Mathew has been selected as a finalist among 9 Young Scientists from Across the UK Shortlisted for Largest Unrestricted Science Prize. Three Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists Laureates will receive £100,000 prizes at a 24 February gala in London. The Blavatnik Family Foundation and The New York Academy of Sciences today announced the Finalists for the 2026 Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in the United Kingdom. The Awards recognise scientific advances by UK researchers across Life Sciences, Chemical Sciences, and Physical Sciences & Engineering. On Tuesday, 24 February, Professor Deborah Prentice, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, will reveal the three 2026 Laureates at a gala dinner and awards ceremony in London. Now in its ninth year, each Blavatnik Awards Laureate will receive an unrestricted £100,000 prize, while the remaining six Finalists will be awarded £30,000 each. Commenting on this remarkable achievement, Mathew said: I am delighted to have been no...

Huge congratulations to Haresh, who has passed his PhD viva. Thank you to Aleks Ponjavic and Ewen Calder for examining!

We're happy to welcome Ellie (PhD student), Muye (PhD student), and Charlie (5P student) to the group. We wish them the best of luck with their projects! 

We have developed an innovative method to detect small biological particles in blood samples, opening up new possibilities for earlier and more accurate disease diagnosis.  The technique, which we refer to as VISTA (Vesicle Imaging by Single-molecule TCCD Analysis), allows scientists to characterise tiny particles called extracellular vesicles (EVs), which are released by cells into the blood.  “This new tool is of huge potential, offering an easy way to obtain information from patient blood samples, without the need for invasive biopsies.” - Noelia. EVs carry molecular information of their cells of origin and are increasingly recognised as potential biomarkers for diseases such as cancer, Parkinson’s disease, and infections. However, because EVs are highly variable, and similar in size to other particles in the blood, they have been difficult to study using traditional methods. This new approach combines fluorescent labelling (to make EVs glow), microfluidics (a system that m...

Our post-doc Abigail attended the  annual Target ALS meeting in Boston last week along with the rest of our consortium members, including Gian Tartaglia, Jenna Gregory, Fergal Waldron, and Neil Shneider. Abigail was invited to present our group’s work on detecting TDP-43 in biological fluids using our TDP-43 aptamer ( Zacco et al., 2022 ) and super-resolution microscopy. There was also a sneak-peek of some of our work using the FUS aptamers, some of which is now in a pre-print ( Zacco et al., 2025 )! It's always great to hear about progress made in this field, many thanks to the organisers for hosting and to all our fellow consortium members who did a great job presenting our work. 

  Last week, some members of the ESMB group attended the Synuclein meeting 2025 to hear about current and future approaches to target synulceinopathies. This event offered a very varied programme, with talks ranging from clinical and pre-clinical studies in the field of Parkinson’s disease and Multiple System Atrophy all the way to super-resolution imaging of aSynuclein aggregates. It was an amazing experience to get to hear from groups that have changed this field over the years and also to see all the new projects being set up to study these diseases onset and progression, therapies and diagnosis. It felt like going back to the origins of the group, where it all started! Finally, Gala dinner/party at King’s College Hall was definitely a highlight of the programme.

Researchers from the ESMB have developed a single-molecule liposome assay that promises to transform the study of membrane disruption by proteins and peptides. Their innovative method, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, addresses longstanding challenges in membrane-related research across antimicrobial activity, toxicity, and disease pathology. Membrane integrity is crucial for cellular health, playing a vital role in processes such as ion transport and signal transmission. Disruption of these membranes is linked to various disorders, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson’s disease, and certain cancers. Traditional techniques for examining the membrane-disrupting effects of proteins and peptides can be challenging and often require larger quantities, which are costly and difficult to produce. Their new approach uses single-molecule confocal microscopy with fast-flow microfluidics to detect membrane disruption with minimal quantities of proteins and peptides. This method provides unparal...