Dame Judith Petts visits Westminster’s Centre for Nutraceuticals

Dame Judith Petts is the wife of former Westminster Vice-Chancellor Geoffrey Petts and is the current Vice-Chancellor of Plymouth University. Dame Judith has supported Westminster with generous donations towards establishing The Professor Geoffrey Petts Research Fund in memory of her late husband, to provide PhD researchers with financial support towards equipment and fieldwork costs, making postgraduate research more accessible. The Fund has contributed towards the refurbishment and expansion of the Westminster Centre for Nutraceuticals and on 9 August she was able to pay a visit to the Centre. 

The Centre acts as a catalyst for improving health and wellbeing guided by research and innovation. It seeks to be a globally recognised source of scientifically validated knowledge to better inform governments, regulatory bodies, the industry and consumers. The core expertise of the Centre is unique and distinctive. The focus areas include supplementation and functional foods and runs throughout a range of disciplines such as Nutrition, Public health, Physiology, Metabolism, Formulation Science and Nanotechnology.

During the tour Dame Judith got to explore the facilities, see the new features and meet PhD students who have been supported by her generous donation.

One student is Laura Taramov who said: “I am a doctoral scholar supervised by Dr Joan Liu, Professor M Gulrez Zariwala and Professor Vinood PateI and was grateful to have received the Professor Geoffrey Petts Memorial Fund grant to support my doctoral research at the Centre for Nutraceuticals. Recently, I was honoured to present to Dame Judith Petts the recent transformations our Centre has undergone. The Fund’s support has not only helped enrich the Centre with essential furnishings for clinical work, but also helped gain access to cutting-edge resources such as cerebral organoids for nutraceuticals screening - a significant part of my research.”

Dame Judith said: “It is exciting to see the Centre for Nutraceuticals coming together, including the great new branding. There are significant opportunities here to do research that makes a difference capitalising on the unique position of the Centre’s focus around nutraceuticals, supplements and functional foods.  Meeting a visiting researcher from Italy because of the Centre’s unique position and a new PhD student working on key areas of neurodegenerative disease confirmed the important opportunities.”

Jordan Scammell, Head of Development and Fundraising at Westminster, added: “It was a pleasure to host Dame Judith Petts at the Centre and showcase the impactful use of her generous funding. She was able to witness the significant progress made since her last visit, and she was notably impressed by the transformation and the enhanced capabilities for conducting research through the new facilities. We are deeply appreciative of Dame Judith’s ongoing support and her commitment to advancing life sciences at our University.”

Find out more about the Centre for Nutraceuticals at the University of Westminster.

To find out how to support students and set up a fund at the University of Westminster, email the Development Team.