Closed captions are available via the 'CC' icon in the video player.
The new, interdisciplinary Cambridge Festival (replacing the Cambridge Science Festival and the Cambridge Festival of Ideas) will take place from 31 March - 10 April 2022 with a mixture of online, on-demand and in-person events covering all aspects of the world-leading research happening at the University of Cambridge.
The NIHR BioResource was first established in 2006 in Cambridge, before expanding to the 13 centres we have today, with the national team based in Cambridge. Our BioResource Centre - Cambridge has over 17,000 registered volunteers and has supported hundreds of research studies led by University of Cambridge researchers. We are incredibly proud of our roots here and are delighted to take the opportunity to produce a new video to showcase at this year's Cambridge Festival.
"Our contribution to COVID-19 research" is a short video explaining the role of the BioResource in response to the pandemic. While most of our regular activity was curtailed back in March 2020, we quickly launched a COVID-19 BioResource, with now more than 8,000 participants registered to take part in research relating to the virus.
The video features our Director, Dr Nathalie Kingston, explaining why the BioResource is such a unique and powerful resource in health research and why we had to respond in the way we did when COVID-19 emerged.
We are delighted to include interviews with two University of Cambridge researchers, Professor Ravi Gupta and Dr Adam Abdullahi, who have used the COVID-19 BioResource in their research, and one of our wonderful volunteers, without whom this ground-breaking research wouldn’t be possible. Robert explains his motivations and experience of participating in health research by joining the BioResource.
Joining the BioResource
Everyone has a unique contribution to make to health research. Volunteer today.
We hope you enjoy watching our video! We'd like to give sincere thanks to Ravi, Adam and Robert for their participation, and to the wonderful team of BioResource research nurses on campus that accommodated us for a day of filming. Likewise, our research laboratory team for showing us what happens to a sample when it arrives in the lab!
The Cambridge Festival is a fabulous showcase of all the exciting activity taking place in the region. There will still be strong and distinct platforms for the sciences and the arts, humanities and social sciences. The Festival will include a uniquely Cambridge, eclectic mixture of over 350 events and activities: from panel discussions, film premieres, and self-guided walking tours, to ‘try this at home’ activities for the whole family. Topics cover the breadth of Cambridge research and will be presented across the Festival’s four themes: Society, Health, Environment and Discovery!