Staff Newsletter - Lent Term 2013

The magazine for the staff of the University of Cambridge

lent term 2013

Hit the switch: how to cut energy use

Genius of scale: I, fly: a life in flies, Chopin reinvented midges and gnats page 6

page 10

snapshot contents

A friend to the University: Dr Alan Reece, who donated £5m to the Institute of Manufacturing for its new home at West Cambridge, passed away on New Year’s Eve aged 85. He was one of the North East’s most successful businessmen, and the mind behind engineering business the Reece Group, which has a turnover in excess of £211m and 450 employees.

Cover The University’s first Switch Off Week is a chance for staff and students to get to grips with the importance of cutting Cambridge’s carbon footprint. Turn to page eight.

2-5 News round-up 6-7 Feature Professor John Rink of the Faculty of Music explains how a new online tool can help researchers, performers and listeners appreciate the restless genius of Fryderyk Chopin.

Winter shot: January’s snow may have brought about travel disruption, school closures and rolling news coverage on the inclement weather, but it also gave the University’s photographer at large Sir Cam the opportunity to capture some of Cambridge’s finest buildings in winter clothing. Here is the Sainsbury Laboratory on a particularly bleak afternoon. More pictures can be found on the University’s Flickr site at http://www. flickr.com/photos/cambridgeuniversity.

SIR CAM

8-9 Cover feature

Royal visit: The Duchess of Cambridge met staff and students during her and Prince William’s visit to the city and University in November of last year.

Among other events, the royal couple joined more than 400 students, Heads of Houses from the 31 Colleges, as well as long-serving University assistant staff and postdoctoral researchers on Senate House lawn.

10-11 Profile Dr Henry Disney’s lifetime commitment to Diptera (flies, midges and gnats) has brought him into contact with all manner of people and places.

12 People 13 Small adverts 14-15 Prizes, awards and honours 16 Backpage

SIR CAM

Front cover photograph: Sir Cam

New appointment: Professor Geoffrey Ward of Royal Holloway College, University of London, will become Homerton’s next Principal on 1 October succeeding Dr Kate Pretty. Professor Ward is currently Vice Principal for Students and Staff at Royal Holloway, where he previously served as Dean of Arts. Prior to that he was Professor of English and Head of Department at the University of Dundee before taking on the role of Deputy Principal.

newsletter

The Newsletter is published for the staff of the University of Cambridge and is produced by the Office of External Affairs and Communications.

Please send in ideas for content and other ways we can improve the publication.

Tel: (3)32300 or email newsletter@admin.cam.ac.uk.

Suggestions for articles for the next edition should reach the Editor by 6 April.

Editor: Andrew Aldridge Design: www.creative-warehouse.co.uk Printers: Labute Printers Contributors: Andrew Aldridge, Becky Allen, Jacqueline Garget, Sheila Kiggins, Tom Kirk.

Newsletter online

www.admin.cam.ac.uk/univ/newsletter

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WHAT’S NEW

Your comments and contributions are always welcome.

Please send them to the Editor at newsletter@admin.cam.ac.uk The deadline for the next issue is 6 April.

CRI transfer to strengthen cancer research Cancer Research UK’s Cambridge Research Institute – based in the Li Ka Shing building on the Biomedical Campus – became part of the University on 1 January 2013.

The University and Cancer Research UK have also announced the appointment of Professor Simon Tavaré as the next Director of the newly branded Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, succeeding Sir Bruce Ponder.

The transfer will strengthen the University’s presence in cancer – one of its strategic research initiatives – and benefit the Institute and its researchers by facilitating interactions not only with partners on the Biomedical Campus, but also across other research disciplines, particularly in the Biological and Physical Sciences.

Since it was formally opened by the Queen in February 2007, the Cambridge Institute – one of five CRUK institutes in the UK – has established an international reputation for academic and research excellence, building on strong scientific and clinical links with Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and across

Cambridge. Its key research strands focus on: l Basic research into the cellular and molecular biology of cancer l Research in molecular imaging, genomics, bioinformatics and computational biology l Translational research on specific cancer sites l Clinical investigations including experimental medicine-based clinical studies and trials.

Cancer Research UK transferred the assets of the Institute – both equipment and the lease on the

premises – and approximately 250 staff to become a department within the School of Clinical Medicine.

Cancer Research UK will continue to core-fund the Institute, in addition to providing significant grant funding to other departments within the University.

The integration of the Institute brought together the skills and hard work of two project teams, with staff on both sides providing expertise and advice in human resources, finance, procurement, estates, IT, health and safety and legal services.

Professor Patrick Maxwell, Head of the School of Clinical Medicine and Regius Professor of Physic, said: “Cambridge is extremely strong in cancer research. The Institute coming into the University is an important step in bringing our strengths together to accelerate progress in understanding the biology of cancer and developing new approaches to treatment.”

Professor Tavaré said: “It is an honour to be chosen to direct the Institute after its move to the University. The Cambridge Institute looks forward to working with Cancer Research UK and the University to uncover more of cancer’s secrets.”

NWC: approval given for phase one The Regent House, the University’s governing body, has given formal approval for the first phase of the North West Cambridge development.

Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Institutional Affairs Jeremy Sanders welcomed the decision. “The North West Cambridge development is a major part of the University’s long-term future, providing much of the residential and research accommodation that the University needs as it grows over the next 20 years.

“The endorsement of phase one by the Regent House illustrates the commitment that members from across the University and Colleges

have towards the continuing success of Cambridge and the wider region.”

Phase one includes approximately 530 homes for qualifying University and College staff, 450 homes for sale, accommodation for 300 students, a local centre with community facilities, and substantial landscaping and public space. There will be enhanced connections to and within the local area.

It is estimated to cost £281 million, with the scheme in its entirety costing £1 billion. Work will start later in 2013 with the first buildings due for completion in late 2015.

For more information, visit www. nwcambridge.co.uk lent term 2013 | UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE Newsletter | 3

what’s new

Reaching out to people in care Young people who grew up in care are hugely underrepresented in higher education. It’s an issue the University is working to redress through taster days for potential students, foster carers and social workers

This spring the University is gearing up to deliver its annual Oxford and Cambridge student conferences. Among the biggest outreach events in the UK, these seminars will be held in football and rugby stadia, as well as race courses, and engage 10,000 students and teachers.

But large-scale national forums are not the only way in which the University fulfils its commitment to identifying and recruiting the very best future undergraduates.

This half-term, two carefully focused events will be taking place in Cambridge for a group that is hugely under-represented in higher education. Young people in care, their foster carers, social workers and education advocates will come to Cambridge for a taste of university life through the collegiate University’s Realise programme.

The University was awarded the Buttle UK Quality Mark in 2010 in recognition of its commitment to supporting applicants and undergraduates who have experience of the care system.

The Realise programme was launched two years ago as a specific initiative within the University’s widening participation (WP) work to encourage young people in care to regard higher education as an achievable goal.

Coordinated by a member of the WP team in the Cambridge Admissions Office, undergraduates, academics and University staff give their time to ensure that each event

is fun, interactive and academically challenging.

In 2011/12, 390 children from 35 local authorities took part in Realise events. So far this year almost 200 more young people have been to Cambridge for events as diverse as astronomical observation, enzyme analysis and understanding the science of risk.

To give an authentic taste of university, each Realise event includes at least one session led by a current Cambridge academic.

October’s Arts and Humanities Day introduced students to Archaeology and Anthropology, Philosophy, and Experimental Psychology. “I study love. I’m happy about that,” said Dr Alex Kolgan, from the Department of Psychology, describing his work on the biology and psychology of human kindness.

Asked why he wanted to get involved with Realise, Dr Kolgan explained: “Our childhood experiences play such a massive role in determining our futures. This may be especially true for individuals who face difficulties in childhood and need extra help early on to find their path.

“Realise events such as the Arts and Humanities Day allow us to begin to level the playing field ever so gently. We won’t solve the problem in one day, but we can provide some opportunity for these young people to see a different path.”

The events are well supported by current undergraduates. Their participation is valued by the young students as a source of “the real

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“For some, a Realise event can be the first time they meet another young person in care who wants to aim for university” Tom Levinson, Head of Widening Participation information” about university life.

Sam, currently reading History at Lucy Cavendish, volunteers regularly on Realise events. “Part of my role is to meet the students at the station in the morning and escort them throughout the day, answering any questions they may have. It’s very rewarding to see the shy groups of the morning develop into lively, motivated students whose perceptions of not only Cambridge, but also opportunities out there for them, have been transformed.

“The success of these days and the reason I work on them were summed

Above: a young person taking part in one of the Realise events for children in care

up by a student on October’s Science and Environment Day. The last thing he said to me before getting on the train was: ‘Thank you so much, you have all changed my life and I’ll never forget today’.”

If academic commitments allow, a current undergraduate from a care background will also join the day and share some of their own story.

Tom Levinson, Head of Widening Participation, who coordinates the Realise programme for the University, said: “For some, a Realise event can be the first time they meet another young person in care who wants to aim for university. For others, the fact that one of our students can stand in front of them and say, ‘I had 30 foster placements before I was 16 but I made it to Cambridge’ gives them a sense of possibility.

“We wouldn’t be able to offer such a broad and inspiring programme without the support of the colleges and departments,” Tom adds.

what’s new

paul wilkinson

Science Festival returns with hands-on fun

Dr Pete Wothers is one of the many academics appearing at the festival

The 2013 Science Festival opens on 11 March, offering staff, students, city residents and visitors an opportunity to discover and take part in scientific activity at the University.

A quick glance through the programme reveals some exciting highlights: Professor John Gurdon,

winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, will discuss his research and the future of cell replacement; Professors Andy Parker and Val Gibson of the Cavendish Laboratory will talk about a new chapter in particle physics following the ground-breaking experiments

at the Large Hadron Collider; and science journalist Tim Radford hosts a panel discussion on the future of energy.

This year the festival welcomes actor Benedict Cumberbatch as guest director – someone who, in his own words, has kept an amateur interest in science alive through his work: “As an actor who has researched playing Stephen Hawking, Joseph Hooker, Werner Heisenberg, and both Frankenstein and his creation, I’ve long had a passion for all fields of science,” he said.

Family activities have always been central to the popularity of the Science Festival. This year many of the events for children are on Science on Saturday on 16 March. Listen to BBC Radio 2 Drivetime host and children’s author Simon Mayo talk about his books Itch and Itch Rocks. Get to grips with fascinating experiments at the Department of Zoology in Crash, bang, squelch! Or brace yourself for an exposition on nasal defence in Why snot? at the Department of

Pharmacology. There’s also a series of talks aimed at older teens and adults called ThinkCon at the McCrum Lecture Theatre.

Elsewhere, 2012 guest director Robin Ince returns with his follow-up show to Happiness through science with a look at Charles Darwin and the American theoretical physicist Richard Feynman on 17 March, with a second Saturday of science talks and events on 23 March centred around the West Cambridge site.

Details of all events can be found at the Science Festival website at www.cam.ac.uk/sciencefestival.

If you would like to volunteer at the Science Festival email Sue Long at sue.long@admin.cam.ac.uk

how to book ➔ Online: www.cam.ac.uk/

sciencefestival ➔ Phone: (01223)7667666 ➔ Email: csf@admin.cam.ac.uk

UAS success recognised More than 100 people gathered to celebrate individual and team successes across the UAS at the first UAS Employee Recognition Awards.

The event, held last December in the Combination Room of the Old Schools, brought together people from a range of teams and Divisions, including those who were nominated for recognition, their colleagues and partners.

Sue Davis, Childcare Services Manager, compered for the evening, introducing Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Institutional Affairs Professor Jeremy Sanders and the Registrary Dr Jonathan Nicholls.

Both Professor Sanders and Dr Nicholls congratulated everyone present for their hard work and excellent service to the University.

The winners – both individual and teams – came under four values.

They were: l ‘We deliver an effective and high-quality service’: Mike Sinclair (Finance Division); the International Student Team (Academic Division) l ‘We collaborate and work in partnership’: Felicity Webster (Finance Division); the Admissions and Data Services Team (Academic Division) l ‘We are open, responsive and innovative’: Diane Ingham (Estate Management); the MISD Services Development Team l ‘We respect others and value diversity’: Alan Baldock (Estate Management); the Childcare Office Playscheme Team (Human Resources Division). lent term 2013 | UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE Newsletter | 5

feature

The virtual Chopin One of the greatest composers of the 19th century, Fryderyk Chopin, had an irrepressible creative imagination, and his music experienced continual evolution as a result. Now, a new online resource is bringing the many versions of his compositions together in one place, opening up new possibilities for performers, listeners and researchers alike Lovers of classical music reading this will know that it is unusual to go to a piano recital and not hear a piece

by Fryderyk Chopin. More than 200 years after his birth, Chopin is not only a household name, but also probably the most enduring composer of his age.

For some, this comes down to the ineffable beauty, subtlety and technical refinement of the music he wrote.

Others point to the fact that unlike many Romantic composers Chopin rarely tried to convey a specific message or story through his music. Publishing under neutral titles that gave little away, he preferred to leave interpretation to the listener. The result is that, even today, audiences tend to find something uniquely personal in each piece.

Yet while listeners can simply sit back and enjoy the music, the obscurity of Chopin’s intentions makes understanding his work a challenge for anyone seeking to get closer to the composer himself. Chopin is both fascinating and frustrating in this respect, because he rarely left behind just one version of his compositions. More often, there are three, four, five or more – any number of which might be an ‘authoritative’ representation of how he wanted the piece to sound.

Listeners, performers and researchers alike may find this liberating, but also bewildering because there are so many

options from which to choose.

John Rink, Professor of Musical Performance Studies at Cambridge, is director of a project that is transforming the way in which we understand Chopin’s work by bringing this compositional cornucopia together in one place. Launched in 2005 with funding from the Andrew W Mellon Foundation, the Online Chopin Variorum Edition (http://www.ocve. org.uk) is still under development, but eventually will provide digital images of all the available primary sources of Chopin’s music – whether sketches, complete manuscripts (both Chopin’s and those of copyists), first editions, or later impressions. Thousands of pages from these documents are already available, and the entire site is free of charge. Users anywhere in the world can explore, compare and combine elements from the great composer’s music, comment on it as they go, and ultimately construct their own version of the Chopin work to an extent that has never before been possible.

Purists might call that sacrilege, but Rink believes that it is very much in the spirit of what Chopin wanted. In fact, he describes as “indefensible” the notion that a given version of Chopin was necessarily what the composer would have intended for all time.

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“We need to understand Chopin’s music as existing in a state of flux – a process involving not only the composer but also those who later came into contact with it” Professor John Rink

“For Chopin there was no definitive version: he continually changed his mind,” Rink says. “We might identify a particular source as representing his conception of the music at a given moment, but the next day he might well have heard, played or notated it differently. We therefore need to understand his music as existing in a state of flux; a process involving not only the composer but also all those who later come into contact with it – including performers, listeners, editors, critics and so on.”

Contemporary evidence confirms that Chopin’s genius was restless and boundless, in that he continually modified his work on paper while correcting errors, refining the notation, or indulging in other creative possibilities. To minimise the risk of piracy, he also published separate editions in France, England and the German states, usually leading to the release of three distinct versions of his music, which might be altered yet again – either by Chopin or his publishers – when a given print run sold out and a new impression was required. Even his rare, sensational public performances were a creative act: according to one of his piano tuners, Chopin never played his own music the same way twice, instead varying his approach to suit the occasion.

The numerous variants that he pencilled into the scores of his students hint at the

bibliotheque nationale de France

improvisatory character of his playing.

Rink can point to numerous examples already available through the Variorum that prove just how flexible the Chopin work is. The C minor Prelude Op. 28 No. 20, for example, is a controversial piece because nobody is sure what Chopin really wanted. Remarkably, the debate hinges on the ending of a single bar.

Trivial though that may seem, the music sounds different depending on which version is played – one is brighter, the other sombre. Either could be correct, but then again both versions might simply represent what Chopin wanted at different times. Even more striking, perhaps, is the fact that the piece exists in two original versions: one nine bars long, the other thirteen. Only the latter is performed today, but the former, which was not meant for publication, may reflect Chopin’s earliest conception.

In some cases users can see several layers of corrections on the page itself.

The Second Ballade Op. 38 is a case in point. Here, Chopin wrote two different endings and then vacillated between them; his manuscript shows the original ending scribbled out and replaced with a second version, which made its way into one of the first editions, whereas another conforms to the original. Again, the effect is quite different depending on which ending the pianist chooses to play, as the

second version is more imposing than its understated counterpart.

Rink believes that despite this seemingly limitless variety, Chopin’s music should not be altered capriciously.

“To make a musically sensible decision about what you put forward as a performer, you need to have sound criteria along with the knowledge and judgement that can accrue only over time,” he says. This last point is critical: “Merely having access to the original sources does not in itself allow one to make informed, convincing decisions about how this music ‘should’ be played and understood.”

For this reason, the Variorum provides more than just an archive of digitised manuscripts and printed editions culled from dozens of international libraries and private collectors. Visitors to the OCVE site can browse a full index of the materials that have been uploaded, select a work, then view the different versions on offer. But the main feature of the Variorum is the ability to select and compare particular bars or passages across all the different sources for a given piece, thereby revealing the music’s creative history. Background information is provided at an overview level and on an in-depth, bar-by-bar basis. The site also works as a ‘virtual notepad’, enabling users to jot down ideas about

Above left: Professor John Rink, in a film about Chopin that will appear shortly on the University’s YouTube channel Above right: the Online Chopin Variorum Edition provides digital images of primary sources of Chopin’s music

the music as they work their way through it. They can keep these annotations to themselves, or share them with others.

Despite the growing significance of digital media in the arts and humanities, no musical resource quite like this has been attempted: the Variorum offers unprecedented opportunities to compare and reconstruct Chopin’s creative process in a way that would not be possible on the printed page – where even the comparison of a few bars in different sources requires a large desk as well as juggling skills. In time, Rink hopes that the Chopin Variorum might serve as a model for “dynamic editions” of other composers’ works.

For now, it means that, rather than having Chopin’s musical legacy mediated for us, we can make up our minds about how to hear or perform his works. This seems to have been Chopin’s intention.

“Music does not exist in a single, correct version,” Rink notes. “It constantly changes over time. Chopin reminds us of that because he himself kept changing his music. Whenever we perform or listen to it, our experience is different from the last. By putting his compositions into a digital space, we can model and capture that evolutionary process. In doing so, we breathe new life into Chopin’s music and witness for ourselves his compositional genius at work.”

lent term 2013 | UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE Newsletter | 7

making a difference

Tune in, switch off The University’s first Switch Off Week runs from 18-24 February. It’s a chance for everyone to get involved in cutting Cambridge’s carbon footprint and consider the best behavioural and technological ways of reducing energy use As well as being home to a worldleading university, Cambridge can lay claim to being the UK’s capital of cycling, and in February a new velocipede arrives in the city. Looking like a cross between a gym bike and a unicycle, it should get staff across the University talking about some very important issues.

The Energy Bike, as it’s known, will tour different parts of the University during Switch Off Week. As well as being a fun break from work, the intention is to show people how hard it is to power their gadgets, and to demonstrate the energy costs associated with everyday tasks.

Taking a ride on the Energy Bike is just one way of getting involved in Switch Off Week. Many of the events will be fun, but the underlying message is serious, says Professor Jeremy Sanders, ProVice-Chancellor for Institutional Affairs: “Switch Off Week is a great opportunity for staff and students to understand the environmental and financial impact of their actions, to take responsibility, change their behaviour and see the

benefits for their departments.”

Those costs and potential benefits are enormous, he says: “Environment and energy are important from at least two perspectives. The first is purely financial. The University’s electricity bill is more than £10m a year and, if we don’t do anything, it will carry on increasing. Secondly, there’s the whole question of leadership and our impact on the environment. The University has world-class research in energy, from fundamental physics and chemistry to applied engineering. We have a wonderful range of expertise in the research area but the question is how do we apply that expertise in our own buildings?”

The answer lies partly in the University’s Energy and Carbon Reduction Project (ECRP). Launched in 2010 with an annual budget of £2m, the ECRP is working with five pilot departments: Engineering (the largest department in the University and one with major research and teaching interests in energy

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Staff can get more involved by volunteering as a departmental Energy Champion or Environmental Coordinator

technology); the University Library; and three large energy users –­ Plant Sciences, the Gurdon Institute and Chemistry.

The object of the exercise is to find the best behavioural and technological ways of reducing energy use. “That might mean more efficient pumps and more efficient computer cooling, but also everybody being more careful about turning off lights and computers.

All those things contribute,” Professor Sanders explains.

“The five pilots have been chosen for their different patterns of energy use, the idea being to test experimentally ways of reducing energy consumption in those departments. The second part of ECRP’s remit is to take those successful approaches and apply them across the operational estate.”

The Gurdon Institute decided to take part because of its high energy consumption. “We use about 5m kWh of electricity a year but only occupy a 7,000m2 building,” explains its Building Facilities Manager Kathy Hilton. “The Gurdon volunteered because we’re aware that we are an energy intensive building and we also have a biomedical facility. It’s an area that has very close environmental conditions with lots of air turnover, heating and cooling.”

The Gurdon decided to focus on behaviour change for the pilot, holding a three-day exhibition in their tea room and asking staff to sign a pledge to be more energy aware. Then, between March and September 2012, they ran a competition to see which lab could reduce its energy use most each month.

The results impressed Hilton, somewhat sceptical at the outset. “You see places lit up like Christmas trees and wonder what the point is of saving a couple of kilowatts on your computer.

But we’ve shown that little savings from everyone make a significant difference.”

The winning lab was Professor Andrea Brand’s. “They took it really seriously and transformed their whole culture,” says Hilton. “The reductions persisted after the competition ended. Looking at the year-to-date, 80 per cent of the labs had managed to reduce their energy consumption, and the Brand lab by an impressive 60 per cent overall.”

For its part of the ECRP, the Engineering Department has focused on how existing building services – heating, lighting and ventilation – are provided, centralising and updating key services.

“One example is our computer rooms,” says David Green, Superintendent of the

sir cam

Illustrations: felix bennett

Photovoltaic panels at West Cambridge

Engineering Workshops. “We’ve moved from having several small computer rooms with two or three racks of servers to two much larger facilities, and then we’ve made them as efficient as possible.

We’re particularly proud of the work we’ve done to improve the energy efficiency of the cooling in the server rooms.”

Using evaporative cooling (or fresh air) Engineering is saving £75,000 a year on its electricity bills, as well as hundreds of tonnes of carbon, and payback time on the investment is just five years. The improvements make a major difference to the department’s performance under the Energy Incentivisation Scheme. “At the end of 2008/09 when the scheme came in we got a bill for £35,000 because we’d exceeded our target. Our computer room has reversed that in one hit,” he explains.

At the time, it made Engineering’s data centre one of the most efficient in higher education and beyond – lessons Green

has shared with other departments, student groups and other universities.

“We were proud of it, we wanted to fly the flag, but we also wanted to share the knowledge of what we’ve learned and achieved. It’s been a good academic exercise,” he explains.

But saving money is only one reason for saving energy, he believes. Leading by example and putting engineering research into practice are important too.

“We’re putting photovoltaics onto one of our roofs, which will put energy back into the grid using technologies developed in this department. We’re particularly proud of that.”

Rather than installing commercially available photovoltaic units, Engineering is fitting panels that incorporate a microinverter and thin-film technology developed at Cambridge. “That means we can compare and contrast, push the boundaries a bit, which is what we’re here for,” Green adds.

Find out more ➔ Switch Off Week:

www.admin.cam. ac.uk/carbon/getting_ involved/sow.html ➔ University of Cambridge Carbon: www.admin.cam.ac.uk/ carbon ➔ Cambridge University Environmental Consulting Society: www.societies.cam. ac.uk/cuecs ➔ Green Bridge: www.societies.cam. ac.uk/greenbr/index. htm

Departments exist to teach, as well as do research, and Engineering’s energy roof has formed part of fourth-year and PhD student projects. Involving students in sustainability is vital says University Environmental Officer Joanna Simpson: “Cambridge graduates are going to go on to become future business leaders and politicians, and could have a huge positive or negative impact on sustainability, depending on their viewpoint, when they leave university.”

As well student societies with a green focus, staff and students can get involved with the Green Impact scheme.

“This is the first year Cambridge has been involved. It’s a staff and student engagement programme that supports them to undertake simple actions in offices and departments. It’s structured through an online workbook and at the end of the year teams are recognised with either a bronze, silver or gold award,” Simpson explains.

Staff can get more involved by volunteering as a departmental Energy Champion or Environmental Coordinator.

For the past two and a half years, Web Services Manager Sarah Cater has been Environmental Coordinator at the Cambridge Judge Business School, where she’s examining how to save paper by making more material available online.

Over coming months she will be documenting paper consumption and time staff spend on producing printouts, and asking users for their views. “Our Executive MBA programme is a great example. Delegates are mostly from overseas and the programme is 100 per cent paperless, so it’s a great example of how it can work,” says Cater.

Colleges also want to share best practice, says Carole Birtwhistle, CRC Coordinator for the Cambridge Colleges.

“The National Trust has developed an energy map for its properties showing the kind of technologies they have at different sites, and I’d like to introduce something similar for the colleges.” Prime candidates for inclusion will be Jesus College’s new ground source heat pump, photovoltaic installations at Downing and Homerton colleges, Churchill’s Combined Heat and Power plant, and Magdalene’s new staircase sub-metering.

There’s a great deal going on, but a great deal more needs to be done, says Simpson: “The target in our Carbon Management Plan is to reduce our carbon emissions by 34 per cent by 2020 from a 2005 baseline. It’s a big challenge.”

lent term 2013 | UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE Newsletter | 9

profile

illustrations by felix bennett

Abuzz about ecology

Dr Henry Disney’s career as an ecologist researching flies, midges and gnats has brought him into contact with all manner of people and situations, while his discovery of new species – and abolition of others – demonstrates the invaluable contribution taxonomy still has to make to science.

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Ulcerating lesions, botched burglaries and mysterious, blood-sucking flies – Dr Henry Disney’s passion for an order of winged insects has taken him from courtrooms to tropical rainforests, where his meticulous attention to detail has solved countless puzzles and generated a new understanding of an integral component of the natural world.

Disney graduated from the University as an ecologist in 1962. Fifty years later, as a Senior Research Associate at the University Museum of Zoology, his enduring fascination with the Diptera – a large order of two-winged insects including flies, midges and gnats – and scuttle flies in particular, continues to connect him with an incredible range of people and situations.

Back in the 1960s, Disney was a medical entomologist at the Dermal Leishmaniasis Research Unit in Belize, employed by the Ministry of Overseas Development.

“The people working in the rainforest were contracting a parasitic infection that formed ulcerating lesions on their skin,” he says. “It was my job to find out what insect was transmitting this. It was an unforgettable moment when I proved that the parasites in a sandfly I had dissected were in fact Leishmania mexicana, the cause of the problem.

Within the first 100 years of medical entomology existing as a science I had the privilege of discovering a diseasetransmitting vector.”

Disney went on to join the overseas

staff of the Medical Research Council as the medical entomologist at the Helminthiasis Research Unit in Cameroon, where he investigated black flies in relation to river blindness, before returning to the UK to run the Malham Tarn Field Centre and natural nature reserve in North Yorkshire.

“In Yorkshire they had done a big insect survey in the 1950s, but they hadn’t dealt with scuttle flies because the taxonomy was in such a mess. The textbooks said they were all muckbreeders, but I didn’t agree. I found one scuttle fly species parasitising the larvae of a lesser fungus gnat, and another preying on slug eggs. So I set out to put together a complete list of species for the nature reserve, this time including the scuttle flies.”

That said, many scuttle flies do breed in muck – or decaying organic material to be more precise – and this includes human corpses. It was their predilection for dead bodies that led to one species being nicknamed the coffin fly. Since his return to the University’s Department of Zoology, Dr Disney’s expertise has led him to be involved in high-profile murder inquiries in which scuttle flies have provided key evidence leading to a conviction.

“There was a case in Sussex in 1999 in which a man broke into an elderly lady’s house. He killed her and left her on the floor before working through the house over the next few weeks, even forging her signature on cheques to pay the bills and keep up the pretence that she was still alive.”

When a species of scuttle fly was found on the body in the ensuing forensic investigation, Disney was called in. “I worked out that the fly eggs had been laid in July, which conflicted with the written evidence of the date of death,” he says.

“This proved that the offender had been lying. In the end the whole case hinged on the scuttle flies.”

Dr Disney has also been asked to identify and comment on specimens submitted for forensic examination by trading standards officers, commercial companies under threat of litigation, and animal welfare officers.

“I’ve abolished a lot of species and contradicted a lot of facts in textbooks about scuttle flies over the years,” he says. “In the 1990s I got funding to pull together everything that was known on scuttle flies, and I published a key to world genera, and a review of the world

“We now realise that about 80 per cent of the species on planet Earth are actually unknown to science, and fundamental taxonomic work is vital”

literature. I started finding new species in my own garden – I became an obsessive.”

With the subfamily Termitoxeniinae, whose highly aberrant females live in the fungus gardens of termites: “What have been described as different species of scuttle fly have, in many cases, turned out to be the same species at different stages of their development,” says Disney.

“In one case, I took a sample of these females – presumed to be various different species – from a termite nest in Java. I mounted the flies on microscope slides and measured the lengths of their hind femora. When I plotted a graph of femora length against the lengths of the developing eggs the flies contained, there was a perfect correlation. These different-sized flies were actually the same species, just growing. To grow, which is not usual in adult flies, it was hypothesised that by imbibing juvenile hormones from the blood of the termites they were preventing cessation of growth as adult flies.”

In 1995, the Leverhulme Trust funded Disney to travel to the Far East to try to unravel the uncertain and much debated taxonomy of Termitoxeniinae. “I revised the taxonomy of the Afrotropical and the Oriental species. The latter enabled my Japanese collaborator Dr Munetoshi Maruyama to identify species found living in the extreme south of Japan, and to recognise a whole new genus. This led to a publication in Entomological Science in 2011 that aroused exceptional interest, and has just won an award from the Entomological Society of Japan.”

Dr Disney’s work has led to many important publications, including the popular Naturalists’ Handbooks series,

which he started and co-edited with colleague Dr Sarah Corbet, helping thousands to undertake field studies and make accurate identifications across a whole range of taxonomic groups. He has also published the only book ever devoted to scuttle flies, plus a staggering 500 papers on this family of insects.

“Ninety per cent of the flies I work on are sent to me from other people,” said Disney. “When people heard I was working on scuttle flies, they started asking me to look at specimens they had.”

Through many decades of observations at the microscope, Disney has become intimately familiar with the critical features of the scuttle fly, and his expert eye now enables him to identify them, and determine whether they are entirely new species.

“I greatly enjoy sorting out the taxonomy to help people with the publication of novel natural history data they have obtained,” he says. “For example, a new species found in Trinidad whose larvae prey on the eggs of a frog, and another whose larvae feed on the pollen stores of a solitary bee in Australia.

At the moment I’m looking at a collection from ancient forests in England. I’ve already got three species new to science, and this is from Britain, which has the best documented fauna in the world.”

Dr Disney’s work has enabled him to amass the greatest collection of slide-mounted scuttle flies in the world at the University Museum of Zoology.

A staggering 638 of his 1,296 named species are ‘Type’ specimens, which are of the highest scientific importance, acting as the universal references for classifying and naming species.

“I’m really an ecologist who found that every question comes back to taxonomy, because you keep finding things that aren’t in the literature,” he says. “When I was a graduate student studying ecology at Cambridge in 1962, I shared the common view that taxonomy was something the Victorians did.

But in fact we now realise that about 80 per cent of the species on planet Earth are actually unknown to science, and fundamental taxonomic work is vital. The habits of most species remain unknown, so there is still a great deal for naturalists to explore.”

lent term 2013 | UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE Newsletter | 11

people

caroline djanogly

Appointments

Dr Beverley Glover has been appointed Director of the Botanic Garden. Dr Glover will take up the post, and the associated Professorship of Plant Systematics and Evolution to which she has been elected, in July 2013.

Dr Glover, currently Reader in Evolution and Development in the Department of Plant Sciences, said: “The Botanic Garden is a central and much-loved part of both the University and the wider community, and I am very much looking forward to working with the Garden’s highly skilled and dedicated staff to develop further the collections, and to ensure they play their full part in botanical research and teaching.”

Dr Glover read Plant and Environmental Biology at St Andrews University before completing her PhD in the molecular genetics of cellular differentiation in the plant epidermis at the John Innes Centre. She came to Cambridge first as a Junior Research Fellow at Queens’, before progressing from Lecturer to Reader in the Department of Plant Sciences.

Professor Keith Richards, Chair of the Botanic Garden Syndicate, said: “Beverley is well known to everyone in the Garden, having served on the Syndicate for ten years, and has already made many highly valued contributions to its outreach programme and its integration into University teaching.

“Her own interdisciplinary work will help to strengthen the Garden’s research role and build on relationships with the Department of Plant Sciences, the Sainsbury Laboratory and the Cambridge Conservation Initiative.”

Mr Tim Knox will succeed Timothy Potts as Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum when he takes up the post in April.

Mr Knox is currently Director of the Sir John Soane’s Museum in London where he has been since 2005. He studied History of Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art, and was appointed Assistant Curator at the Royal Institute of British Architects Drawings Collection in 1989, moving in 1995 to the National Trust as its Architectural Historian, becoming Head Curator in 2002.

The Fitzwilliam Museum has enjoyed record-breaking visitor numbers in recent years, with critically lauded exhibitions including Vermeer’s Women and The Search for Immortality: Tomb Treasures of Han China drawing tens of thousands of extra visits to these and the permanent collections.

Mr Knox said: “I am extremely pleased and proud to be appointed the next Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum.

“The museum and the other collections of the University play an important role in the cultural enrichment of the University, the city of Cambridge and its surrounding area – and indeed of the nation as a whole.”

Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz said: “Tim Knox has a tremendous reputation as a museum director. He has shown at the Soane Museum a sensitivity to the legacy of the founder coupled with a creative vision.

“I am delighted that he will bring these abilities to bear at the Fitzwilliam.”

12 | lent term 2013 | UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE Newsletter

Professor Didier Queloz, one of Europe’s leading experts on planets located beyond the Solar System, has been appointed Professor of Physics at the Cavendish Laboratory.

Professor Queloz said: “I am delighted to be moving to Cambridge. It is a real honour for me to join a University that has been the home and source of inspiration to so many great scientists.”

Extra-solar system planets, or exoplanets, were first detected by Professor Queloz and his colleague Michel Mayor in 1995. Since then, more than 800 exoplanets have been discovered.

Professor James Stirling, Head of the Department of Physics, said: “We are delighted that Didier will be joining us as a professor in the Cavendish Laboratory. We have made a very considerable investment in experimental astrophysics in recent years, including a brand new building to house our astrophysics group. Didier’s appointment will open up a new strand of research in one of the most exciting areas of modern astronomy, and will build on the expertise we already have in instrument development, star and planet formation, atmospheric chemistry, planetary geophysics and climatology.

“It will also further cement links with our colleagues in the Institute of Astronomy and the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, and help maintain Cambridge and UK leadership in fundamental science.

Professor Queloz will maintain a part-time connection with the University of Geneva.”

Professor Ottoline Leyser has been named as the new Director of the Sainsbury Laboratory.

Professor Leyser, formerly Associate Director of the Laboratory and also Professor of Plant Development at the Department of Plant Sciences, said: “This is a really exciting time to be a plant biologist.

We have an impressive array of tools and technologies to make rapid progress, and the Sainsbury Laboratory will be at the forefront of a new integrative approach to understanding biological systems.”

Professor Leyser received her BA and PhD in Genetics from the University of Cambridge. After postdoctoral research at Indiana University and Cambridge, she built an independent research programme at the University of York, where she worked from 1994 until 2010.

She was appointed a CBE in the 2009 New Year Honours list, is a Fellow of the Royal Society, a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences and a Member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation.

Professor Sir David Baulcombe, Regis Professor of Botany and Chair of the Sainsbury Laboratory Management Board said: “We warmly welcome the appointment of Professor Leyser to the Directorship of the Laboratory.

“She has worked in partnership with inaugural Director Professor Elliot Meyerowitz to establish the Laboratory and recruit the founding group leaders. We look forward to her continued work in developing research, recruitment and collaborations.”

advertisements Advertising on this page is open to University staff. The cost is £15 for a single insertion or £75 for six insertions.

The deadline for the next issue is 6 April. Please send your copy – no longer than 70 words – to the Editor at newsletter@admin.cam.ac.uk HOUSES TO RENT (UK) ➔ Butley, Suffolk Comfortable, spacious, well equipped cottage with piano in Butley, Suffolk. Available for Aldeburgh Festival, weekends and short breaks throughout the year.

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SERVICES ➔ Purchasing exhibition Procurement Services will be holding the Annual Purchasing Exhibition 2013 – Future-proofing Procurement in the University – from 10am to 2.30pm on Wednesday 27 February 2013 in the Large and Small Examinations Halls, New Museums Site. For more information on how to register visit http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/ offices/purchasing/events/. ➔ Lovely food, sensible prices The University Social Club (USC) in Mill Lane is the ideal place for lunch and to unwind after work. It boasts real ales, delicious, affordable food at lunchtime, and snooker, pool, darts and table tennis. The club has function and meeting rooms available for hire, and is open to all University staff, students and affiliates. The USC is open from 12 to 2pm and 5pm until 10.30pm Monday to Friday. Various dancing classes (salsa, tango and ceroc) are held most week nights. For further information phone 38090 or email enquiries@socialclub.cam.ac.uk. ➔ Bottisham Garage Friendly, independent garage servicing all makes and models

of car. MOT tests, diagnostics, brakes and tyres all catered for.

Free courtesy car by arrangement.

10 per cent discount on labour to University card holders when mentioned at time of booking. Free MOT test last Thursday of every month. Phone 01223 811666 for appointments. ➔ Wine tasting Cambridgeshire Wine School runs Wine tasting evenings and courses in central Cambridge. We do not sell wine (we choose from local retailers) and our courses and events are suitable for everyone – from the beginner to the enthusiast. We hold single evenings focusing on particular regions of the world, an eight-week ‘world tour’ (save £30) and Saturday courses (including two-course lunch and Champagne).

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VOLUNTEERS ➔ Coton Countryside Reserve Cambridge Past, Present & Future, the local charity that champions enjoyment of green spaces and sustainable development of the city, is looking for people to help out at the Coton Countryside Reserve. Volunteers help shape and maintain the reserve, with assistance conducting wildlife surveys, practical conservation tasks and research on the history and archaeology of the site of particularly high importance. To find out more about volunteering, call (01223) 243830 or visit http:// cambridgeppf.org/volunteering. shtml. ➔ Help with professional skills Cambridgeshire ProHelp has relaunched for professionals committed to making a difference in their local community by providing free advice and expertise. Expertise from marketing and businessplanning, to architecture and law is sought. Volunteering can be a great way to develop skills while benefiting the community. If you are interested in finding out more, please visit http://www.bitc.org. uk/east_of_england/programmes/ prohelp/. ➔ Local charity seeks trustees The trustees of Cambridge United Charities manage 29 almshouses in the city, administer grants to local people in need of financial help and support organisations working with young people. Would you consider joining us? If you have an interest in housing for the elderly, experience of property

or investment management, or practical concern for the welfare of others, we would like to hear from you. For further information phone Chairman of Trustees Philippa Slatter on (01223) 701733 or visit www.cambridgeunitedcharities.org. ➔ Blood cell study Would you like to help with a research project? Are you male, aged 45-75 or female, aged 45-75?

We are seeking volunteers to help us with a research project looking into how specific white blood cells behave in the body. If you are a healthy volunteer or have asthma, and would like to help, please contact Ros Simmonds, Research Nurse on (01223) 762007 or 07525 803785 for further information. You will be compensated for your time and inconvenience.

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lent term 2013 | UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE Newsletter | 13

prizes, awards and honours Awards ➔ Dr Duncan Bell (Department of

Politics and International Studies) and Dr Sujit Sivasundaram (Faculty of History) have won Philip Leverhulme Prizes, awarded “to outstanding scholars who have made a substantial and recognised contribution to their particular field of study, recognised at international level, and where the expectation is that their greatest achievement is yet to come”. ➔ Dr John Coates was shortlisted for the 2012 Wellcome Trust Book Prize for The Hour Between Dog and Wolf. ➔ Professor Alastair Compston, Head of the Department of Clinical Neurosciences, has been elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM).

Election to the IOM is considered one of the highest honours in the fields of health and medicine, and recognises individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service. ➔ Professor Dame Athene Donald has been appointed a member of the Scientific Council, the governing body of the European Research Council. The term of office runs until the end of 2013 when the European Union Seventh Research Framework Programme ends. ➔ Professor Henry Elderfield of the Department of Earth Sciences has been awarded the 2013 VM Goldschmidt Award, the premier medal of the Geochemical Society. The award recognises major achievements in geochemistry or cosmochemistry consisting of either a single outstanding contribution or a series of publications that have had great influence on the field. Professor Elderfield is acknowledged for his wide-ranging contributions to marine geochemistry and paleoclimatology. The award will be presented at the Goldschmidt Conference in Florence in August. ➔ Professor David Ford, Founder and Director of the Cambridge Interfaith Programme, has been honoured with the Coventry International Prize for Peace and Reconciliation. The peace prize is an annual accolade that was relaunched in 2010 to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Coventry Blitz. It honours initiatives, organisations, individuals or projects that have made an exemplary contribution in the areas of peace, reconciliation and campaigns for social and environmental wellbeing.

➔ Professor Daan Frenkel, Head of

➔ Dr Eric Miska is the 2013 winner

the Department of Chemistry, has been elected an Associate Fellow of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World. The honour has been made in recognition of his outstanding contribution to science and its promotion in the developing world. The academy is an autonomous international organisation whose mission is to promote scientific capacity and excellence for sustainable development in the developing world. ➔ Professor Stephen Hawking has been announced as recipient of a Special Fundamental Physics Award of $3m for his discovery of Hawking radiation from black holes, and his deep contributions to quantum gravity and quantum aspects of the early universe. The Fundamental Physics Prize Foundation is a not-for-profit corporation established by the Milner Foundation and dedicated to advancing knowledge of the universe at the deepest level by awarding annual prizes for scientific breakthroughs, as well as communicating the excitement of fundamental physics to the public.

Professor Hawking said: “I’m delighted and honoured to receive a special prize for fundamental physics. No one undertakes research in physics with the intention of winning a prize: they do so for the joy of discovering something that no one knew of before. Nevertheless, prizes like these play an important role in giving public recognition for achievement in physics. They increase the stature of physics and interest in it.” ➔ Miss Katherine Hughes, Girton Fellow in Veterinary Medicine, has been awarded the Royal College of Pathologists’ Gold Research Medal for her entry covering the specialty of veterinary pathology. The medal is awarded for the best original research undertaken across the College’s various specialties and published between 30 June and 1 July. ➔ Dr Robert Macfarlane (Faculty of English) is to chair the judging panel of the 2013 Man Booker Prize. Fellow judges are biographer and critic Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, author, broadcaster and classicist Natalie Haynes, writer and critic Stuart Kelly, and broadcaster Martha Kearney. The longlist of authors will be announced in July this year, followed by the shortlist in early September. The winner will be announced at an awards ceremony at London’s Guildhall on 15 October.

of the British Society for Cell Biology Hooke Medal, awarded each year to an outstanding UK cell biologist who has been working as an independent research scientist for less than 10 years. ➔ Professor Andrew Pitts of the Computer Laboratory has been made a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for his contributions to the theory of programming language semantics. The ACM Fellows Program was established in 1993 to recognise and honour outstanding ACM members for their achievements in computer science and information technology, and for their significant contributions to the mission of the ACM. The ACM Fellows serve as distinguished colleagues to whom the ACM and its members look for guidance and leadership as the world of information technology evolves. ➔ Margaret Scott Robinson, Professor of Molecular Cell Biology at the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, has been elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society. ➔ Dr Chris Smith of the Naked Scientists won the Society of Biology’s 2012 Science Communication Award for established researchers. The awards recognise and reward outreach work carried out by biologists to inform, enthuse and engage the wider community, including schoolchildren, patients and the general public. Sue Thorn, Chair of the judging panel, said: “Chris works to bring science to a wide audience of different backgrounds in the UK and abroad. His approach is always innovative and makes science appealing to new audiences.” ➔ Dr Marcella Sutcliffe was awarded the 2012 Scouloudi Historical Award for her forthcoming monograph Victorian Radicals and Italian Democrats: a Long Connection, which will be published within the Royal Historical Society’s Studies in History series. Dr Sutcliffe works in the Faculty of History as AHRC postdoctoral research associate on the project Active Citizenship, Public Engagement and the Humanities: the Victorian Model. ➔ Professor David Watkin, Emeritus Professor of the History of Architecture, has been announced as the winner of the Henry Hope Reed Award for 2013.

The award is given by the University of Notre Dame to an individual who has supported traditional and classical architecture through writing, planning and promotion.

14 | lent term 2013 | UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE Newsletter

Professor Henry Elderfield

Dr Robert Macfarlane

Professor Margaret Robinson

Dr Rowan Williams

prizes, awards and honours ➔ Dr Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has been made a life peer. He takes the title Baron Williams of Oystermouth in the City and County of Swansea. Lord Williams was admitted as Master of Magdalene in January during a short ceremony witnessed by Fellows, junior members and staff of the College. He said: “I am delighted and honoured to be joining the College as Master. My first priority is to get to know this richly varied community, and to work with its members to keep the College a place of warmth and cooperation, challenge and excellence.” ➔ Three academics from the Department of Engineering have been awarded fellowships of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). They are Professors John Robertson (Solid State Electronics and Nanoscale Science Group), Phil Woodland (Machine Intelligence Laboratory) and Nick Kingsbury (Signal Processing and Communications Group). The IEEE is the world’s largest professional association dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity.

New Year Honours for Cambridge academics Three Cambridge academics were named in the New Year Honours list.

Professor Frank Kelly, Master of Christ’s, is awarded a CBE for services to mathematical sciences; Professor Mary Beard of Newnham receives an OBE for services to classical scholarship, and Professor Janet Todd, President of Lucy Cavendish, an OBE for services to higher education and literary scholarship.

Speaking after the announcement Professor Beard said: “This is delightful and flattering. While I am not sure I believe in the British Empire, I do believe in Classics, and so long as people can get any kind of award for services to classical scholarship, I’m over the moon.

Whatever I’ve been able to do for Classics over 25 years has been with the amazing collaboration of all my mates in the Classics Faculty. It’s an unrivalled place to study Classics and I’ve been very lucky to be here.”

Professor Todd said: “I am pleased

Professor Janet Todd

Professor Frank Kelly

by this award. Along with other scholars, I’ve devoted a lot of my life to the study of past women writers who were largely ignored when I began, so I’m delighted that this aspect of my professional career has been honoured. I’m also glad that the award has come while I’m President of Lucy Cavendish. We’ve just celebrated the 40th anniversary of women’s entry into Cambridge men’s colleges but, although great strides have been made, equality of opportunity still has not been achieved, and I believe there remains a place for women’s institutions”.

Also honoured were Cambridge businessman Dr David Cleevely, Founding Director of the Centre for Science and Policy, who is awarded a CBE for services to technology and innovation, and Sherry Coutu, the angel investor who sits on the University’s Finance Committee, who is awarded a CBE for services to entrepreneurship.

lent term 2013 | UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE Newsletter | 15

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The worm that turned east The contents of Crusader latrines are helping researchers probe the history of parasite infections in humans When the crusaders of the Order of St John first built a 35-latrine toilet complex in the medieval city of Acre, they could scarcely have considered that researchers would be sifting through its contents 900 years later. Yet the 13thcentury latrine soil is providing another chapter in understanding the long history of our relationship with intestinal parasites.

Biological anthropologist Dr Piers Mitchell of the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology has been extracting sediment derived from decomposed faecal material and analysing it under the microscope. Long after the many types of parasite have perished, their tenancy in the intestine of their human host can be deduced by the presence of their eggs, now hundreds or even thousands of years old.

There is a growing body of research worldwide that attests to the fact that parasitic worms have been uninvited guests of the human intestine for millennia. It’s a relationship that is still as strong as ever: today, 740 million people in the tropics have human hookworm according to estimates by the World Health Organization.

One aspect that has captured the attention of researchers is the ability to trace ancient human migrations through the parasites they took with them – for instance, the sequential waves of peopling of the Americas has been timed through the hookworms the migrants took with them from Asia.

Such research also provides an opportunity to look back to when and how parasites came to cause disease in humans.

“We can then understand what impact these infections have had, and will

continue to have, upon our evolution,” explains Mitchell.

Viewed collectively, the Crusades were arguably the greatest migration event that took place in medieval Europe. In the 12th and 13th centuries, hundreds of thousands of Europeans travelled to the eastern Mediterranean on military campaigns, pilgrimage and trade.

“The Crusades are often blamed for the spread of disease during the medieval period,” says Dr Mitchell. “But only limited research has investigated which diseases might have been spread, in which direction, eastwards or westwards, and what impact this may have had upon the endemic patterns of disease.”

Latrine analysis When Dr Mitchell analysed the crusader latrines, he was able to identify the eggs of roundworm, whipworm, beef/ pork tapeworm, dysentery and fish tapeworm. The latter is of particular interest. “Fish tapeworm is found in northern Europe where it infects humans when they eat salted, smoked or dried fish: it’s not found in the Middle East, probably because the environment doesn’t seem to support the lifecycle of the worm,” he explains.

“We were able to confirm that the parasite was not there before the Crusades. We believe the crusaders brought the parasite with them when they travelled to the eastern Mediterranean with fish tapeworms in their intestines. This is a great example of how migrations in the past can move diseases around the planet. Sometimes they take hold there

16 | lent term 2013 | UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE Newsletter

and become endemic, and sometimes they don’t.”

Dr Mitchell now plans to extend his research even further back in time, focusing on the wider Fertile Crescent – a region that stretches from Jordan to Iran. Some of the earliest civilisations developed here as long as 10,000 years ago.

“There are theoretical arguments that when our ancestors were hunter gatherers perhaps they had fewer parasites because they kept moving.

Once they settled and lived in the same places, did that make them more predisposed to reinfecting themselves with their parasitic diseases?”

His new research will trace the history of parasitic infections in the Middle East from 9,000 BC until Roman times, and will ask such fundamental questions as: when did intestinal parasites first become common in humans? Did the introduction of farming practices such as irrigation expose people to new species of parasite? And even, what impact did the invention of the humble toilet seat have on public health?

“Migrations of the past can move diseases around the planet”