Research at Sussex

Wednesday 3 December 2025

Welcome back to Research at Sussex, a fortnightly round-up of the latest research news, insights and discoveries at the University of Sussex.

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In this edition:

• Could new ‘contragestives’ transform fertility control?

• Celebrating a remarkable career in cancer genetics

• What’s behind bitcoin’s latest plunge?

Sussex anthropologist part of £3.85m fertility control project

Professor Maya Unnithan smiling outdoors, wearing a brown coat and scarf against a flint wall.

Professor Maya Unnithan is a part of a pioneering research programme that could help transform fertility control beyond existing hormonal and procedural methods.

Contragestive Time, which has recently received a £3.85 million Wellcome Trust Discovery Award, is a five-year initiative exploring alternative methods of preventing pregnancy.

As Director of the University of Sussex Centre for Cultures of Reproduction, Technologies and Health, Professor Unnithan will draw on her research into reproductive justice – including how gender politics and social inequalities shape fair access to contraception and reproductive choices.

Led by Birkbeck, University of London, the project brings together clinicians, social scientists, lawyers and advocates from universities and health organisations across the UK to explore “contragestives” – a new generation of methods used in the crucial window after ovulation and before early abortion is possible. Currently, women have no access to methods that prevent pregnancy during this period. Contragestive Time: Pregnant Uncertainties in Fertility Control will investigate why these options remain unavailable and what is needed to introduce them safely.

“As an anthropologist, I have seen how gender politics, social inequalities and lived realities shape people’s ability to access contraception and exercise reproductive choice,” said Professor Unnithan. “Contragestives offer a promising new approach, and we look forward to exploring how our insight and expertise can help make these a reality for women.”

Colleagues recall career of the Director of world-leading research centre

Professor Tony Carr smiling, wearing a white shirt and patterned dark tie, in front of a plain light background.

Scientific breakthroughs and other tales from the lab were revisited as colleagues paid tribute to Professor Tony Carr, who is retiring as Director of the University of Sussex Genome Damage and Stability Centre (GDSC).

Professor Carr was instrumental in setting up the Genome Damage and Stability Centre, which opened in 2003 and has since become a world-leading research laboratory into the genetic causes of cancer and human disease.

He joined Sussex in 1982 as a PhD student in the laboratory of Sir Paul Nurse (who shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2001).

Over the decades, Professor Carr’s research, involving pioneering studies in yeast genetics, has transformed our understanding of how cells respond to DNA replication stress – processes critical in maintaining genome stability and preventing cancer and hereditary genetic disease.

Sir Paul and Professor Alan Lehmann CBE – former Chairman of the GDSC – were among those who paid tribute to Professor Carr at their annual scientific retreat, praising his ‘brilliance’ and the ‘remarkable results’ he has achieved during his career.

At the event, Professor Carr thanked Sir Paul, Professor Lehmann and the University of Arizona’s Professor Ted Weinert for their inspiration and mentorship.

Comment: What's really going on with bitcoin's decline

Professor Carol Alexander smiling, wearing a dark top and an amethyst necklace.

By Professor Carol Alexander

Bitcoin’s recent price drop isn’t about price fundamentals. It reflects how cryptocurrency trading actually works behind the scenes – and why ordinary investors should be cautious.

Most bitcoin trading happens on offshore exchanges with little regulation. Here, fast and well-equipped trading firms, like Jump Crypto and Jane Street, use high-speed tactics to profit from price swings. They don’t care if bitcoin goes up or down – just that it moves.

These firms often trade against semi-sophisticated private individual traders, who use risky leverage, like borrowing $500 to buy bitcoin but only uploading $10 to the exchange.

When prices fall, many of these individuals have their positions automatically taken over by the exchange, which sells them on, pushing prices down even faster. Then, when those traders are cleared out, prices often bounce back. And bitcoin prices lead the prices of the other major cryptocurrencies, like ether or ripple. It’s a cycle driven by structural features of the crypto market that haven’t changed for years.

What has changed is the scale of institutional involvement. Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), like BlackRock’s IBIT, allow regular investors to buy a fraction of bitcoin exactly like a share. But when bitcoin falls, investors pull their money out – nearly $3 billion in ETF outflows happened just last week.

This creates a mismatch. ETF providers must follow regulated trading rules, but crypto-native firms exploit loopholes and move much faster. Even BlackRock’s trading desk can’t keep up. And while the professionals make money regardless of direction, ordinary investors are left bearing the losses.

The biggest risk isn’t to the firms running the various crypto ETFs; it’s to the everyday investors who buy them.

Carol Alexander is Professor of Finance at the University of Sussex Business School.

Sussex in the media

Professor Julia Simner featured on BBC Radio 4’s The Life Scientific, discussing the neuropsychology of sensory differences, explaining how some people hate sounds and taste words.

Dr Caroline Lucas, Dr Chris Sandom, and Dr James Whitehead discussed Nature Sense, a project monitoring how land use and climate change affect carbon stored in soil, in coverage across BBC Online, BBC South East, and other BBC regional and local outlets.

Professor Chris Bird spoke to The Guardian about Raise Your Voice’s Murmuration project, where people living with dementia write and record original songs – work he said had “unlocked” residual capacities and improved memory and conversation.

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