We are delighted to announce that Mihai Luca, a Year 12 Verita student has won the prestigious Dukes Plus Essay Competition with his paper entitled Friendly Fire: Why Immune Dysregulation Is the Greatest Healthcare Challenge of Our Time. 

Mihai Luca

Year 12 · IB Programme

Mihai is particularly excited about the prospect of networking with Oxford and Cambridge graduates and gaining first-hand insight into the nature of university-level research. He hopes to use the programme to extend his IB Biology Extended Essay and Internal Assessment, or to begin new research in synthetic biology and biochemistry, areas he is deeply interested in.

Dukes Plus Essay Competition — 2025–2026

£300 cash prize & Oxbridge Research Scholars Programme worth £1500

Mihai’s win secures him a place in the Oxbridge Research Scholars Programme, a highly competitive opportunity that culminates in a 5,000-word research essay and provides scholars with access to genuine academic research experiences guided by Oxford and Cambridge graduates.

“This year’s competition attracted an unprecedented number of entries, and the standard was exceptionally high throughout. To stand out from such a strong field is a real testament to the quality and effort you put into your essay, and we greatly enjoyed reading it.” – Dukes Plus

His ambitions don’t stop there. The Oxbridge Research Scholars Programme concludes with a symposium in London, where participants present their work before scientists and academics who select the strongest published research. Mihai is determined to compete for the top prize.

“Above all, my main goal with this research opportunity is to network with Oxford/Cambridge graduates, and draw as much knowledge as possible about the nature of university research. Moreover, I am very excited to get a chance to publish my work which may involve extending my Extended essay/Internal assessment from IB bio, or alternatively start new research in the areas of synthetic biology/biochemistry.” – Mihai Luca

This achievement reflects the strong university guidance culture at Verita International School. Ms Alyse, our school’s career counsellor, shared this competition with our students and continues to provide support to those navigating the path toward top universities.

Mihai’s essay tackles one of the most fascinating paradoxes in modern medicine: how a system designed to protect us can, when dysregulated, become the source of devastating disease. He challenges the conventional language used to describe immunity, writing:

“Immunity is often described within a semantic field of war, its activity imagined as a sustained campaign against pathogenic evil. However, the war metaphor is misleading, and arguably, completely wrong: it reduces a highly regulated biological network to a caricature of relentless aggression. The immune system’s most remarkable achievement is not its capacity to destroy pathogens, but its capacity to refrain from destroying the body’s own tissues.“

Reflecting on what this opportunity means to him, Mihai shared:

“I am very passionate about immunobiology, and this essay competition was a great opportunity for me to enrich my Oxford application as well as get access to genuine research opportunities through Dukes’ programme.”

Congratulations Mihai, we look forward to following your journey through the Oxbridge Research Scholars Programme, and on to what we are sure will be an extraordinary academic future for you!