MRC Max Perutz Award 2025 Ceremony
About the MRC Max Perutz Award
The MRC Max Perutz Award is our science communication competition for current MRC PhD students. To enter, students need to tell a non-scientific audience why their area of research matters.
The award aims to:
- encourage and recognise outstanding science communication
- help MRC PhD students build their science communication skills
MRC started the award in 1998 as a science writing competition. In 2022, we celebrated and showcased 25 years of positive impact on previous winners. Now in its 27th year, the award is a broader science communication competition with both writing and video categories.
Dr Max Perutz Credit: MRC LMB
Dr Max Perutz Credit: MRC LMB
The award is named after the well-known scientist and Nobel Laureate, Dr Max Perutz, an accomplished and natural communicator. He was a passionate advocate for communicating the benefits of science and engaging people with research. Dr Perutz was a molecular biologist who founded the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in 1962.
2025 Shortlist
Students submitted either an 1100-word article or 60-second video for their entry. Out of 82 entries, five entries from each category were shortlisted.
The two winning entries, one from each category, will be announced at the ceremony and then published by our media partner, The Observer. MRC will also publish all 10 shortlisted entries on our channels.
The 2025 shortlisted students are:
Eddie Bullock
University of Cambridge
Video category
Supporting autistic people with social interaction through AI
Vanessa Drevenakova
Imperial College London
Writing category
The Sound of Youth: Can Ultrasound Delay Brain Ageing?
Patrick Howlett
MRC Centre for Environment and Health at Imperial College London
Writing category
Silicosis and tuberculosis: Half the world away
Grace Kavanagh
University of Nottingham
Video category
A quest to fight antimicrobial resistance
Hou Wang Lam
University College London
Video category
Cracking the Code of Treatment-Resistant Colorectal Cancer
Chloe Linham
University of East Anglia
Writing category
Urinary Tract Infections: Relieving the Pain, Fighting the Resistance
Isabel Shand
King's College London
Writing category
Protrudin: training neurons to get traffic moving again
Johnny Tam
University of Edinburgh
Video category
Digital speech biomarkers for motor neuron disease
Anita Valand
University of Nottingham
Writing category
Rewriting the Breath Script
Annalise Whines
MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at the University of Cambridge
Video category
Does motivation change across the menstrual cycle?
Built with Shorthand