-on activities and experiments, the MRC displayed its new exhibition on brain research, which is currently touring the UK. MRC researchers from diverse scientific backgrounds talked to members of the public about the brain and how it works, and encouraged them to create neuronal pathways using pipe-cleaners. There was a special focus on neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s and the challenges that scientists face in understanding them.
Chris Martin of the Gray Institute for Radiation, Oncology and Biology, said: “As a newcomer to both the festival and to communicating neuroscience to the general public, I found it an exhilarating and rewarding experience. There was a keen interest from members of the public about the brain and how neurodegeneration can occur.”