Imagine a future where medicines work better and cause fewer side effects. Join us to hear from pharmaceutical pioneer Professor Dame Ijeoma Uchegbu, President of Wolfson College, Cambridge, as she explores the future of medicine through nanotechnology.

Ijeoma and her team are developing groundbreaking nanoparticle technology that delivers drugs precisely where they’re needed in the body. It’s a fascinating breakthrough that anyone interested in technological innovation needs to hear more about.

 

The Challenge in Drug Development

What if we told you that for every successful medicine, 4,999 candidates fail? Drug development is a complex journey, with only 1 in 5,000 molecules making it from concept to market, at a cost of $1 billion per success. Even in clinical trials, 90% of drugs fall short, often because they can’t reach their target effectively.

 

Patient Challenges: A Call for Better Solutions

Ever wondered why half of patients with chronic conditions struggle with their medication? More often than not, it’s fear of unwanted side effects that holds them back. But what if we could direct medicines to focus on diseased areas while sparing healthy tissue?

 

A Breakthrough Approach

This is where the story gets astonishing. Scientists are developing nanoparticles – tiny carriers just a thousandth the width of a human hair – that can guide medicines to where they’re needed most.  Professor Uchegbu’s flagship development, Envelta™, represents a breakthrough in pain management. As a non-addictive alternative to opioids, it addresses a critical need: every year, 80,000 Americans lose their lives to opioid poisoning, while in the UK, 40 families face such tragedy weekly.

 

Building on this success, her team’s research extends into cancer treatments and therapies for sight-threatening conditions, with new discoveries emerging through Nanomerics Ltd., recipient of the 2024 King’s Award for Enterprise for Innovation. Some of these potential therapies are in clinical trials. Join us as we explore the possibilities of this truly revolutionary approach to medicine.

 

About the Speaker

Professor Uchegbu is a pioneer in pharmaceutical nanoscience and a champion of scientific innovation. As UCL’s Professor of Pharmaceutical Nanoscience and Chief Scientific Officer of Nanomerics Ltd., she has successfully translated laboratory discoveries into clinical applications.

 

About the venue

Sister is Manchester’s new innovation district, where people come together and great ideas flourish.

Formerly known as ID Manchester, Sister is a joint venture between The University of Manchester and Bruntwood SciTech that will see the University’s former North Campus transformed into a world-leading innovation district and welcoming new neighbourhood. Sister will be home to the discoveries, technologies and businesses that shape our future and transform the way we live.

A global hub for science and technology, and a community for entrepreneurs, professionals, families, scientists and creatives alike, Sister represents a new way of thinking about innovation. One based on collaboration, not competition.

Sister provides the perfect conditions for ideas to spark, for collaboration to thrive, and for world-changing innovations to scale.

 

Practical Information

The talk includes a Q&A session. Booking is essential.

 

Accessibility Information

Please contact us regarding any specific accessibility requirements you may have by emailing events@manlitphil.ac.uk

 

 

Environmental pollution is making headlines, but are we focusing on the right risks? Dr David Megson reveals the hidden story of chemical pollution in the UK, exploring the invisible toxic substances that have become part of our daily lives.

 

Why This Matters

While plastic waste and sewage pollution capture public attention through visible evidence, Dr Megson suggests that less visible chemical pollutants may pose greater risks to our health and environment. This talk explores the science behind these “forever chemicals” and their impact on our lives.

 

Key Terms Explained

‘Forever Chemicals’ are defined as substances that persist in the environment and human body for extended periods. These toxic chemicals are carcinogenic (meaning they can cause cancer), mutagenic (meaning they can cause genetic mutations), and teratogenic (meaning they can harm fetal development).

 

Topics Covered

In this comprehensive presentation, Dr Megson will explore the contrast between visible pollution and hidden chemical threats in our environment. He will discuss common sources of toxic chemicals found in everyday products and explain why certain harmful substances remain in use despite known risks. The talk will examine the complex balance between chemical benefits and risks, including historical “miracle chemicals” and their lasting legacy. Current research on chemical exposure in the UK will be presented, along with information about steps being taken to manage chemical risks.

 

What You’ll Learn

Understanding chemical pollution goes beyond visible environmental damage. You’ll discover how these substances enter our lives through everyday products, from food packaging to furniture, and learn about current scientific efforts to understand and manage these risks.

 

About the Speaker

Dr David Megson is an expert in environmental forensics whose research focuses on identifying and understanding chemical pollutants in our environment. His work helps inform policy decisions about chemical safety and regulation.

 

Content Notice

This talk discusses environmental pollution and health risks from chemical exposure. While technical terms will be explained, some content may be concerning to those worried about environmental health issues.

 

Practical Information

The presentation will include time for questions and discussion. Supporting slides will be provided to help understand technical concepts. Light refreshments can be purchased from the venue’s bar. Booking is essential.

 

Accessibility Information

The venue is wheelchair accessible with an accessible toilet on the ground floor. Please contact us regarding any specific accessibility requirements you may have by emailing events@manlitphil.ac.uk

 

Further Information

For those interested in learning more before the talk, we recommend looking at Imperial College’s Environmental Research Group website pages.

The Manchester Cancer Research centre is a hub of scientific innovation in research, driving decades of practice-influencing cancer care. One of the mainstays of the innovative approaches employed is Team Science, where scientists, clinicians and patients come together in joint sessions. These sessions lead to new research ideas within scientific “Town Halls”.

But despite the increasingly sophisticated technologies available for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, a crucial factor is still being ignored: patient complexity. This omission is leading to unrepresentative research in the lab and inappropriate design of clinical trials. What can be done to fix this?

Led by Robert Bristow, Cancer Research UK’s unique mission in Manchester is to provide “Precision Cancer Medicine for All”. This approach contrasts to studies that are highly selective of patients from Eurocentric backgrounds and/or may be relatively healthy.

The Manchester research centre also recognises the importance of addressing the needs of medically and socially complex patients, many of whom are currently excluded from UK and global precision oncology trials. Manchester has numerous underserved populations secondary to socioeconomic hardship who have multiple health problems.

As patients age, other non-cancer health conditions invariably develop with new medications used for their diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and arthritis. These factors can affect therapy side effects and treatment success, including a patient’s response to immunotherapy.

Manchester’s approach is to recognise and work within the diverse populations in Greater Manchester and in so doing, ensure the research is equitable, diverse, and inclusive (EDI). With an EDI lens, specific exemplars will be presented that use scientific and public engagement across these populations for the design of new clinical trials. This will exploit opportunities to drive innovative care changes that will impact our patients in the UK and worldwide.

Join us to find out more about the innovative methods employed by Manchester Cancer Research from Robert Bristow, a multi-award-winning Research Scientist and Scientific Advisor.

Cognitive Robotics combines insights and methods from Artificial Intelligence (AI), cognitive and biological sciences, and robotics. It’s a highly interdisciplinary approach that sees AI computer scientists and roboticists collaborating closely with psychologists and neuroscientists.

Angelo Cangelosi, Professor of Machine Learning and Robotics, will use the case study of language learning to demonstrate this highly interdisciplinary field, presenting developmental psychology studies on children’s language acquisition and robots’ experiments on language learning.

Growing theoretical and experimental psychology research on action and language processing, and on number learning and gestures in children and adults, clearly demonstrates the role of embodiment in cognition and language processing. In psychology and neuroscience, this evidence constitutes the basis of ‘embodied cognition’, also known as ‘grounded cognition’.

In robotics and AI, these studies have important implications for the design of linguistic capabilities – in particular, language understanding in robots and machines for human-robot collaboration. This focus on language acquisition and development uses Developmental Robotics methods, as part of the wider Cognitive Robotics approach.

During the talk, Angelo will present examples of developmental robotics models and experimental results with the baby robot iCub and with the Pepper robot. One study focuses on the embodiment biases in early word acquisition and grammar learning. The same developmental robotics method is used for experiments on pointing gestures and finger counting to allow robots to learn abstract concepts such as numbers.

Angelo will then present a novel developmental robotics model, and human-robot interaction experiments, on Theory of Mind and its relationship to trust. This section of the presentation will consider both our Theory of Mind of robots’ capabilities, and robots’ own ‘Artificial Theory of Mind’ of our intentions. This will demonstrate that trust and collaboration is enhanced when we can understand the intention of the other agents and when robots can explain to us their decision-making strategies.

The implications for the use of such cognitive robotics approaches for embodied cognition in AI and cognitive sciences, and for robot companion applications, will also be discussed. Angelo’s talk will also consider philosophy of science issues on embodiment and on machine’s understanding of language, the ethical issues of trustworthy AI and robots, and the limits of current big-data large language models.

We hope you’ll join us, Angelo, iCub and Pepper for a really absorbing talk and practical presentation that will really get you thinking.

Hear about the truly astounding next-generation radio telescopes, built by a global consortium anchored in North West England, from one of the project’s leaders.

What are radio telescopes exactly? And why is the history and development of them particularly significant to our region?

Radio telescopes are used by astronomers to study radio waves emitted by distant objects in the universe. They can be used in the daytime as well as at night and are less sensitive to atmospheric conditions.

Since astronomical radio sources – planets, stars, nebulae and galaxies – are extremely distant, the radio waves coming from them are very weak. Moreover, radio waves have long wavelengths relative to optical waves. For these reasons, radio telescopes need large antennae and highly sensitive receiving equipment. It is also better to locate radio observatories as far as possible from centres of population to avoid interference from man-made electronic devices.

The world-famous Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank, Cheshire – which has a large single dish antenna – meets these criteria and has been used to make significant contributions to radio astronomy over the years. How has the technology developed since the Lovell was completed in 1957?

Rather than being based on a single antenna, the latest generation of radio telescopes use arrays of antennae that are linked together to form the equivalent of a much larger single antenna. Over the last three decades, astronomers and engineers from around the world have been planning, designing and, finally, building two huge, next-generation radio telescopes. One is located in the Karoo in South Africa, the other in the Murchison region of Western Australia. The whole project is run by the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO), whose headquarters are located at Jodrell Bank.

Phil Diamond’s talk will provide insights into the scientific motivations behind the SKA, covering subjects as diverse as the evolution of the Universe and the origins of life. He will describe the history of the project, in which Manchester and Jodrell Bank play a key role, and explain some of the differences between SKAO and traditional observatories, both optical and radio. As an example, one of the key differences is the sheer volumes of data that will be generated. What are the strategies and techniques being developed to manage this oncoming deluge of data? Phil will talk to us about that. And we’ll also get the chance to see the latest images of the construction progress, which is now at a very exciting phase.

Don’t miss out on what promises to be a brilliant talk by a multi-award-winning scientist from the University of Manchester. The event is open to anyone interested in science and technology and you don’t need any specialist knowledge to enjoy it.