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Life Sciences Research Symposium 2025 showcases world-leading innovation
By: James Andrews
Last updated: Tuesday, 28 January 2025
The School of Life Sciences Sussex hosted our annual Research Symposium on Tuesday, 14 January 2025, in the Jubilee Lecture Theatre. The event highlighted cutting-edge research and featured two prestigious award lectures delivered by globally renowned scientists.
Exploring diverse research themes
The symposium covered a wide range of topics, reflecting the breadth of expertise within the School of Life Sciences. Presentations included:
- Designing and translating new approaches for early disease detection and treatment
- How vision is shaped by behaviour and internal states
- Exploring the impact of flea treatment on birds
Award lecture speakers: Advancing global science
The Cornforth Lecture
Professor Dame Molly Stevens DBE FRS FREng (University of Oxford) delivered the esteemed Cornforth Lecture, titled Designing and Translating New Approaches for Early Disease Detection and Treatment.
Dame Molly’s multidisciplinary research balances fundamental science with the development of transformative technologies to address major healthcare challenges. She is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of several companies in diagnostics, advanced therapeutics, and regenerative medicine. Her pioneering work has been instrumental in advancing biomaterial interfaces and creating designer biomaterials for applications in disease diagnostics and regenerative medicine. Globally influential, Dame Molly’s contributions have earned her repeated recognition as a Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher in Cross-Field research.
The Maynard Smith Lecture
The second award lecture was delivered by Professor Sir Mike Stratton FMedSci FRS (Wellcome Sanger Institute). Titled Global Surveillance of Carcinogen Exposures Using Somatic Mutation Landscapes, his lecture provided insights into cancer biology at a global scale.
Sir Mike’s groundbreaking discoveries include the identification of the breast cancer susceptibility gene BRCA2 and his leadership of the Cancer Genome Project. He now leads the Mutographs programme, an ambitious international effort to uncover the causes of cancer across five continents. His work continues to shape the understanding, diagnosis and prevention of cancer worldwide.
Celebrating research excellence
A highlight of the symposium was the awarding of the Latitude Prize to Dr Cannelle Tassin de Montaigu (she/her), Research & Associate Fellow in Ecology & Evolution. Dr Tassin de Montaigu’s award-winning PhD thesis, titled The Impact of Pesticides on Birds, explores the intersection of biodiversity preservation and sustainable agriculture.
The Latitude Prize for Sustainable Development is an annual prize of £1,000 for the PhD thesis with the most potential for achieving a better and more sustainable future in line with one or more of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. From ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being at all ages, to protecting the health of ecosystems and global natural resources to halt biodiversity loss, research in Life Sciences has an important contribution to make to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
School of Life Sciences alumnus, Andrew Morgan DPhil, generously funds this annual prize to support the University’s 2025 Strategic Framework goal of ‘Research with Impact’. The prize is in its fifth year, running from 2020 to 2030.
On receiving the prize, Dr Tassin de Montaigu said:
“I would like to warmly thank the committee and Dr Andrew Morgan for this recognition. I am truly honoured to receive the Latitude Prize for my PhD thesis, which focuses on the impact of pesticides on birds—a topic that connects biodiversity preservation and sustainable agriculture.”
“Carrying out this research has been both challenging and rewarding. It has highlighted how even small actions on our environment can have significant consequences. This award reinforces my commitment to using science to tackle real-world problems. I believe we have the knowledge and responsibility to work towards a better future.”
Dr Tassin de Montaigu’s work continues at Sussex as part of her postdoctoral research.
A big thank you to our sponsors
The success of the Research Symposium would not have been possible without the generous support of our sponsors:
The School of Life Sciences extends its gratitude to all attendees, presenters, and sponsors for making the Research Symposium 2025 a remarkable celebration of innovation and discovery.