Becoming a Scientist
Virus Fighter
Build a virus or fight a pandemic!
Maya's Marvellous Medicine
Battle Robots of the Blood
Just for Kids! All about Coronavirus
Wednesday, March 27, 2024 at 3:16PM My interview on Sensory Science for That's TV Cambridge.
Key point: Science is for everyone, the benefits of science are for everyone, so science communication needs to be for everyone.
Saturday, March 23, 2024 at 5:45PM 
VirusFighter at the Cambridge Festival! The kids had a blast, maybe try it yourself? Want to be in the driving seat as UK Prime Minister during the COVID pandemic? Make real-time decisions based on the information available and watch the pandemic play out. Or maybe you are keen to genetically-engineer a virus to prevent the UK being overrun by invasive wombats? Give it a shot!
Tuesday, March 19, 2024 at 2:01PM Cambridge University sensory-science art for people with sight loss
By Kate Bradbrook and Helen Burchell
BBC News, Cambridgeshire
Art exploring science and created for people with sight loss is on show as part of a festival organised by Cambridge University.
Sensory Science, at St Catharine's College, is part of the Cambridge Festival, which explores aspects of research carried out at the university and is open to the public.
Scientists at the Department of Pathology worked with local artists to create pieces to communicate science.
The festival runs until 28 March.
Sensory Science is the brainchild of Dr Erica Tandori, a low-vision artist based in Melbourne, Australia.
She was diagnosed with Stargardt disease - a form of macular dystrophy - when she was 23, and trained in creative arts and scientific communication.
"I'm an artist that's absolutely in love with science," she said.
"The whole idea of making things multi-sensory brings knowledge to life and makes it more accessible to everyone."
The pieces on show include lights and music and "is about all of us - cells and the immune system - and it should be available to all of us".
Together with Prof Jamie Rossjohn from Monash University in Australia, Dr Tandori saw the need for science communication to reach the blind and low-vision community.
She also worked with Prof Adrian Liston, professor of pathology at Cambridge University, who said: "The really unique aspect about this particular event is that we're really going for a multi-sensory approach.
"This involves not just the visual but auditory soundscapes, tactile maps, smell - other ways of communicating concepts.
"The aim is to make this as inclusive as possible.
"Using multiple senses is obviously a huge advantage if you want to include the blind and low-vision community."
Dr Julia Johnson, from Anglia Ruskin University, worked on the project with art and pathology students.
"We're looking at art's value in addressing some of the topics here," she said.
"We're thinking about how art can act as a communication tool for engaging audiences.
"Through a very sensory and tactile approach, young people and low-vision audiences can understand more about scientific models."
Friday, March 8, 2024 at 4:54PM 
Our lab is gearing up for the Cambridge Festival! A lot of amazing activities, with something for everyone, so hopefully everyone in Cambridge can come and join at least one of these.
First of all, for our youngest visitors come along to a book reading of our kids books "Maya's Marvellous Medicine" and "Battle Robots of the Blood". We'll have some colouring in too, to keep them busy.
For kids a little older, Family Day at Pathology has a ton of activities! Our lab is hosting a display of "VirusFighter". See how your kids would have done as PM during the pandemic, or test whether they can successfully engineer a bioweapon to stop an invasion of wombats! (They can also play online now!)
For all ages, we have a real treat, Sensory Science. This is a fantastic program that uses multi-sensory art to communicate the science of pathology. Honestly, everyone should come and experience this exhibit at St Catharine's College, the teams have put in so much work into their art piece. Our lab has coordinate the program and is exhibiting new art on neuroinflammation and cancer formation. We are also hosting the amazing Dr Erica Tandori, who started the Sensory Science movement back in Australia, and specialises in making science communication accessible to the blind and low vision community.
Finally, adults interested in the immune system are welcome to join my public seminar on how diversity shapes our immune responses!
Tuesday, February 20, 2024 at 10:53PM Congratulations to Jasmine Hughes for her Cook Society Award for dedicating herself to social justice, equality and strengthening the campus community, during her time at Duke University! I'm glad to say she is keeping up the focus during her PhD here at the University of Cambridge!
Liston lab Friday, January 26, 2024 at 11:03AM We are recruiting two new positions, a Postdoctoral Research Scientist and a Research Laboratory Technician, to join our lab!
This translational research project aims to develop novel technologies for treating neuroimmunology into clinic-ready molecules. You will contribute to the optimisation of therapeutics for brain delivery to patients, as part of the commercialisation pathway for a recently developed neuroinflammation treatment (Yshii et al, Nature Immunology 2022). The laboratory is an inclusive, international and diverse team, supportive of your personal and career development. A positive approach to kind and collaborative interactions with the team is essential! You will benefit from the collaborative and collegial environment of the laboratory, and potential career growth opportunities within the laboratory and within the developing spin-off company Aila Biotech are possible for a successful post-holders.
Liston lab Saturday, November 25, 2023 at 12:21PM 
Congratulations to the amazing Dr Julika Neumann, who just graduated from the lab, as our final Belgian PhD!
Julika secretly did two PhDs rather than one, with an outstanding clinical immunology PhD where she discovered a new immunodeficiency (and won the Golden Pipette!) and another systems immunology project on SARS-CoV2, with the first paper published and several systems vaccinology papers coming out soon!
Julika was a talented immunologist and bioinformatician, but above all an exceptional team-player and detail-orientated fixer. We all congratulate Julika on an exceptional PhD and her positive impact on all of those around her over the past four years. All the best Julika!
Liston lab, women in science Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 11:15AM We just completed a very successful lab retreat, this year held at St Catharine's College, Cambridge. It was perfect timing, with our new students starting and getting to meet the entire team, not to mention getting incredible feedback from everyone on their new projects. I'm so proud to be a part of such an amazing team of scientists!
I started by recapping the successes of the lab in 2023 - and there have been plenty! 16 papers published so far this year (and another 12 submitted!), ~£1.5m brought into the department in grants and fellowships, our spin-off company Aila Biotech getting into an accelerator program, and successful alumni moving on to great things! But we run the lab retreat for the future, not the past. Two full days of exciting science, from projects right at the conceptual phase through to projects that have matured and need the finishing touches. Of course it wouldn't be a lab retreat with the presentation of the Golden Pipette! This year's went to Amy Dashwood, a talented scientist and a positive influence on team culture.
We had great team building exercises too! We had to guess each person's pathway to becoming a scientist, picking out baby photos and origin story, matching up role-models to teenage pictures, and picking out the motivation for each lab member to be in science today. Plus a set of AI-generated limericks for each person, and social activities from a pub lunch to walks through the Cambridge botanic gardens and museums.
I also really appreciated having our external guests come in to give their wisdom to the team, and it was especially nice that many of our external experts are lab alumni!
Liston lab Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 10:57AM by Kat Steer
A Fellow at St Catharine’s College has led extensive new research that looks set to overturn the established model about how one type of white blood cell regulates immune responses in tissues – what was assumed to be a static part of the immune system is actually dynamic, opening the door to new treatments for a range of conditions.
Professor Adrian Liston (2023) is Professor of Pathology at the University of Cambridge and has run a research laboratory with Dr James Dooley since 2009, which relocated to Cambridge’s Department of Pathology earlier this year.
Professor Liston explains, “All of us are familiar with immune activation in our daily lives – the body’s response to injury or infection – but immune regulation is just as important to our health. A poorly regulated or hyperactive immune system can be hugely damaging, as we see in cases of flu, COVID-19, autoimmune diseases and inflammatory diseases. The team based at our laboratory have been conducting a broad range of research to learn more about the different processes and cells that are key to immune system regulation.”
Their latest findings are focused on a group of white blood cells known as regulatory T cells (Tregs) which have a role in regulating or suppressing other cells in the immune system. Over the last 10 years, scientists have established that Tregs are found not just in our blood but also throughout different tissues in the body. It is also known that Tregs play a significant role beyond controlling the immune system by enabling the body to return normal (homeostasis) and orchestrating repair and rejuvenation after an immune response.
“A decade of research has begun to establish the importance of Tregs but there is still so much we don’t know for sure. Like so many other scientists, we accepted the prevailing wisdom that Tregs travel into tissues where they remained as a static part of the immune system and specialised to their surroundings – an idea borrowed from evidence about another type of white blood cell (macrophages). We never set out to challenge this model, but our new findings indicate that these Tregs are really different from what we all thought.”
After an earlier successful study into Treg cells in the brain, the Liston-Dooley laboratory set out to complete an ambitious systematic analysis of the Tregs throughout the body, which has involved studying tissues from 48 different tissues in mice.
“It was only once we took global look at the body as a whole that it was possible to see for the first time that the Tregs in tissues are not specialised or static. In fact, they are highly dynamic and percolate throughout the body to serve different organs, moving from one place to the next as needed.
“It is exciting to know more about these important cells and potentially open up a new avenue for treating diseases – if we can find a way of boosting the number of Tregs in targeted areas of the body, then we can help the body do a better job of repairing itself or managing immune responses. We are in the early stages of planning a clinical trial to understand more about the benefits of boosting the levels of Tregs and look forward to sharing what we find.”
This work was supported by the European Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.
Burton O, et al. The tissue-resident regulatory T cell pool is shaped by transient multi-tissue migration and a conserved residency program. bioRxiv 2023.08.14.553196; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.08.14.553196
Liston lab, immunology 
