Celebrating Institute research and accomplishments at the 2025 Retreat & Symposium

Last Thursday and Friday, the Institute held the CSCI Annual Retreat & Symposium on 26 and 27 June in Cambridge.

This annual event brings together CSCI researchers, Affiliate Group Leaders, and our Stem Cells Interdisciplinary Research Centre members for a day and a half of talks, posters, Institute updates, and networking outside of the office and labs. In addition to the scientific sessions, this year also featured a special afternoon session to discuss models of human disease, a video competition from the Institute teams, a pub quiz, and the launch of the new CSCI video.

The 2025 Retreat & Symposium was kindly sponsored by 10x Genomics, biotechne, Cytiva, Enzo, Grant Instruments, Qkine, Sartorius, Singleron, and ThermoFisher Scientific. 

Throughout the two-day event, CSCI welcomed over 300 attendees that included CSCI’s own Group Leaders, Postdoctoral researchers and Postgraduate students; members of the Scientific Advisory Board; Affiliate Group Leaders and their labs; visitors from our SCI-TIF companies, and other guest speakers.

The special panel session this year, ‘Next generation models of human disease,’ invited Dr Bilada Bilican (Senior Director at AstraZeneca), Dr Simone Forbes (Revvity), Dr Nicola Cahill (10x Genomics), and Professor Chwee Teck Lim (National University of Singapore) to share their experiences and engage with the audience for a Q&A session.

Before the poster session, labs were invited to create short videos showcasing their work to the rest of the institute, and audience members were asked to vote on the ‘most creative,’ ‘most informative,’ and ‘people’s choice’ as an overall favourite. Videos were submitted by three labs (Duque-Correa, Gottgens, and Storer), the Facilities Team, and the Admin Team, and the winners received goody bags for their team.

Thursday evening’s poster session asked PhD, Postdoc, Research Assistants and Technicians to present their work, and was followed by a social gathering with a BBQ and a pub quiz, hosted by Ghanesh Angris and Olivia Hill from Facilities and Imaging.

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On Friday, an awards session honoured Research Culture & Integrity, Workplace Culture, and Public Engagement efforts at the Institute throughout the past year, as well as research prizes for poster and flash talk presentations throughout the retreat. This year’s winners were:

Commitment to Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement Prize 

• Sara Pensa (Postdoc, Khaled Group) - “For her commitment to carefully considered and meaningful involvement with patients during her project working pharmaceutical alternatives to preventative surgery in people with hereditary risk of breast cancer.”

Innovation in Public Engagement Prize

• Gloria Yang & Danielle Daft - for ‘their joint efforts setting up and running the new PPIE panel for the CRUK Haematological Malignancies programme.’

Commitment to Research Culture Prize – joint winners

• Xin Tang (Postgrad student, Bulstrode Group) – for ‘showing phenomenal support to all the members of the lab and external collaborators. He supervised 4 students and demonstrated outstanding collaborative effort in joint projects. Xin has also been looking after the ordering system in the lab and helped everyone receive consumables in time even out of hours. He is a great person to interact with and deserves recognition.’
• Laura Bond (Postdoc, Vassiliou Group) – for ‘contributing across multiple projects whilst actively fostering collaboration between teams, helping to build a more connected research environment. Laura brings a proactive, problem-solving mindset to everything she does. Her ability to identify challenges early and guide the team through solutions has consistently kept work moving forward - often overcoming hurdles that would have otherwise stalled progress.’
• NGS Team (Maike Paramor, Rachel Barnes, Laura Everton) – for ‘mastering entirely new experimental procedures and adapting to updated versions of established ones…and meeting every challenge with an unwavering commitment to scientific advancement. At no point did they hesitate or declare a task impossible. Instead, they actively collaborated with us, demonstrating remarkable proactivity in identifying and implementing the most effective approaches for each new protocol. Their dedication to "putting the science first" is consistently evident in their tireless efforts and their seamless integration into the research process.’

Commitment to Research Culture Prize

• Tegwen Elliott (Senior Research and Ethics Governance Coordinator) – for ‘outstanding dedication to promoting a culture of transparency, rigor, and ethical responsibility. What sets Tegwen apart is her ability to foster trust and openness. She doesn’t just enforce standards—she creates space for honest dialogue, shares best practices, and supports teams in making improvements with clarity and confidence. Her work has strengthened our research environment, ensuring it remains both ethically sound and scientifically robust.’

Commitment to Workplace Culture Prize

• Nigel Forbes (Building Services Team) - ‘Who doesn't feel privileged when Nigel brings a beautiful cake to your group's office space? He's completely selfless and does this at his own expense.

His actions are the definition of improving workplace culture.’

• Agnes Lukasik (PPIE Manager) – for ‘constantly seeking ways to share scientific endeavours with a broader audience, driven by a genuine passion for the research across CSCI and IMS. Her unique blend of energy and enthusiasm is precisely what we need more of in our community.’
• Davide Rossetti & Camille Dumas – ‘Davide and Camille emerged as true champions for inclusivity. It takes immense courage to actively work towards a more inclusive environment, and they have done just that. Jointly, they've organized a pivotal panel discussion for Pride Month, designed to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community's challenges and champions, while also highlighting our collective hopes for change. Their actions set a powerful example, and I hope it inspires many more individuals to follow in their footsteps.’

Top posters:

• Nikolas Markozanis (Postgrad student, Simons Group)
• Grace Wilson (Postgrad student, Vassiliou Group)
• Oliver Bower (Postgrad student, Niakan Group [Affiliate])
• Wenjuan Ma (Postdoc, Laurenti Group)

Top Flash Talks

• Top Postgrad Talk – Gemma King (Postgrad, Ghevaert Group)
• Top Postdoc Talk – John-Poul Ng-Blichfeldt (Postdoc, Philpott Group)

Find the event booklet with details of the talks and poster session here.