The Vice-Chancellor’s Impact Awards were established to recognise and reward those whose research has led to excellent impact beyond academia, whether on the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life. 

Congratulations to Professor Carol Brayne who has been made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to public health medicine.

Thanks to recent technological advances, scientists can take cells from an adult individual, for example skin cells from the arm, and use specific growth conditions to return the cells to an early embryonic state. The resulting induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) can develop into any type of cell, such as muscle cells, red blood cells or brain cells. As iPSCs can be differentiated into cells that are normally hard to access, they offer a stepping stone for researchers studying disease. Creating an iPSC is highly complicated, so only a small number of laboratories do it. An even smaller number of them annotate their cells in a way that makes them useful for other scientists to use, so the demand for high-quality iPSCs from healthy people is very high. Continued...