Engagement showcase

Genetics Matters 2025

On Sunday the 2nd of March 2025 we organised the 9th Genetics Matters – A Rare Disease event. This was also the 10th anniversary of this annual Rare Disease Day event, the first of which took place in February 2015. The Great Hall at the Discovery Museum was abuzz with science and exciting conversations as Newcastle University researchers, rare disease patients and members of the public gathered to celebrate the International Rare Disease Day.

During the day we heard from Dr Katarzyna Pirog introducing the event and the Rare Disease Day, Prof Neil Rajan introducing the rare disease structures and support available in Newcastle, and talking about meaningful patient involvement in rare disease research from a clinical and researcher perspective, Prof David Young who talked about new developments in rare disease research - microRNAs and epigenetics, Dr Myra Giesen who shared her family’s personal experience of diagnosis and daily life with Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP), and Dr Amy Brown who talked about how we train and engage the next generation of rare disease clinicians and researchers in Newcastle.

With 65 attendees and 30 enthusiastic scientists, a wonderful panel debate on achievements and challenges in rare disease research moderated by the NUCore Rare Disease Policy Manager Victoria Hedley, exciting hands-on experiments (building a 3D skin model, DNA extraction, osteoarthritis and chondrodysplasia diagnosis, muscle MRI scans, art installations and many more) and lovely food, the event was a great success.

We would like to thank everyone who attended for their support of rare diseases and the Rare Disease Day, and all our presenters for the thought-provoking presentations, great discussion and interesting hands-on tables and demonstrations.

Science is Wonderful!

A team of animal behaviour scientists presented their work at an EU science event in Brussels, attended by 5000 schoolchildren.

Science is Wonderful! is an annual fair that brings together world-class scientists to engage with young audiences and spark enthusiasm for research. It is organised by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA).

On 13 and 14 March 2025, the team led by former recipient of a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship Dr Marine Joly, and including Dr Jerome Micheletta and Dr Teresa Romero from the University of Portsmouth, and Dr Francesca De Petrillo from Newcastle University, presented an interactive exhibit called ‘Smart Monkeys: How Primates Think and Why They Need Your Help!’.

It was designed to introduce schoolchildren to the fascinating cognitive abilities of primates and highlight the urgent need for conservation.

Francesca led the activity: Guess Like a Monkey: The Bingo Game.

Humans and monkeys share an astonishing ability to make predictions about the world based on intuitive statistics. This activity introduced children to this concept through a simple and engaging logic game. The children were presented with two jars containing different amounts of coloured balls and were asked to predict which ball was more likely to be drawn. This type of statistical reasoning doesn’t require formal math skills—babies and monkeys do it too. After the game, the children watched short videos of macaques solving the same task. We discussed how this ability to reason about probabilities is shared across species and explored the similarities between human and animal cognition.

Dr. Francesca De Petrillo is a cognitive primatologist based at the School of Psychology. She investigates the roots of human decision-making by comparing how adults, young children, and nonhuman primates make decisions. Through this comparison, she examines which decision-making strategies are uniquely human and how these abilities develop over our lifespan. Simultaneously, she explores why different species, including our own, adopt specific decision strategies by combining cognitive experiments with insights from each species’ natural social and ecological environments. To conduct this research, she studies various primate populations, including captive brown capuchin monkeys, free-ranging populations of macaques, and different species of lemurs.

Tilly Hale carer research panel

Matt Cooper, Hamde Nazar, Charlotte Richardson, and Laura Lindsay received a Tilly Hale award in 2024 to include more public members in research. The team is part of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Newcastle Patient Safety Research Collaborative (PSRC) and the School of Pharmacy at Newcastle University. The award supports a research group of informal/unpaid carers who meet regularly to set the research agenda and priorities for the team.

This is different from usual public engagement, as there is not one project or idea that the panel are supporting. Instead, the panel are working with Matt and the team to identify where more work needs to be done and how we can better support carers. The panel supports research and develops ideas and approaches to improving understanding of the impact of caregiving on the carer and the person they support.

The panel meets four times per year and has had some great discussions over the last series of meetings. In the first meeting, the panel met in person and it was great to have everyone together to discuss ideas. The panel is currently working with an artist to develop a visual art piece answering the question, what does being a carer mean to me? This artwork will be used as a conversation aid for carers to use when talking to healthcare professionals or services and help inform students about what the role of a carer can mean for an individual. The panel are working on capturing the information and imagery and looking forward to having the final piece by the end of 2024.

Healthy Minds, Happy Lives

On Sunday 14 July, 2024, we hosted our "Healthy Minds, Happy Lives" Brain Health Event at Cowgate Cricket Club, Newcastle Upon Tyne. This community-led event was targeted at women and children from ethnic minority communities and aimed to raise awareness on dementia prevention, build connections between researchers and community members, and disseminate some of our research findings to date.

The event brought together researchers from Newcastle University who hosted information stalls with interactive activities and delivered short talks. There were free health checks for attendees which were facilitated by dietetics & pharmacy students. Alzheimer's Research UK (ARUK) and Healthworks Newcastle also supported the event through the provision of information, resources, and attendance on the day. Local community volunteers and vendors supported the event through the provision of interactive activities and games, as well as food and craft stalls.

Although dampened by heavy rain, the event was a great success, attended by over 60 people (not including the dozens of vendors and volunteers), and over £2,000 was raised overall for ARUK. This community-led event was a great opportunity to raise awareness and foster connections, and we were overwhelmed by the interest and enthusiasm for our research.

We would like to thank everyone who attended and supported our event, including members of the local community who volunteered, our PPI representative, Maysun, who was instrumental in the planning and execution of the event, and to ARUK for all their ongoing support. Finally, huge thanks to the Tilly Hale Award as this would not have been possible without the funding provided.