Wed 03 Dec 13:30: Title tbc
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Rena Chu (University of Göttingen)
- Wednesday 03 December 2025, 13:30-14:30
- Venue: MR4, CMS.
- Series: Discrete Analysis Seminar; organiser: Julia Wolf.
Thu 09 Oct 15:00: Simplifying Synthesis with Radical Cross-Coupling
Polar disconnections are intuitive and underlie much of retrosynthetic logic. Undergraduates exposed to multistep synthesis are often taught to assemble organic molecules through the combination of positively and negatively charged synthons because, after all, opposites attract. Indeed, the most employed two-electron C–C bond forming reactions today are those either based upon classical cross-coupling reactions (e.g., Suzuki, Negishi, Heck) or polar additions (aldol, Michael, Grignard). These reactions are the mainstay of modern synthesis and have revolutionized the way molecules are constructed due to their robust and predictable nature. In contrast, radical chemistry is sparsely covered beyond the basic principles of radical chain processes (i.e., radical halogenation). The historical perception of radicals as somewhat uncontrollable species does not help the situation. As a result, synthetic chemists are not prone to make radical-based strategic bond disconnections during first-pass retrosynthetic analyses. In this talk recent studies from our lab will be discussed to illustrate the strategic advantages that can result when unconventional radical disconnections are incorporated into synthetic design plans.
Talks are priced at £4 for non-Scientific Society members. Scientific Society members will have free access to all our talks. Lifetime membership costs £15 and gives free access to all talks, members-only events and priority access to oversubscribed SciSoc events.
- Speaker: Professor Phil S. Baran
- Thursday 09 October 2025, 15:00-16:30
- Venue: Pfizer Lecture Theatre, Department of Chemistry, Lensfield Road.
- Series: SciSoc – Cambridge University Scientific Society; organiser: ajaf3.
Tue 25 Nov 18:00: It's a Wonderful Life: the bizarre animals that live in the worlds coldest ocean and their extreme adaptations
The coldest, ice laden, and most seasonal seas on the Earth hold an abundance of life that is the most bizarre and extreme in its biology of life anywhere. Life in the seas around Antarctica is unexpectedly diverse and abundant. It houses true giant species and animals that cannot live elsewhere because their biology is so tuned to the constant low temperature and extreme seasonality. They are also amongst the most threatened by change and are in some of the fastest areas of change on the planet. This presentation will discuss the limitations faced by the animals living in Antarctic seas, how they cope and thrive in the conditions and just how unusual and bizarre some of their biology is.
Talks are priced at £4 for non-Scientific Society members. Scientific Society members will have free access to all our talks. Lifetime membership costs £15 and gives free access to all talks, members-only events and priority access to oversubscribed SciSoc events.
- Speaker: Professor Lloyd Peck
- Tuesday 25 November 2025, 18:00-19:30
- Venue: Pfizer Lecture Theatre, Department of Chemistry, Lensfield Road.
- Series: SciSoc – Cambridge University Scientific Society; organiser: ajaf3.
Tue 18 Nov 18:00: From deep time biogeomorphology to geo-evolutionary feedbacks
In studies of modern landscapes, biogeomorphology describes the two-way interaction between biotic and dynamic abiotic landscape elements. As organisms interact with landforms and Earth surface processes, they can modify attributes such as sediment stability, fluid dynamics and roughness, all of which can moderate erosion, deposition and stasis, and thus register signals in the landforms and sedimentary deposits of an environment. The recognition of such signatures in the deep time geological record has potential significance for understanding the role of life in planetary surface process because ancient strata enable access to timescales in excess of the finite historicity of instrumental records afforded in the study of modern biogeomorphology. Further, the ancient record encapsulates a wide range of spatio-temporal scales, which enable ancient life-sediment interactions to be interrogated on a micro- to global scale and over durations from the instantaneous to evolutionary timescales. Accessing all of these means a better understanding of how effect cascades can cause the small scale to impact the large scale and thus set boundary conditions for further effects. Using a series of case studies we demonstrate how an understanding of deep time biogeomorphology can be accessed from the sedimentary geological record at outcrop. In doing so we seek to demonstrate the fundamental role that life and evolution have has in constructing the siliciclastic record and underline that many sedimentary phenomena are essentially physical processes that are mediated through biological processes. Given that populations which evolve on timescales congruent to that of landscape change can have their evolution affected by the change, we emphasise how further investigation in the vein has the potential to shift perceptions of the history of Earth as a living planet through means of coeval interrogation of sedimentary and fossil records.
Talks are priced at £4 for non-Scientific Society members. Scientific Society members will have free access to all our talks. Lifetime membership costs £15 and gives free access to all talks, members-only events and priority access to oversubscribed SciSoc events.
- Speaker: Professor Neil Davies
- Tuesday 18 November 2025, 18:00-19:30
- Venue: Pfizer Lecture Theatre, Department of Chemistry, Lensfield Road.
- Series: SciSoc – Cambridge University Scientific Society; organiser: ajaf3.
Tue 11 Nov 18:00: Understanding life - from genomes to organisms - using AI
Living organisms are the most complex objects we know of in the universe, with many different molecules, chemical reactions and processes arranged in precise patterns that give rise to cells, tissues, organs and individuals. We can measure many of these molecules, from DNA through RNA to proteins at scale, and we can often place these molecules, cells and tissue structures into 3 dimensiona space, sometimes in living systems with changes over time. The result is an increasingly detailed observation on life, from genome onwards. However, analysing these multi-modal datasets is challenging for a variety of reasons. Over the last decade Machine Learning, Deep Learning and AI - all part of a continuum of high parameter statistical models has been making great strides in predicting and sometimes providing insight into this work.
I will provide a brief overview of the technologies and challenges in this area, outline EMBL’s strategic role in Europe in coordinating the data and insight for these efforts and then provide some exemplars from my own research and other colleagues of using AI to understand life.Talks are priced at £4 for non-Scientific Society members. Scientific Society members will have free access to all our talks. Lifetime membership costs £15 and gives free access to all talks, members-only events and priority access to oversubscribed SciSoc events.
- Speaker: Professor Ewan Birney
- Tuesday 11 November 2025, 18:00-19:30
- Venue: Pfizer Lecture Theatre, Department of Chemistry, Lensfield Road.
- Series: SciSoc – Cambridge University Scientific Society; organiser: ajaf3.
Tue 04 Nov 18:00: 21-cm Cosmology: First Stars and Beyond
Low-frequency radio observations present a unique opportunity to fill a critical gap in our understanding of the early universe, bridging the cosmic microwave background (CMB) last scattering surface with the era of high-redshift galaxies observed by the JWST and ALMA . In this talk, I will discuss the latest theoretical developments, existing observational constraints, and prospects for future observations. The formation of the first stars and the subsequent population of X-ray binaries drove a fundamental transition in the state of the universe that the radio telescopes can probe. Due to the lack of direct observations, the properties of these sources remain highly uncertain. The cosmological 21-cm signal produced by neutral hydrogen gas contains unique information about the first generations of UV and X-ray sources, as well as their impact on the surrounding environment. Observations of the 21-cm signal with the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) and its precursors will open a new observational window, allowing us to significantly improve our understanding of these objects and the evolution of the universe.
Talks are priced at £4 for non-Scientific Society members. Scientific Society members will have free access to all our talks. Lifetime membership costs £15 and gives free access to all talks, members-only events and priority access to oversubscribed SciSoc events.
- Speaker: Professor Anastasia Fialkov
- Tuesday 04 November 2025, 18:00-19:30
- Venue: Pfizer Lecture Theatre, Department of Chemistry, Lensfield Road.
- Series: SciSoc – Cambridge University Scientific Society; organiser: ajaf3.
Tue 28 Oct 18:00: C-H Amination for Organic Synthesis and Medicinal Chemistry: Reaction Development and Validation of Nitrene Intermediacy
The direct amidation of C–H bonds is a highly desirable reaction owing to the widespread utility of amidated products in total synthesis, medicinal chemistry, and materials science. In this context, we have developed a new mechanistic platform that employs custom-designed transition metal-based catalyst systems in combination with dioxazolones as robust and practical amino sources. This strategy enables the generation of metal-nitrenoid intermediates, ultimately achieving C–H amidation via either inner or outer-sphere C–H activation of insertion pathways. Building on this foundation, we recently introduced transition metal-based catalyst systems for asymmetric C−H amidation, providing an efficient route to synthesize chiral lactams and functional amino compounds from readily available commodity chemicals.
In developing our C-H amination reactions, we also thoroughly investigated the involvement of key nitrenoid intermediates using both experimental and computational mechanistic studies. In fact, we designed a chromophoric octahedral rhodium complex featuring a bidentate dioxazolone ligand, in which photoinduced metal-to-ligand charge transfer initiates catalytic C–H amidation. X-Ray photocrystallographic analysis of Rh-dioxazolone complexes enabled structural characterization of Rh-acylnitrenoid intermediate for the first time and provided definitive evidence that the singlet nitrenoid species is primarily responsible for acylamino transfer process. Furthermore, in crystallo monitoring of the reaction between a nucleophile and the in situ generated Rh-acylnitrenoid established a crystallographically traceable system, capturing the key mechanistic snapshots of nitrenoid transfer.
Talks are priced at £4 for non-Scientific Society members. Scientific Society members will have free access to all our talks. Lifetime membership costs £15 and gives free access to all talks, members-only events and priority access to oversubscribed SciSoc events.
- Speaker: Professor Sukbok Chang
- Tuesday 28 October 2025, 18:00-19:30
- Venue: Pfizer Lecture Theatre, Department of Chemistry, Lensfield Road.
- Series: SciSoc – Cambridge University Scientific Society; organiser: ajaf3.
Tue 21 Oct 18:00: Machine learning force fields shows extreme generalisation
I will introduce the general problem of first principles force fields: creating surrogate models for quantum mechanics that yield the energy of a configuration of atoms in 3D space, as we would find them in materials or molecules. Over the last decade significant advances were made in the attainable accuracy, and today we can model materials and molecules with a per-atom energy accuracy of up to 1 part in 10,000 with a speedup of over a million or more compared to the explicit quantum mechanical calculation, enabling accurate molecular dynamics simulations on large length and time scales. The most surprising aspect of the best models is its extreme generalisation: fitted only on small periodic crystals, it shows stable trajectories on arbitrary chemical systems, from water to nanoparticles and proteins. The precise relationship between the architectural elements and the extreme generalisation is still a mystery. The locality of the graph neural network structure is key to its success, as well as high body order and message passing. The force fields get significantly better with more data, yet model size and complexity can remain largely the same. Current challenges include integrating explicit long range electrostatics and combining large datasets for materials and organic molecules where the appropriate levels of electronic structure theory are incompatible.
Talks are priced at £4 for non-Scientific Society members. Scientific Society members will have free access to all our talks. Lifetime membership costs £15 and gives free access to all talks, members-only events and priority access to oversubscribed SciSoc events.
- Speaker: Professor Gabor Csanyi
- Tuesday 21 October 2025, 18:00-19:30
- Venue: Wolfson Lecture Theatre, Department of Chemistry, Lensfield Road.
- Series: SciSoc – Cambridge University Scientific Society; organiser: ajaf3.
Tue 18 Nov 14:30: Title to be confirmed
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Elyes Boughattas (University of Rennes 1)
- Tuesday 18 November 2025, 14:30-15:30
- Venue: MR13.
- Series: Number Theory Seminar; organiser: Bence Hevesi.
Tue 04 Nov 14:30: Title to be confirmed
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Gyujin Oh (Columbia University)
- Tuesday 04 November 2025, 14:30-15:30
- Venue: MR13.
- Series: Number Theory Seminar; organiser: Bence Hevesi.
Tue 21 Oct 14:30: Title to be confirmed
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Katerina Santicola (University of Bath)
- Tuesday 21 October 2025, 14:30-15:30
- Venue: MR13.
- Series: Number Theory Seminar; organiser: Bence Hevesi.
Tue 14 Oct 14:30: Higher Hida theory and a Jacquet-Langlands correspondence for ordinary p-adic Hilbert modular forms
I will introduce higher Hida theory for Hilbert modular forms. This is a theory of higher coherent cohomological ordinary p-adic modular forms, which can be thought of as p-adically interpolating non holomorphic Hilbert modular forms. Then I will explain a Jacquet-Langlands type correspondence with certain quaternionic modular forms, which is explained by the existence of “exotic Hecke correspondences” which exist modulo powers of p. This is joint work with Vincent Pilloni.
- Speaker: George Boxer (Imperial College London)
- Tuesday 14 October 2025, 14:30-15:30
- Venue: MR13.
- Series: Number Theory Seminar; organiser: Bence Hevesi.
Fri 31 Oct 13:00: A novel RASopathy caused by hyperactive Wnt signalling
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Dr. Ian Mcgough, Babraham Institute
- Friday 31 October 2025, 13:00-14:00
- Venue: Biffen Theater- Please subscribe to mailing list for link.
- Series: Developmental Biology Seminar Series; organiser: lb935.
Tue 02 Dec 14:30: Title to be confirmed
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Isabel Rendell (LSGNT)
- Tuesday 02 December 2025, 14:30-15:30
- Venue: MR13.
- Series: Number Theory Seminar; organiser: Dmitri Whitmore.
Tue 25 Nov 14:30: Title to be confirmed
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Zachary Feng (University of Oxford)
- Tuesday 25 November 2025, 14:30-15:30
- Venue: MR13.
- Series: Number Theory Seminar; organiser: Dmitri Whitmore.
Tue 28 Oct 14:30: Title to be confirmed
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Xiangqian Yang (Peking University)
- Tuesday 28 October 2025, 14:30-15:30
- Venue: MR13.
- Series: Number Theory Seminar; organiser: Dmitri Whitmore.
Tue 11 Nov 14:30: Title to be confirmed
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Andrea Dotto (King's College London)
- Tuesday 11 November 2025, 14:30-15:30
- Venue: MR13.
- Series: Number Theory Seminar; organiser: Dmitri Whitmore.
Fri 28 Nov 13:00: Heads or tails? Decoding the regulatory logic of body plan patterning
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Vicki Metzis, Imperial College London
- Friday 28 November 2025, 13:00-14:00
- Venue: Biffen Theater- Please subscribe to mailing list for link.
- Series: Developmental Biology Seminar Series; organiser: John Russell.
Fri 14 Nov 13:00: Nonsense Mediated Decay in Early Embryonic Development
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Claire Senner, Loke Centre for Trophoblast Research
- Friday 14 November 2025, 13:00-14:00
- Venue: Biffen Theater- Please subscribe to mailing list for link.
- Series: Developmental Biology Seminar Series; organiser: Theresa Gross-Thebing.
Fri 05 Dec 16:00: Applied mathematics in a changing world
TBC
- Speaker: David Abrahams, DAMTP, University of Cambridge
- Friday 05 December 2025, 16:00-17:00
- Venue: MR2.
- Series: Fluid Mechanics (DAMTP); organiser: Duncan Hewitt.