Our latest events open to students, researchers and members of the neuroscience and health research community. Please join us, we look forward to welcoming you.
Seminars - September / October 2025
Hear about the latest technologies and neuroscience research from leading guest speakers.
Free drop-in seminars. No need to book. Spaces are on a first come, first serve basis.
“State of the art in genetic diagnostics of sensorineural hearing loss”
Dr. Ronald Pennings, University of Cambridge, Department of Chemistry
Thursday 16th October 2025, 12:00-13:00 | VGB Seminar Room | John Van Geest Centre for Brain repair, Forvie Site, Robinson Way
Abstract: This presentation will offer a comprehensive overview of the advancements in genetic diagnostics over the past several decades, tracing the trajectory from early gene identification studies conducted in large families affected by sensorineural hearing loss during the 1990s, to the recent clinical implementation of genome sequencing using a targeted deafness gene panel encompassing over 285 genes. The presentation will also reflect on key insights gained throughout this period and will conclude with a forward-looking perspective underscoring the critical importance of establishing a genetic diagnosis, particularly in the context of emerging gene therapies for inner ear disorders.
Bio: Ronald Pennings is a Professor of Otorhinolaryngology and Head of the ENT department at the Radboud university medical center in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. As ENT specialist he is specialised in ear surgery and clinical director of Hearing & Genes, an acknowledged expertisecenter for genetic diagnostics (and future treatment) of hearing loss. He is chair of the DOOFNL consortium, a collaboration of all Dutch academic ENT and Genetic departments to improve otogenetic diagnostics and to conduct collaborative research to identify genetic causes of hearing loss.
Ronald's research focuses on gene-identification and genotype-phenotype correlation studies of nonsyndromic (e.g. DFNA9) and syndromic hearing loss (e.g. Usher syndrome). His patients participate in his research and he supports patient organisations like 'De negende van', 'Ushersyndroom' and 'DFNA21'. His research of the past years provided more knowledge on the pathogenetic processes in the cochlea and the related impact on audiovestibular performance. He is an inner ear therapy clinical trialist and has experience in running phase 1-3 clinical trials for novel inner ear therapeutics.
“Leveraging AI and data science approaches toward biological insight and translatable tools for neurodegenerative disease”
Dr. Jacob Vogel, Lund University
Thursday 30th October 2025, 12:00-13:00 | Theo Chalmers Lecture Theatre (Level 2 in the School of Clinical Medicine)
Abstract:
We have entered a new era of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) research, marked by the emergence of disease modifying therapies that target the disease’s hallmark pathology. However, there is still much we don’t understand about how AD develops, how it progresses, and what drives individual differences in disease expression. Therefore, the field is in need of agile research that uncovers new insights into disease biology, while simultaneously developing practical tools for real-life clinical settings. I will present new work from the Dementia Multi-Omics and Neuroimaging (DeMON) lab, where we apply data-driven approaches to human clinical data in order to advance our understanding of neurodegenerative diseases. This presentation will cover several vignettes including the use of connectome-based simulation models to explain the spread of AD pathology through the human brain, using AI to enhance the resolution of clinical brain images, and deriving novel biomarkers and multi-disease diagnostic algorithms from proteomics. The goal of the presentation will be to highlight the lab’s ongoing work with the hope of sparking discussion and future collaboration.
A reminder: the talks are in-person only and a recording is not available.
If you want to have a chat with the speaker, please contact Maura Malpetti (mm2243@medschl.cam.ac.uk) in advance.
"Responsible AI for better brain and mental health: from the cloud to the clinic"
Zoe Kourtzi, Professor of Cognitive Computational Neuroscience, University of Cambridge
Thursday, 13 November 2025 | 12:00 – 13:00 | Clifford Allbutt Lecture Theatre
Abstract: Early prediction of brain (e.g. neurodegenerative) disorders is key for clinical management and patient outcomes. Predicting whether individuals with mild cognitive impairment or people without symptoms will decline or remain stable is impeded by patient heterogeneity due to comorbidities, lifestyle and disease severity. Despite the importance of early diagnosis of dementia for prognosis and personalised interventions, we still lack robust tools for predicting individual progression. We propose a novel clinical AI predictive prognostic modelling approach that mines multimodal data to derive an individualised prognostic marker of cognitive decline at early stages of dementia or before symptoms occur. We validate our approach against routinely collected real-world patient data from memory clinics over time, showing that our clinical AI marker is more sensitive than the standard of care (cognitive tests, MRI scans). Our clinical AI approach has strong potential to facilitate effective patient stratification into clinical pathways and trials, reducing patient misdiagnosis and enhancing trial efficiency with important implications for clinical translation and drug discovery.
Bio: Zoe Kourtzi is a Professor of Cognitive Computational Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge. Zoe’s research aims to develop predictive models of neurodegenerative disease and mental health with translational impact in early diagnosis and personalised interventions. Zoe received her PhD from Rutgers University and was a postdoctoral fellow at MIT and Harvard. She was a Senior Research Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics and then a Chair in Brain Imaging at the University of Birmingham, before moving to the University of Cambridge in 2013. She is a Royal Society Industry Fellow, Responsible AI fellow, Cambridge University Lead at the Alan Turing Institute and Co-director of Cambridge’s Centre for Data Driven Discovery.’
“From text to therapy: large language models in clinical medicine”
Rose Bruffaerts, University of Antwerp
Thursday, 27 November 2025 | 12:00 – 13:00 | Clifford Allbutt Lecture Theatre
Abstract: Over the past several years, large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT have emerged as influential tools in various aspects of daily life. Analogous to advances in computer vision models, LLMs hold the potential to fundamentally transform clinical practice. In this talk, I will provide an overview of the underlying principles of LLMs, highlighting their capabilities and inherent limitations. I will then examine the current applications of LLMs in clinical settings, with a particular focus on examples from neurology, and discuss the parallels between integration of LLMs and the challenges previously encountered with the adoption of computer vision–based AI systems in healthcare.
Bio: Rose Bruffaerts is an assistant professor at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, and a neurology consultant at the Antwerp University Hospital Memory Clinic. She specialized in neurology at University of Leuven, Belgium and combined this with a PhD on advanced analysis of brain imaging of cognitive processes. She then worked as an postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Speech, Language and the Brain at the University of Cambridge (UK) and also at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA). Since 2021, she leads the “Computational Neurology” research group where new diagnostic tools for early diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases such as Frontotemporal Degeneration are being developed. One of her main research lines focuses on the clinical implementation of AI tools in neurology.
