Dr Lucy Cheke and Dr Ljiljana Fruk promoted in latest round of Cambridge professorial appointments

Dr Fruk has been promoted to a Grade 12 professorship in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, and becomes Professor of BioNano Engineering. She acknowledged the contribution of her many collaborators to this appointment, and the recognition it provides for their collective work, noting that the news ‘brought lots of joy and a few celebrations!’ 

Dr Cheke has been promoted to a Grade 11 professorship in the Department of Psychology, and will become Professor of Experimental Psychology. 

From left to right: Dr Lucy Cheke; Dr Ljiljana Fruk.

Dr Ljiljana Fruk is an international expert in bionano engineering. Fruk Lab takes inspiration from nature, using naturally-occurring materials - such as polymers made from hormone dopamine or flavin molecules - to engineer a new generation of nanomaterials. These tiny synthetic materials can then be used in the detection of aged cells, the delivery of drugs to solid tumours or to make chemical synthesis greener. 

While noting the responsibility that comes with a full professorship, Dr Fruk added that with her appointment, ‘I believe the real fun now begins!’ 

‘My group works at the interface of materials science, chemistry and biology/medicine. We have two lines of research: we exploit nature designs to develop new structures that can be applied in medicine and in the development of sustainable manufacturing solutions.  

‘For both applications, we need materials that are biocompatible, responsive to external stimuli - and we particularly like light-activated systems - and developed using green chemistry strategies. 

‘Promotion definitely gives more visibility and weight in terms of leading bigger research grants and initiatives, and I am looking forward to establishing a larger program focused on solid tumour detection and treatment, and the identification of biosensors for the early detection of cancer. 

Dr Ljiljana Fruk

‘Recently, we have also teamed up with companies such as Hitachi and Colorifix to use our systems to aid the manufacture of high value compounds, and I am excited to see some of our strategies employed in design of practically useful products.’ 

Dr Lucy Cheke’s research focuses on the factors that affect our capacity to learn and remember. In addition to studying healthy adults, she has looked at the effects of disease – her recent work includes researching the impact of Long COVID on memory systems. She also looks at how these capabilities vary between different age groups in the human population, and how we compare with other animals and AI systems. 

Dr Lucy Cheke said: ‘There’s a lot of hype about the capabilities of current AI, but when we start to do rigorous comparisons with biological intelligences such as animals and young children, we see that while AI has some incredible specific abilities, its incredibly brittle and inefficient with both power and data compared to what nature has produced.’ 

‘I’ve got a brilliant team now incorporating psychologists, computer scientists and statisticians and recently we’ve been working with organisations such as the OECD and Accenture to understand the degree to which AI’s cognitive skills line up with those that are actually needed in the workforce, most of which are the basic, common-sense skills that we take for granted as humans.’ 

Dr Lucy Cheke

On the impact of her promotion, Dr Cheke said: ‘Will it give me more time for research? I actually laughed at the question: I fear quite the opposite. But I must say, I've actually sort of surprised myself by how much this promotion means to me. I've never considered myself particularly ambitious, but I suppose it’s not often in academia that you get a "pat on the back" and this is a lovely one!’