Making it Personal (January–September 2025) is an innovative public engagement with research project using creative methods. Led by Dr. Ali Kay (CPM & researcher on the iPREGCARE study in the Goriely Group, MRC WIMM) and Dr. Minna Jeffery (Rosemary Pountney Junior Research Fellow in British and European Theatre, St Anne’s College, Oxford), the project utilised theatre to spark conversation around a couple’s experience of a de novo (new) genetic diagnosis in their child and their question, Could it happen again? Over several months, Ali and Minna co-developed a play script in collaboration with a panel of lived experience experts and healthcare practitioners. The resulting staged reading took place on 17 May 2025 at the MOLT Theatre, St Anne’s College, with professional actors Henry Charnock and Laura Hopwood portraying the roles of Sam and Jess. Theatre offered a unique platform to “set the scene” on an emotional and personal level, highlighting how individuals process risk and medical information—often in ways that differ significantly from clinical perspectives. The Making it Personal project was funded by the Public and Community Engagement with Research (PCER) Fund, University of Oxford.

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