Cambridge Festival
Each year, we welcome visitors to the Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University (SLCU) as part of the Cambridge Festival, offering the chance to explore plant science through hands-on, inquiry-led activities.
Participants use real scientific tools, carry out experiments, and analyse research data, providing first-hand experience of how discoveries in plant science are made.
Confocal imaging of FRET biosensor in Arabidopsis apical hook (CFP, FRET, YFP channels). Images by Maxime Josse.
About the Cambridge Festival
The Cambridge Festival is a mixture of online, on-demand and in-person events covering all aspects of the world-leading research happening at the University of Cambridge. It is held every year and runs over two-weeks during March.
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Past Cambridge Festival events at SLCU
View the past inquiry-based experiments that we ran for the Cambridge Festival below:
Bend and snap!
Cambridge Festival 2025
Professor Alexander Jones and Dr Jayne Griffiths developed an interactive workshop exploring how young plants rapidly grow and adapt to their surroundings for the 2026 Cambridge Festival.
In just a few days, seedlings must shape up, grow, and open their leaves. Visitors discovered how these early stages of development are guided by plant hormones responding to environmental cues. The session gave participants the chance to test their scientific skills, analyse data, find out how a biosensor works to track hormone concentrations in live plants and even take an experiment home.
Plant hormones in action
Despite lacking a nervous system, brain, or conventional sensory organs, plants continuously monitor their surroundings and make complex decisions. The Jones Group investigates the molecular and cellular mechanisms that underpin these remarkable abilities revealing how plants perceive, process, and respond to the world around them.
Build your own mini-genome
Cambridge Festival 2025
At the 2025 Cambridge Festival, visitors joined researchers to explore how plants evolve through a unique blend of experimental biology and computational modelling.
Hosted by Renske Vrooman’s Research Group, the event showcased how computer models can simulate evolution at an accelerated pace, helping scientists understand how plant forms have changed over time. Members of the public got hands-on with 3Devo, custom-built software that allows users to construct a mini-genome and see how it influences plant growth and structure.
Through interactive activities, visitors stepped behind the scenes of plant science research, experimenting with gene selection, designing their own virtual plants, and comparing their creations with others. Along the way, they discovered how genes interact in complex networks, how small genetic changes can have major effects, and why engineering plants remains a scientific challenge.
The event offered an engaging introduction to the tools and ideas shaping modern plant science, inviting participants to test their creativity and see if they could outpace evolution itself.
Moving without Muscles — Plants as Mechanical Engineers
Cambridge Festival 2024
At the Cambridge Festival 2024, visitors joined Sarah Robinson’s Research Group to investigate how plants achieve movement without muscles or nerves.
Through inquiry-based experiments, participants explored the principles of plant biomechanics and analysed their own results. Using examples such as the rapid snap of the Venus flytrap and the daily movement of sunflowers tracking the sun, the event highlighted the surprising dynamism of plant life often revealed through time-lapse imaging.
Visitors discovered how plants respond to environmental stimuli like light and touch, and learned about the diverse mechanical strategies they use to generate motion. By designing and testing their own experiments, participants gained insight into the underlying physiology that enables plants to move and adapt.
The event offered a hands-on introduction to plants as natural engineers, revealing the hidden complexity behind even the simplest movements.
Plants and their BFFs
Cambridge Festival 2023
During the Cambridge Festival 2023, Sebastian Schornack's Research Group welcomed visitors to explore the remarkable partnership between plants and their “best fungi friends.”
The event focused on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi—microscopic partners that form close associations with the roots of most crop plants. These fungi effectively extend the root system, helping plants access essential nutrients and supporting healthy growth.
Using a recent breakthrough developed at the Sainsbury Laboratory to make fungi visible in living roots, visitors were able to observe fungal colonisation first-hand. Participants also had the opportunity to use advanced imaging tools, including a Keyence microscope, to examine the intricate structures fungi build plant root cells. They were introduced to an AI-based software tool developed at SLCU, designed to measure how extensively roots are colonised.
The phosphorus dilemma
Through hands-on activities, visitors collected and analysed data from experiments investigating how plant–fungus relationships respond to different nutrient conditions. In particular, they explored how the addition of phosphorus fertiliser can influence this symbiotic interaction.
The event also highlighted the importance of phosphorus, which is an essential nutrient for plant growth and human health, and the critical role fungi play in helping plants access it from the soil. By working alongside scientists, visitors gained insight into how these hidden partnerships support agriculture and global food systems.
Synthetic sources of phosphorus
In agriculture, phosphate fertilisers are used to promote plant growth. Unfortunately, the over-use and run-off from fertilisers can cause severe environmental problems, including algal blooms.
But what are our alternatives if we want to grow healthy vegetables and crops? Can we utilise the natural interactions between plants and fungi to promote plant development?
SLCU research is trying to understand how these plant-fungi relationships form and how best to enhance these connections to reduce the need for fertiliser.
Thin Air, Plants and Food Security
Cambridge Festival 2022
At the Cambridge Festival 2022, Dr Nadia Radzman led an interactive workshop exploring how certain plants can produce their own fertiliser from the air.
Visitors took part in hands-on experiments using real laboratory techniques, including PCR, to identify the types of bacteria living specialised root organs called nodules. Samples of white clover, a legume plant, were collected from gardens, allotments, and school grounds, revealing the diversity of soil bacteria present across different environments.
The workshop highlighted how legume plants, such as peas and beans, form partnerships with soil bacteria that can fix nitrogen, an essential nutrient for plant growth. Participants learned that not all bacteria are equally effective, and explored how these natural relationships vary.
The event also connected this biology to global challenges. Nitrogen is a key limiting factor for food production in many parts of the world, where fertiliser can be costly or inaccessible. At the same time, overuse of nitrogen fertilisers in developed countries contributes to environmental pollution.
By exploring the science behind nitrogen-fixing plants, visitors gained insight into how these natural systems could support more sustainable agriculture through improving legume crops, increasing crop diversity, and developing new approaches to enhance beneficial plant–microbe interactions.