Invasive pests are slipping unnoticed into northern Europe in huge shipments of cut flowers and potted plants, with potential to damage food crops and the natural environment.

Continental European snakes, geckos and Italian wall lizards are making their way to northern Europe undetected among imports of ornamental olive trees destined for gardens and green spaces.

These hitchhiking intruders can become invasive pests that cause extensive damage to the natural environment – as has happened in previously snake-free islands of the Mediterranean like Majorca.

They’re also a red flag for a bigger problem: the range of potentially serious agricultural and environmental pests being unwittingly imported to Britain and mainland Europe on ornamental plants and cut flowers, simply because they are difficult to detect in high-volume, fast-moving shipments of plants.

In a study published today in the journal Bioscience, researchers say that despite regulations and border checks, imported cut flowers and pot plants present a growing risk because the sheer volume of trade makes it difficult to monitor and control.

Insects, fungi, reptiles, spiders and various agricultural pests are being transported live across the world on ornamental plants destined to brighten up our homes and gardens.

The multi-billion dollar global market for ornamental plants is growing fast and geographically expanding, and improved standards are urgently needed, the researchers say.

The changing climate means that disease-carrying insects like mosquitoes, which decades ago would have arrived in northern Europe and died from the cold, might now survive. It is also enabling some ornamental plants themselves to become invasive pests as growing conditions change.

Professor William Sutherland in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology, who was involved in the study, said:

“Ornamental olive trees for sale in the UK can be over 100 years old, with many hiding places amongst their gnarly bark and the soil they’re transported in. This is incredibly risky in terms of importing pests.

“Adult snakes and lizards are just the tip of the iceberg. If they’re getting through, what’s the chance of us spotting small insects and fungi – the things that really cause the problems? It’s inconceivable that officials can thoroughly check an import of a million roses from Kenya, for example.”

Dr Silviu Petrovan in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology and senior author of the paper, added:

“The sheer volume of cut flowers and ornamental plants being traded at speed around the world makes it extremely difficult to intercept all the pests and diseases they carry.

“Even with the best of intentions, unwanted hitchhikers are getting through customs import checks all the time.”

The Sheffield frog

Petrovan, a frog specialist, became interested in the topic when he was asked to identify a live frog found in roses in a florists’ shop in Sheffield. At first he thought it was a prank, because he didn’t recognise it as any European species. When he realised it was a tree-frog that must have arrived with the cut roses from Colombia via Ecuador, he was stunned. He said of the experience:

“Finding a South American tree-frog in a Sheffield florist was extraordinary. It made me realise that if you can get this type of fragile small vertebrate arriving alive in a flower shipment without being noticed at customs, just how hard it must be to detect very small agricultural insect pests or their eggs.”

With no comprehensive international database on the types and numbers of pests found on imported ornamental plants, it is difficult to fully assess the extent of the problem.

To gain a snapshot, the team analysed records of pests found in ornamental plants at customs in The Netherlands over 2017-2018, and reported to DEFRA in the UK over 2021-2023. In both cases, over 80% of the pests intercepted were insects.

Beyond the pests

The study highlights many other concerning environmental and health issues connected with the global ornamental plant trade. These include:

• environment-harming microplastics and agrochemicals entering the soil from the growing process;
• health-harming pesticide residues affecting cut flower handlers;
• the huge volumes of water required to grow flowers that might otherwise be used to grow food – the floriculture industry in Kenya, for example, is responsible for up to 98% of the water drawn from major lakes like Lake Naivasha. Concerns have also been raised on the ability of supplier nations to cater for their own agricultural needs;
• the carbon footprint of chilling and transporting cut flowers between continents – estimated to be as high as 3kg of CO₂ per flower;
• large quantities of plants being taken from the wild, including critically endangered species of cacti, succulents and orchids.

Suppliers do not always operate within the law. Orchids and cacti are amongst the high-value plants sometimes illegally stripped from tropical habitats and included in shipments. Regulations to prevent the trade in protected wild plants are challenging to enforce on a large scale.

Dr Amy Hinsley, a researcher at the Oxford Martin Programme on Wildlife Trade at the University of Oxford, who was involved in the study, said:

“Even with a global trade in cultivated ornamental plants, there is still a market for rare species taken from the wild, and this can lead to rapid species declines, as well as increased risks that wild pests and plant diseases may enter the supply chain.”

But an industry that employs so many people is not all bad: the ornamental plant trade is important for economies worldwide and supports many people and their families in rural areas. In 2022 the export value of cut flowers and foliage was US$10 billion, and for live plants and bulbs was $13 billion.

“We absolutely don’t want to encourage knee-jerk reactions that might be well-meaning, but actually cause more problems than they solve”

said Petrovan, adding: “We need to push to make the industry more sustainable through things like certifications and better regulation, and to work with those involved in the trade to better understand the risks and how to mitigate them.”

Alice Hughes at the University of Hong Kong, who was also involved in the research, said: “We need to be responsible consumers. While certification standards are being developed, buying plants rather than cut flowers can reduce many of the risks that stem from importing cut flowers. They last much longer and also reduce the emission costs.”

source: cam.ac.uk

An international team of astrophysicists has imaged a large number of exocomet belts around nearby stars, and the tiny pebbles within them.

The crystal-clear images show light being emitted from these millimetre-sized pebbles within the belts that orbit 74 nearby stars of a wide variety of ages – from those that are just emerging to those in more mature systems like our own Solar System.

The REASONS (REsolved ALMA and SMA Observations of Nearby Stars) study, led by Trinity College Dublin and involving researchers from the University of Cambridge, is a milestone in the study of exocometary belts because its images and analyses reveal where the pebbles, and the exocomets, are located. They are typically tens to hundreds of astronomical units (the distance from Earth to the Sun) from their central star.

In these regions, it is so cold (-250 to -150 degrees Celsius) that most compounds are frozen as ice on the exocomets. What the researchers are therefore observing is where the ice reservoirs of planetary systems are located. REASONS is the first programme to unveil the structure of these belts for a large sample of 74 exoplanetary systems. The results are reported in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

This study used both the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile and the Submillimeter Array (SMA) in Hawai‘i to produce the images that have provided more information on populations of exocomets than ever before. Both telescope arrays observe electromagnetic radiation at millimetre and submillimetre wavelengths.

“Exocomets are boulders of rock and ice, at least one kilometre in size, which smash together within these belts to produce the pebbles that we observe here with the ALMA and SMA arrays of telescopes,” said lead author Luca Matrà from Trinity College Dublin. “Exocometary belts are found in at least 20% of planetary systems, including our own Solar System.”

“The images reveal a remarkable diversity in the structure of belts,” said co-author Dr Sebastián Marino from the University of Exeter. “Some are narrow rings, as in the canonical picture of a ‘belt’ like our Solar System’s Edgeworth-Kuiper belt. But a larger number of them are wide, and probably better described as ‘disks’ rather than rings.”

Some systems have multiple rings/disks, some of which are eccentric, providing evidence that yet undetectable planets are present and their gravity affects the distribution of pebbles in these systems.

“The power of a large study like REASONS is in revealing population-wide properties and trends,” said Matrà.

For example, the study confirmed that the number of pebbles decreases for older planetary systems as belts run out of larger exocomets smashing together, but showed for the first time that this decrease in pebbles is faster if the belt is closer to the central star. It also indirectly showed – through the belts’ vertical thickness – that objects as large as 140 km across and even Moon-size objects are likely present in these belts.

“We have been studying exocometary belts for decades, but until now only a handful had been imaged,” said co-author Professor Mark Wyatt from Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy. “This is the largest collection of such images and demonstrates that we already have the capabilities to probe the structures of the planetary systems orbiting a large fraction of the stars near to the Sun.”

“Arrays like the ALMA and SMA used in this work are extraordinary tools that are continuing to give us incredible new insights into the universe and its workings,” said co-author Dr David Wilner from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian “The REASONS survey required a large community effort and has an incredible legacy value, with multiple potential pathways for future investigation.”

Reference:
L. Matrà et al. ‘REsolved ALMA and SMA Observations of Nearby Stars. REASONS: A population of 74 resolved planetesimal belts at millimetre wavelengths.’ Astronomy & Astrophysics (2025). DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202451397

Adapted from a Trinity College Dublin media release.

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People who speak with accents perceived as ‘working-class’ including those from Liverpool, Newcastle, Bradford and London risk being stereotyped as more likely to have committed a crime, and becoming victims of injustice, a new study suggests.

Listeners think some accents sound guiltier than others and we should all be concerned about thatAlice Paver

Research led by the University of Cambridge, in collaboration with Nottingham Trent University, raises serious concerns about bias in the UK criminal justice system due to negative stereotyping of accents.

These stereotypes, the researchers argue, can affect all parts of the system from arrest to sentencing, and undermine not only suspects and defendants, but also the testimony of witnesses. The study is particularly concerned about accented speakers being incorrectly selected from voice identification parades.

The findings, published in Frontiers in Communication, suggest that despite progress in equality and diversity in some parts of British life, including ‘working-class’ and regional accents becoming more prominent on television and radio, harmful stereotypes remain.

“Our findings bring into sharp focus the disadvantage that speakers of some accents may still face in the criminal justice system,” said lead author, Alice Paver, from the University of Cambridge’s Phonetics Laboratory and Jesus College, Cambridge.

“Voices play a powerful role in the criminal justice system and police officers, lawyers and juries are all susceptible to judging voices based on stereotypes, whether they’re aware of it or not. As things stand, listeners think some accents sound guiltier than others and we should all be concerned about that.”

The test

The researchers, from Cambridge and Nottingham Trent University, asked 180 participants (~50:50 gender split) from across the UK to listen to recordings of ten regionally-accented male voices: Belfast, Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Liverpool, London, Newcastle and Standard Southern British English (SSBE), also referred to as RP.  

Participants were then asked to rate the voices on 10 social traits – ‘Educated’, ‘Intelligent’, ‘Rich’, ‘Working class’, ‘Friendly’, ‘Honest’, ‘Kind’, ‘Trustworthy’, ‘Aggressive’ and ‘Confident’; as well as on 10 morally ‘good’, ‘bad’ and ‘ambiguous behaviours’, which included a range of crime types.

These behaviours included: ‘Return a lost wallet to its owner’, ‘Stand up for someone who is being harassed’, ‘Cheat on a romantic partner’, ‘Report a relative to the police for a minor offence’, ‘Drive dangerously’, ‘Physically assault someone’, ‘Shoplift’, ‘Touch someone sexually without consent’, ‘Vandalize a shop front.’

The study used a wider range of recorded accents, behaviours and criminal offences than previous research which has tended to focus on criminal behaviour in general or the binary of white versus blue-collar crime. This study included crimes which are not class stratified, such as a driving offence and a sexual offence, and is the first to identify links between listener perceptions of morality, criminality, and social traits.

To ensure their results would be valid in a criminal justice context, the researchers created voice samples in a similar way to how they are constructed for voice ID parades. The aim was to mimic, as closely as possible, how a juror or earwitness would experience them.  

Findings: Status, class and regions

The results show that people with non-standard accents are more likely to be associated with criminal behaviour but that there is significant variation in perceptions between accents.

The RP-like accent was perceived as the least likely to behave in criminal ways, while the Liverpool and Bradford accents were the most likely.

Alice Paver said: “The strongest connection we found was between people’s perceptions of class or status, negative traits such as aggression, and how they think someone is going to behave, particularly when it comes to crime. This is the first time that a concrete link between traits and behaviours has been made in the context of accent judgements.”

Unlike previous findings, the researchers did not observe a relationship between ‘solidarity traits’ (such as kindness and trustworthiness) and any behaviours. Status proved a much more important predictor of behaviours, re-enforcing the link between social class and expectations of behaviour in the UK.

However, non-English accents, in particular Belfast’s and Glasgow’s, were rated significantly less likely to behave in criminal ways than almost all other accents. They were also thought most likely to ‘stand up for someone being harassed’ (‘honourable behaviour’) and least likely to exhibit ‘morally bad’ behaviours.

Alice Paver said: “Our findings show that perceptions of speakers of regional accents and how status, social attractiveness and morality interact are much more complex than previously assumed. We need a much more nuanced understanding of how accents are evaluated when it comes to different crime types.”

Findings: Sexual offences

The London and Liverpool accents were rated most likely to touch someone sexually without consent, but they were very closely followed by the RP accent. Participants thought the RP accent was more likely to commit a sexual assault than any of the other offences tested.

“This finding simultaneously undermines certain traditional stereotypes about both higher status and working-class men,” Alice Paver said. “This may indicate shifting perceptions of the ‘type’ of man who can and does commit sexual offences.”

The Glasgow and Belfast speakers were thought the least likely to commit this sexual offence.

The study found that participants perceived this sexual offence as distinct from other criminal behaviours. Poor ratings for it clustered with those for non-criminal ‘morally bad’ behaviours, namely ‘being unfaithful to a romantic partner’ and ‘lying on a CV’.

Findings: Newcastle and Birmingham

Previous studies have found that the Newcastle accent rates highly for traits such as friendliness, but this study recorded less positive ratings for kindness, honesty, friendliness and trustworthiness.

By contrast, the Birmingham accent, which has rated poorly in previous research across these measures, performed better than Bradford, Bristol, Liverpool, London and Newcastle in this study.

“Although relatively stable over time, language attitudes can change,” Alice Paver said. “This might be the case for the Birmingham and Newcastle accents. But previous studies have often asked people what they think of an accent label whereas we played them an actual voice. That’s a very different stimulus so we’re not surprised people reacted differently.”

Bringing about change

The study contributes to the Improving Voice Identification Procedures project. Its team of researchers is currently drafting revised guidelines for voice identification parades aimed at police officers and legal professionals.

They support the use of pre-tests to screen for bias against foil or suspect voices to make sure that they don’t stand out as sounding unduly guilty or untrustworthy.

“Jurors are not currently made aware of or warned against letting voice- or accent-based prejudice sway their decisions,” Paver said. “If we’re asked to judge whether someone is guilty or not, and they’ve got a particular accent, we need to be sure we’re not making that judgment because we think they sound like a bad guy.”

The researchers hope that future studies will examine even more offence types; further explore the relationships between perceptions of criminality and other, non-criminal, behaviours; and make use of a broader range of voices for each accent to tease apart the effect of individual voices and the strength of regional accents.

The research was carried out in collaboration with Professor Natalie Braber and Dr David Wright of Nottingham Trent University’s School of Arts and Humanities, and Dr Nikolas Pautz, of NTU’s Dept. of Psychology.

Funding

This research was supported by the United Kingdom Economic and Social Research Council as part of the project Improving Voice Identification Procedures (IVIP), reference ES/S015965/1. Additional funding was provided by the Isaac Newton Trust.

Reference

A. Paver, D. Wright, N. Braber and N. Pautz, ‘Stereotyped accent judgements in forensic contexts: listener perceptions of social traits and types of behaviour’, Frontiers in Communication (2025). DOI: 10.3389/fcomm.2024.1462013

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Cambridge researchers are leading the first phase of a new research project that will lay the groundwork for future studies into the impact on children of smartphone and social media use.

This is a complex and rapidly evolving issue, with both potential harms and benefits associated with smartphone use. Technology is changing by the day, and scientific evidence creation needs to evolve and innovate to keep upAmy Orben

The work has been commissioned by the UK government’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology after a review by the UK Chief Medical Officer in 2019 found the evidence base around the links to children’s mental health were insufficient to provide strong conclusions suitable to inform policy.

The project – led by a team at the University of Cambridge, in collaboration with researchers at several leading UK universities – is aimed at improving policymakers’ understanding of the relationship between children’s wellbeing and smartphone use, including social media and messaging. It will help direct future government action in this area.

Project lead Dr Amy Orben from the Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit (MRC CBU) at the University of Cambridge said: “There is huge concern about the impact of smartphone use on children’s health, but the evidence base remains fairly limited. While the government is under substantial time pressure to make decisions, these will undoubtedly be better if based on improved evidence.

“This is a complex and rapidly evolving issue, with both potential harms and benefits associated with smartphone use. Technology is changing by the day, and scientific evidence creation needs to evolve and innovate to keep up.

“Our focus will be on deepening our causal understanding of the effects of new technologies, particularly over short timescales, to ensure that decisions are informed, timely and evidence-based.”

Dr Orben will lead a Project Delivery Team, with Consortium Members from the universities of Bath, Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Manchester, Nottingham, Oxford and York and the London School of Economics. It will aim to identify which research methods and data sources will be most effective at identifying potential causal relationships between social media, smartphones, and the health and development of children and young people

Deputy project lead Dr Amrit Kaur Purba, also from the MRC CBU at Cambridge, said: “The impact of social media on young people is a pressing issue, and our project will ensure the research community is in a strong position to provide policymakers with the causal and high-quality insights they need. While we don’t expect this to be straightforward, our research will leverage diverse expertise from across the UK to deliver a comprehensive and informed response to make recommendations for how research in this area should be supported in future.”

The researchers will review and summarise existing research on the impact of smartphones and social media on children and young people’s mental health, wellbeing, physical health, lifestyle and health behaviours, and educational attainment. The review will recognise the diversity of perspectives that exist in this area and consider where further research could add valuable new insights to the evidence base. 

They will assess the various methods and data available to understand the causal impacts, including recognising that online habits and emerging technologies are changing at a rapid pace, and considering how the experiences of vulnerable children and young people – for example, LGBTQ+ young people and those with special needs or mental health issues – can be captured in future research projects.

This will allow the team to recommend and outline how future research studies could deliver robust and causal evidence on the impact of smartphones and social media on child development factors in the next two to three years.

Technology Secretary Peter Kyle, said: “The online world offers immense opportunities for young people to connect and learn. Ensuring they can do so in an environment which puts their safety first is my priority and will guide this government’s action on online safety.  

“That’s why we have launched new research, led by the University of Cambridge with support from other top UK universities, to better understand the complex relationship between technology and young people’s wellbeing.

“This vital research will build a trusted evidence base for future action, helping us to protect and empower the next generation towards a safer and more positive digital future.”

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The European Space Agency’s Milky Way-mapper Gaia has completed the sky-scanning phase of its mission, racking up more than three trillion observations of about two billion stars and other objects over the last decade to revolutionise the view of our home galaxy and cosmic neighbourhood.

Launched on 19 December 2013, Gaia’s fuel tank is now approaching empty – it uses about a dozen grams of cold gas per day to keep it spinning with pinpoint precision. But this is far from the end of the mission. Technology tests are scheduled for the weeks ahead before Gaia is moved to its ‘retirement’ orbit, and two massive data releases are tabled for around 2026 and the end of this decade, respectively.

“Today marks the end of science observations and we are celebrating this incredible mission that has exceeded all our expectations, lasting for almost twice its originally foreseen lifetime,” said ESA Director of Science Carole Mundell.

“The treasure trove of data collected by Gaia has given us unique insights into the origin and evolution of our Milky Way galaxy, and has also transformed astrophysics and Solar System science in ways that we are yet to fully appreciate. Gaia built on unique European excellence in astrometry and will leave a long-lasting legacy for future generations.”

“Today marks the last day of science data collection from Gaia, these observations to form part of the final data release,” said Dr Nicholas Walton from Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy, lead of the UK Gaia Project team and ESA Gaia Science Team member. “Our Gaia team in the UK is now working hard on the incredibly complex data analysis for the upcoming Gaia data releases. These will enable a wealth of new discovery, adding to the science from one of the world’s most productive science discovery machines.”

Gaia delivers best Milky Way map

Gaia has been charting the positions, distances, movements, brightness changes, composition and numerous other characteristics of stars by monitoring them with its three instruments many times throughout the mission.

This has enabled Gaia to deliver on its primary goal of building the largest, most precise map of the Milky Way, showing us our home galaxy like no other mission has done before.

Gaia’s repeated measurements of stellar distances, motions and characteristics are key to performing ‘galactic archeology’ on our Milky Way, revealing missing links in our galaxy’s complex history to help us learn more about our origins. From detecting ‘ghosts’ of other galaxies and multiple streams of ancient stars that merged with the Milky Way in its early history, to finding evidence for an ongoing collision with the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy today, Gaia is rewriting the Milky Way’s history and making predictions about its future.

Warning! More ground-breaking science ahead

The Gaia scientific and engineering teams are already working on the preparations for Gaia Data Release 4 (DR4), expected in 2026.

“This is the Gaia release the community has been waiting for, and it’s exciting to think this only covers half of the collected data,” said Antonella Vallenari, Deputy Chair of DPAC based at the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), Astronomical Observatory of Padua, Italy. “Even though the mission has now stopped collecting data, it will be business as usual for us for many years to come as we make these incredible datasets ready for use.”

“Over the next months we will continue to downlink every last drop of data from Gaia, and at the same time the processing teams will ramp up their preparations for the fifth and final major data release at the end of this decade, covering the full 10.5 years of mission data,” said Rocio Guerra, Gaia Science Operations Team Leader based at ESA’s European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) near Madrid in Spain.

Gaia’s retirement plan

While today marks the end of science observations, a short period of technology testing now begins. The tests have the potential to further improve the Gaia calibrations, learn more about the behaviour of certain technology after ten years in space, and even aid the design of future space missions.

After several weeks of testing, Gaia will leave its current orbit around Lagrange point 2, 1.5 million km from the Earth in the direction away from the Sun, to be put into its final heliocentric orbit, far away from Earth’s sphere of influence. The spacecraft will be passivated on 27 March 2025, to avoid any harm or interference with other spacecraft.

Wave farewell to Gaia

During the technology tests Gaia’s orientation will be changed, meaning it will temporarily become several magnitudes brighter, making observations through small telescopes a lot easier (it won’t be visible to the naked eye). A guide to locating Gaia has been set up here, and amateur astronomers are invited to share their observations.

“Gaia will treat us with this final gift as we bid farewell, shining among the stars ahead of its well-earned retirement,” said Uwe Lammers, Gaia Mission Manager.

“It’s a moment to celebrate this transformative mission and thank all of the teams for more than a decade of hard work operating Gaia, planning its observations, and ensuring its precious data are returned smoothly to Earth.”

Adapted from a European Space Agency press release. 

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Interactions with friends and family may keep us healthy because they boost our immune system and reduce our risk of diseases such as heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes, new research suggests.

More and more people of all ages are reporting feeling lonely. We need to find ways to tackle this growing problem and keep people connected to help them stay healthyBarbara Sahakian

Researchers from the UK and China drew this conclusion after studying proteins from blood samples taken from over 42,000 adults recruited to the UK Biobank. Their findings are published today in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.

Social relationships play an important role in our wellbeing. Evidence increasingly demonstrates that both social isolation and loneliness are linked to poorer health and an early death. Despite this evidence, however, the underlying mechanisms through which social relationships impact health remain elusive.

One way to explore biological mechanisms is to look at proteins circulating in the blood. Proteins are molecules produced by our genes and are essential for helping our bodies function properly. They can also serve as useful drug targets, allowing researchers to develop new treatments to tackle diseases.

A team led by scientists at the University of Cambridge, UK, and Fudan University, China, examined the ‘proteomes’ – the suite of proteins – in blood samples donated by over 42,000 adults aged 40-69 years who are taking part in the UK Biobank. This allowed them to see which proteins were present in higher levels among people who were socially isolated or lonely, and how these proteins were connected to poorer health.

The team calculated social isolation and loneliness scores for individuals. Social isolation is an objective measure based on, for example, whether someone lives alone, how frequently they have contact with others socially, and whether they take part in social activities. Loneliness, on the other hand, is a subjective measure based on whether an individual feels lonely.

When they analysed the proteomes and adjusted for factors such as age, sex and socioeconomic background, the team found 175 proteins associated with social isolation and 26 proteins associated with loneliness (though there was substantial overlap, with approximately 85% of the proteins associated with loneliness being shared with social isolation). Many of these proteins are produced in response to inflammation, viral infection and as part of our immune responses, as well as having been linked to cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, and early death.

The team then used a statistical technique known as Mendelian randomization to explore the causal relationship between social isolation and loneliness on the one hand, and proteins on the other. Using this approach, they identified five proteins whose abundance was caused by loneliness.

Dr Chun Shen from the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Cambridge and the Institute of Science and Technology for Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Fudan University, said: “We know that social isolation and loneliness are linked to poorer health, but we’ve never understood why. Our work has highlighted a number of proteins that appear to play a key role in this relationship, with levels of some proteins in particular increasing as a direct consequence of loneliness.

Professor Jianfeng Feng from the University of Warwick said: “There are more than 100,000 proteins and many of their variants in the human body. AI and high throughput proteomics can help us pinpoint some key proteins in prevention, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis in many human diseases and revolutionise the traditional view of human health.

“The proteins we’ve identified give us clues to the biology underpinning poor health among people who are socially isolated or lonely, highlighting why social relationships play such an important part in keeping us healthy.”

One of the proteins produced in higher levels as a result of loneliness was ADM. Previous studies have shown that this protein plays a role in responding to stress and in regulating stress hormones and social hormones such as oxytocin – the so-called ‘love hormone’ – which can reduce stress and improve mood.

The team found a strong association between ADM and the volume of the insula, a brain hub for interoception, our ability to sense what’s happening inside our body – the greater the ADM levels, the smaller the volume of this region. Higher ADM levels were also linked to lower volume of the left caudate, a region involved in emotional, reward, and social processes. In addition, higher levels of ADM were linked to increased risk of early death.

Another of the proteins, ASGR1, is associated with higher cholesterol and an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, while other identified proteins play roles in the development of insulin resistance, atherosclerosis (‘furring’ of the arteries) and cancer progression, for example.

Professor Barbara Sahakian from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge said: “These findings drive home the importance of social contact in keeping us well. More and more people of all ages are reporting feeling lonely. That’s why the World Health Organization has described social isolation and loneliness as a ‘global public health concern’. We need to find ways to tackle this growing problem and keep people connected to help them stay healthy.”

The research was supported by the National Natural Sciences Foundation of China, China Postdoctoral Science Foundation, Shanghai Rising-Star Program, National Key R&D Program of China, Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Major Project, 111 Project, Shanghai Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Technology, and Zhangjiang Lab.

Reference
Shen, C et al. Plasma proteomic signatures of social isolation and loneliness associated with morbidity and mortality. Nat Hum Behav; 3 Jan 2025; DOI: 10.1038/s41562-024-02078-1

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Researchers have come up with a new way to identify more infectious variants of viruses or bacteria that start spreading in humans – including those causing flu, COVID, whooping cough and tuberculosis.

The approach will quickly show which variants of a pathogen are most worrying in terms of the potential to make people ill. This means a vaccine can be specifically targeted against these variants, to make it as effective as possible.Henrik Salje

The new approach uses samples from infected humans to allow real-time monitoring of pathogens circulating in human populations, and enable vaccine-evading bugs to be quickly and automatically identified. This could inform the development of vaccines that are more effective in preventing disease.

The approach can also quickly detect emerging variants with resistance to antibiotics. This could inform the choice of treatment for people who become infected – and try to limit the spread of the disease.

It uses genetic sequencing data to provide information on the genetic changes underlying the emergence of new variants. This is important to help understand why different variants spread differently in human populations.

There are very few systems in place to keep watch for emerging variants of infectious diseases, apart from the established COVID and influenza surveillance programmes. The technique is a major advance on the existing approach to these diseases, which has relied on groups of experts to decide when a circulating bacteria or virus has changed enough to be designated a new variant.

By creating ‘family trees’, the new approach identifies new variants automatically based on how much a pathogen has changed genetically, and how easily it spreads in the human population – removing the need to convene experts to do this. 

It can be used for a broad range of viruses and bacteria and only a small number of samples, taken from infected people, are needed to reveal the variants circulating in a population. This makes it particularly valuable for resource-poor settings.

The report is published today in the journal Nature.

“Our new method provides a way to show, surprisingly quickly, whether there are new transmissible variants of pathogens circulating in populations – and it can be used for a huge range of bacteria and viruses,” said Dr Noémie Lefrancq, first author of the report, who carried out the work at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Genetics.

Lefrancq, who is now based at ETH Zurich, added: “We can even use it to start predicting how new variants are going to take over, which means decisions can quickly be made about how to respond.” 

“Our method provides a completely objective way of spotting new strains of disease-causing bugs, by analysing their genetics and how they’re spreading in the population. This means we can rapidly and effectively spot the emergence of new highly transmissible strains,” said Professor Julian Parkhill, a researcher in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Veterinary Medicine who was involved in the study.

Testing the technique

The researchers used their new technique to analyse samples of Bordetella pertussis, the bacteria that causes whooping cough. Many countries are currently experiencing their worst whooping cough outbreaks of the last 25 years. It immediately identified three new variants circulating in the population that had been previously undetected.

“The novel method proves very timely for the agent of whooping cough, which warrants reinforced surveillance given its current comeback in many countries and the worrying emergence of antimicrobial resistant lineages,” said Professor Sylvain Brisse, Head of the National Reference Center for whooping cough at Institut Pasteur, who provided bioresources and expertise on Bordetella pertussis genomic analyses and epidemiology.

In a second test, they analysed samples of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacteria that causes Tuberculosis. It showed that two variants with resistance to antibiotics are spreading.

“The approach will quickly show which variants of a pathogen are most worrying in terms of the potential to make people ill. This means a vaccine can be specifically targeted against these variants, to make it as effective as possible,” said Professor Henrik Salje in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Genetics, senior author of the report.

He added: “If we see a rapid expansion of an antibiotic-resistant variant, then we could change the antibiotic that’s being prescribed to people infected by it, to try and limit the spread of that variant.”

The researchers say this work is an important piece in the larger jigsaw of any public health response to infectious disease.

A constant threat

Bacteria and viruses that cause disease are constantly evolving to be better and faster at spreading between us. During the COVID pandemic, this led to the emergence of new strains: the original Wuhan strain spread rapidly but was later overtaken by other variants, including Omicron, which evolved from the original and were better at spreading. Underlying this evolution are changes in the genetic make-up of the pathogens.

Pathogens evolve through genetic changes that make them better at spreading. Scientists are particularly worried about genetic changes that allow pathogens to evade our immune system and cause disease despite us being vaccinated against them. 

“This work has the potential to become an integral part of infectious disease surveillance systems around the world, and the insights it provides could completely change the way governments respond,” said Salje.

The research was primarily funded by the European Research Council.

Reference: Lefrancq, N. et al: ‘Learning the fitness dynamics of pathogens from phylogenies.’ January 2025, DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08309-9
 

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Academics and staff at both the University of Cambridge and Colleges feature in the 2025 list, which recognises the achievements and service of people across the UK.

Former University of Cambridge Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, an Honorary Fellow of Wolfson College and Homerton College, is made Knight Grand Cross (GBE) for services to cancer research, clinical research, medicine and to charities.

Professor Ijeoma Uchegbu, who has been President of Wolfson College since October 2024, becomes a Dame (DBE) for services to chemical sciences and inclusion and diversity. Professor Uchegbu is a renowned expert in the field of pharmaceutical science and was most recently Professor of Pharmaceutical Nanoscience at University College London. Her research has focussed on methods that can be used to help drugs reach their target more effectively and reduce the likelihood of uncomfortable side effects. While at UCL she spearheaded a project to improve outcomes for both staff and students from under-represented ethnic groups. She is is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

She said: “I’m absolutely thrilled. I wouldn’t say I’m humbled – I know people say that, but when I saw the letter at the Porters’ Lodge what I felt was an overwhelming sense of gratitude and pride. In my wildest dreams I never believed I would get such an award.”

Professor Ashley Moffet, Professor of Reproductive Immunology, is made Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George (CMG) for services to reproductive health. A Fellow of King’s College, she is the foremost international authority on the immunology of human reproduction and her work on genetic research has helped explain high rates of pre-eclampsia and maternal mortality in Ugandan populations. She is a Fellow of both the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. 

She said: “I am delighted by this honour that is a tribute to the hard work and dedication of my many colleagues both here in Cambridge and in Uganda who are working together so tirelessly to support women in the field of maternal health.”

Professor Gilly Carr is Professor of Conflict Archaeology and Holocaust Heritage and receives an OBE for services to Holocaust research and education. Professor Carr, a Fellow of St Catharine’s College, is a member of both the UK delegation of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and the academic advisory board for the UK Holocaust Memorial Centre. Professor Carr has a particular research interest in wartime incarceration, internment and imprisonment. 2024 saw the publication of her latest book, ‘A Materiality of Internment‘, which drew on over 15 years of research and interviews with more than 65 former internees. 

She said: “I am absolutely thrilled for my research and teaching to be recognised in this way. I’ve been working hard on behalf of victims of Nazism and the Holocaust for 15 years and for this to be seen as nationally important and worthwhile encourages me to continue my work with vigour.”

Professor Rachel Oliver, who also receives an OBE, is a materials engineer, inventor and commercial spinout founder. A Fellow of Robinson College, she is currently Director of the Cambridge Centre for Gallium Nitride and Chief Scientific Officer of Poro Technologies Ltd (Porotech). Her research is in understanding and engineering the small-scale structure of semiconductor materials to enable new technologies to develop. Professor Oliver is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Engineering and is a passionate advocate for equality, diversity and inclusion in science and engineering. 

She said: “I am delighted to receive this honour and it is vital that I acknowledge the fabulous teams that I work with both in the University of Cambridge and at Porotech, a company that spun out from my research group.  I hope I can encourage more people to get involved in semiconductors in the UK. The semiconductor ecosystem has been an exciting place to work throughout my career, but never more so than right now, with both research and industry rapidly growing and stepping up to address some of the most pressing challenges we face.”

Dr James Biddulph, former headteacher of the University of Cambridge Primary School, has been awarded an MBE for services to education. Dr Biddulph was the inaugural headteacher of the school from 2015 until 2023, and under his leadership it attained an Outstanding Ofsted rating in 2018.

Eleanor Sharpston KC, an Emeritus Fellow of King’s College, has been made Dame Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (DCMG) for services to Justice and to the Education of Law in the UK and Europe. Dame Eleanor has combined a career as a barrister (specialising in European Union and European Convention on Human Rights law) with an academic career first at University College London and then at the University of Cambridge where she continues as a Yorke Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Law Faculty. She was also Arthur Goodhart Visiting Professor in Legal Science from 2023 to 2024.

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Conversational AI agents may develop the ability to covertly influence our intentions, creating a new commercial frontier that researchers call the “intention economy”.

Public awareness of what is coming is the key to ensuring we don’t go down the wrong pathJonnie Penn

The near future could see AI assistants that forecast and influence our decision-making at an early stage, and sell these developing ‘intentions’ in real-time to companies that can meet the need – even before we have made up our minds.

This is according to AI ethicists from the University of Cambridge, who say we are at the dawn of a “lucrative yet troubling new marketplace for digital signals of intent”, from buying movie tickets to voting for candidates. They call this the Intention Economy.

Researchers from Cambridge’s Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (LCFI) argue that the explosion in generative AI, and our increasing familiarity with chatbots, opens a new frontier of ‘persuasive technologies’ – one hinted at in recent corporate announcements by tech giants.

‘Anthropomorphic’ AI agents, from chatbot assistants to digital tutors and girlfriends, will have access to vast quantities of intimate psychological and behavioural data, often gleaned via informal, conversational spoken dialogue.

This AI will combine knowledge of our online habits with an uncanny ability to attune to us in ways we find comforting – mimicking personalities and anticipating desired responses – to build levels of trust and understanding that allow for social manipulation on an industrial scale, say researchers.

“Tremendous resources are being expended to position AI assistants in every area of life, which should raise the question of whose interests and purposes these so-called assistants are designed to serve”, said LCFI Visiting Scholar Dr Yaqub Chaudhary.

“What people say when conversing, how they say it, and the type of inferences that can be made in real-time as a result, are far more intimate than just records of online interactions”

“We caution that AI tools are already being developed to elicit, infer, collect, record, understand, forecast, and ultimately manipulate and commodify human plans and purposes.”

Dr Jonnie Penn, an historian of technology from Cambridge’s LCFI, said: “For decades, attention has been the currency of the internet. Sharing your attention with social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram drove the online economy.”

“Unless regulated, the intention economy will treat your motivations as the new currency. It will be a gold rush for those who target, steer, and sell human intentions.”

“We should start to consider the likely impact such a marketplace would have on human aspirations, including free and fair elections, a free press, and fair market competition, before we become victims of its unintended consequences.”

In a new Harvard Data Science Review paper, Penn and Chaudhary write that the intention economy will be the attention economy ‘plotted in time’: profiling how user attention and communicative style connects to patterns of behaviour and the choices we end up making.

“While some intentions are fleeting, classifying and targeting the intentions that persist will be extremely profitable for advertisers,” said Chaudhary.

In an intention economy, Large Language Models or LLMs could be used to target, at low cost, a user’s cadence, politics, vocabulary, age, gender, online history, and even preferences for flattery and ingratiation, write the researchers.

This information-gathering would be linked with brokered bidding networks to maximize the likelihood of achieving a given aim, such as selling a cinema trip (“You mentioned feeling overworked, shall I book you that movie ticket we’d talked about?”).

This could include steering conversations in the service of particular platforms, advertisers, businesses, and even political organisations, argue Penn and Chaudhary.

While researchers say the intention economy is currently an ‘aspiration’ for the tech industry, they track early signs of this trend through published research and the hints dropped by several major tech players.

These include an open call for ‘data that expresses human intention… across any language, topic, and format’ in a 2023 OpenAI blogpost, while the director of product at Shopify – an OpenAI partner – spoke of chatbots coming in “to explicitly get the user’s intent” at a conference the same year.

Nvidia’s CEO has spoken publicly of using LLMs to figure out intention and desire, while Meta released ‘Intentonomy’ research, a dataset for human intent understanding, back in 2021.

In 2024, Apple’s new ‘App Intents’ developer framework for connecting apps to Siri (Apple’s voice-controlled personal assistant), includes protocols to “predict actions someone might take in future” and “to suggest the app intent to someone in the future using predictions you [the developer] provide”.

“AI agents such as Meta’s CICERO are said to achieve human level play in the game Diplomacy, which is dependent on inferring and predicting intent, and using persuasive dialogue to advance one’s position,” said Chaudhary.

“These companies already sell our attention. To get the commercial edge, the logical next step is to use the technology they are clearly developing to forecast our intentions, and sell our desires before we have even fully comprehended what they are.”

Penn points out that these developments are not necessarily bad, but have the potential to be destructive. “Public awareness of what is coming is the key to ensuring we don’t go down the wrong path,” he said.

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Nine Cambridge researchers are among the latest recipients of highly competitive and prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grants.

Of 3,500 proposals reviewed by the ERC, only 14% were selected for funding – Cambridge has the highest number of grants of any UK institution.

ERC Starting Grants – totalling nearly €780 million – support cutting-edge research in a wide range of fields, from life sciences and physics to social sciences and humanities.

The awards help researchers at the beginning of their careers to launch their own projects, form their teams and pursue their most promising ideas. Starting Grants amount to €1.5 million per grant for a period of five years but additional funds can be made available.

In total, the grants are estimated to create 3,160 jobs for postdoctoral fellows, PhD students and other staff at host institutions.

Cambridge’s recipients work in a wide range of fields including plant sciences, mathematics and medicine. They are among 494 laureates who will be leading projects at universities and research centres in 24 EU Member States and associated countries. This year, the UK has received grants for 50 projects, Germany 98, France 49, and the Netherlands 51.

Cambridge’s grant recipients for 2024 are:

Adrian Baez-Ortega (Dept. of Veterinary Medicine, Wellcome Sanger Institute) for Exploring the mechanisms of long-term tumour evolution and genomic instability in marine transmissible cancers

Claudia Bonfio (MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology) for Lipid Diversity at the Onset of Life

Tom Gur (Dept. of Computer Science and Technology) for Sublinear Quantum Computation

Leonie Luginbuehl (Dept. of Plant Sciences) for Harnessing mechanisms for plant carbon delivery to symbiotic soil fungi for sustainable food production

Julian Sahasrabudhe (Dept. of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics) for High Dimensional Probability and Combinatorics

Richard Timms (Cambridge Institute for Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease) for Deciphering the regulatory logic of the ubiquitin system

Hannah Übler (Dept. of Physics) for Active galactic nuclei and Population III stars in early galaxies

Julian Willis (Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry) for Studying viral protein-primed DNA replication to develop new gene editing technologies

Federica Gigante (Faculty of History) for Unveiling Networks: Slavery and the European Encounter with Islamic Material Culture (1580– 1700) – Grant hosted by the University of Oxford

Professor Sir John Aston FRS, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research at the University of Cambridge, said:

“Many congratulations to the recipients of these awards which reflect the innovation and the vision of these outstanding investigators. We are fortunate to have many exceptional young researchers across a wide range of disciplines here in Cambridge and awards such as these highlight some of the amazing research taking place across the university. I wish this year’s recipients all the very best as they begin their new programmes and can’t wait to see the outcomes of their work.”

Iliana Ivanova, European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, said:

“The European Commission is proud to support the curiosity and passion of our early-career talent under our Horizon Europe programme. The new ERC Starting Grants winners aim to deepen our understanding of the world. Their creativity is vital to finding solutions to some of the most pressing societal challenges. In this call, I am happy to see one of the highest shares of female grantees to date, a trend that I hope will continue. Congratulations to all!”

President of the European Research Council, Prof. Maria Leptin, said:

“Empowering researchers early on in their careers is at the heart of the mission of the ERC. I am particularly pleased to welcome UK researchers back to the ERC. They have been sorely missed over the past years. With fifty grants awarded to researchers based in the UK, this influx is good for the research community overall.”

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Four in ten children in Central London who travelled to school by car switched to more active modes of transport, such as walking, cycling, or public transport, following the introduction of the Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), according to new research. In the comparison area with no ULEZ, Luton, only two in ten children made this switch over the same period.

Changing the way children travel to school can have significant effects on their levels of physical activity at the same time as bringing other co-benefits like improving congestion and air qualityJenna Panter

Car travel contributes to air pollution, a major cause of heart and lung diseases including asthma attacks. Beyond this, it limits children’s opportunities for physical activity, hindering their development and mental health, and increasing their risk of obesity and chronic illnesses.

Despite UK guidelines recommending a daily average of 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity for school-aged children and adolescents, less than half (45%) of children aged 5-16 met these levels in 2021. One in three children aged 10-11 in the UK are overweight or obese.

In April 2019, London introduced the ULEZ to help improve air quality by reducing the number of vehicles on the road that do not meet emissions standards. According to Transport for London, the central London ULEZ reduced harmful nitrogen oxides by 35% and particulate matter by 15% in central London within the first 10 months of its introduction.

In a study published on 5 September in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, a team led by researchers at the University of Cambridge and Queen Mary University of London examined the impact of the ULEZ on how children travelled to school. The research was part of the CHILL study (Children’s Health in London and Luton).

The study examined data from almost 2,000 children aged 6 to 9 years attending 84 primary schools in London and the control area, Luton. 44 schools were located with catchment areas within or bordering London’s ULEZ, and these were compared to a similar number in Luton and Dunstable (acting as a comparison group). The inclusion of the comparison site enabled the researchers to draw more robust conclusions and increased confidence in attributing the observed changes to the introduction of the ULEZ.

The researchers collected data from the period June 2018 to April 2019, prior to ULEZ implementation, and again in the period June 2019 to March 2020, the year after implementation of the ULEZ but prior to COVID-19-related school closures.

Among those children in London who travelled by car prior to the introduction of the ULEZ, 4 in 10 (42%) switched to active modes, while one in 20 (5%) switched from active to inactive modes.

In contrast, only one in 5 (20%) children in Luton swapped from car travel to active modes, while a similar number (21%) switched from active to car travel. This means that children in London within the ULEZ were 3.6 times as likely to shift from travelling by car to active travel modes compared to those children in Luton and far less likely (0.11 times) to switch to inactive modes.

The impact of the ULEZ on switching to active travel modes was strongest for those children living more than half a mile (0.78km) from school. This was probably because many children who live closer to school already walked or cycled to school prior to the ULEZ and therefore there was more potential for change in those living further away from their school.

The study’s first author, Dr Christina Xiao from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge, said: “The introduction of the ULEZ was associated with positive changes in how children travelled to school, with a much larger number of children moving from inactive to active modes of transport in London than in Luton.

“Given children’s heightened vulnerability to air pollution and the critical role of physical activity for their health and development, financial disincentives for car use could encourage healthier travel habits among this young population, even if they do not necessarily target them.”

Joint senior author Dr Jenna Panter from the MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge, said: “The previous Government was committed to increasing the share of children walking to school by 2025 and we hope the new Government will follow suit. Changing the way children travel to school can have significant effects on their levels of physical activity at the same time as bringing other co-benefits like improving congestion and air quality, as about a quarter of car trips during peak morning hours in London are made for school drop-offs.”

After ULEZ was introduced in Central London, the total number of vehicles on the roads fell by 9%, and by one-third (34%) for vehicles that failed to meet the required exhaust emission standards, with no clear evidence of traffic moving instead to nearby areas.

Joint senior author Professor Chris Griffiths from the Wolfson Institute of Population Health, Queen Mary University of London, said: “Establishing healthy habits early is critical to healthy adulthood and the prevention of disabling long term illness, especially obesity and the crippling diseases associated with it. The robust design of our study, with Luton as a comparator area, strongly suggests the ULEZ is driving this switch to active travel. This is evidence that Clean Air Zone intervention programmes aimed at reducing air pollution have the potential to also improve overall public health by addressing key factors that contribute to illness.”

Due to the introduction of COVID-19 restrictions in late March 2020, the study was paused in 2020/2021 and results are only reported for the first year of follow-up. However, as both London and Luton, the study areas, were similarly affected, the researchers believe this disruption is unlikely to have affected the results. The study has restarted following up with the children to examine the longer-term impacts of the ULEZ. This will identify if the changes they observed in the year following the introduction of the ULEZ persist.

The study was conducted in collaboration with Queen Mary University of London, Imperial College, University of Bedfordshire, University of Edinburgh, University of Oxford and University of Southern California and funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research Public Health Research (NIHR), NIHR Applied Research Collaboration North Thames, and Cambridge Trust. 

Reference
Xiao, C et al. Children’s Health in London and Luton (CHILL) cohort: A 12-month natural experimental study of the effects of the Ultra Low Emission Zone on children’s travel to school. IJBNPA; 5 Sept 2024; DOI: 10.1186/s12966-024-01621-7

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Our risk of developing atherosclerosis – ‘furring’ of the arteries – can begin much earlier in life than was previously thought, highlighting the need to keep cholesterol levels low even when we are young, new research has discovered.

Atherosclerosis can potentially be prevented by lowering cholesterol levels, but we clearly need to start thinking about this much earlier on in lifeZiad Mallat

The research also suggests that people who are taking lipid-lowering drugs such as statins to lower their cholesterol levels should remain on them, even if their cholesterol levels have fallen, as stopping treatment could increase their risk of atherosclerosis.

Atherosclerosis is one of the major causes of heart and circulatory disease. It involves the hardening and narrowing of the vessels that carry blood to and from the heart. It is caused by the build-up of abnormal material called plaques – collections of fat, cholesterol, calcium and other substances circulating in the blood.

Atherosclerosis is largely considered a disease of the elderly and so most screening, prevention and intervention programmes primarily target those with high cholesterol levels, generally after the age of 50.

But in a study published today in Nature, a team led by scientists at the University of Cambridge shows that high cholesterol levels at a younger age – particularly if those levels fluctuate – can be even more damaging than high cholesterol levels that only begin in later life.

To study the mechanisms that underlie atherosclerosis, scientists often use animal modes, such as mice. The mice will typically be fed a high fat diet for several weeks as adults to see how this leads to the build up of the plaques characteristic of the condition.

Professor Ziad Mallat and colleagues at the Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Heart and Lung Research Institute at the University of Cambridge decided to explore a different approach – to see whether giving mice the same amount of high fat food but spread over their lifetime changed their atherosclerosis risk.

“When I asked my group and a number of people who are experts in atherosclerosis, no one could tell me what the result would be,” said Professor Mallat, a British Heart Foundation (BHF) Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine.

“Some people thought it would make no difference, others thought it would change the risk. In fact, what we found was that an intermittent high fat diet starting while the mice were still young – one week on, a few weeks off, another week on, and so on – was the worst option in terms of atherosclerosis risk.”

Armed with this information, his team turned to the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study, one of the largest follow-up studies into cardiovascular risk from childhood to adulthood. Participants recruited in the 1980s returned for follow-up over the subsequent decades, and more than 2,000 of them had received ultrasound scans of their carotid arteries when they were aged around 30 years and again at around 50 years.

Analysing the data, the team found that those participants who had been exposed to high cholesterol levels as children tended to have the biggest build of plaques, confirming the findings in mice.

“What this means is that we shouldn’t leave it until later in life before we start to look at our cholesterol levels,” Professor Mallat said. “Atherosclerosis can potentially be prevented by lowering cholesterol levels, but we clearly need to start thinking about this much earlier on in life than we previously thought.”

The mouse studies showed that fluctuating levels of cholesterol appeared to cause the most damage. Professor Mallat says this could explain why some people who are on statins but do not take them regularly remain at an increased risk of heart attack.

“If you stop and start your statin treatment, your body is being exposed to a yo-yo of cholesterol, which it doesn’t like, and it seems this interferes with your body’s ability to prevent the build-up of plaques,” he added.

The reason why this is so damaging may come down to the effect that cholesterol has on specific types of immune cells known as ‘resident arterial macrophages’. These reside in your arteries, helping them to clear damaged cells and fatty molecules known as lipids, which include cholesterol, and stopping the build-up of plaques.

When the team examined these macrophages in their mouse models, they found that high cholesterol levels – and in particular, fluctuating cholesterol levels – changed them physically and altered the activity of their genes. This meant that the cells were no longer protective, but were instead detrimental, accelerating atherosclerosis.

The research was funded by the British Heart Foundation.

Reference
Takaoka, M et al. Early intermittent hyperlipidaemia alters tissue macrophages to boost atherosclerosis. Nature; 4 Sept 2024; DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07993-x

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One in three dying people in England and Wales was severely or overwhelmingly affected by pain in the last week of life, with bereaved people reporting how difficult it was to get joined-up support from health and care professionals at home.

This report highlights the need for a radical repurposing of NHS funding to resource primary care for that ambition to be achievedStephen Barclay

These are among the conclusions of Time to Care: findings from a nationally representative survey of experiences at the end of life in England and Wales, a new report funded by end-of-life charity Marie Curie and produced by King’s College London’s Cicely Saunders Institute, Hull York Medical School at University of Hull, and the University of Cambridge.

Time to Care aims to describe the outcomes, experiences, and use of care services by people affected by dying, death, and bereavement in England and Wales. It is the final report from the Marie Curie Better End of life programme.

The report found one in five dying people had no contact with their GP in the last three months of life.

Half of people surveyed (49%) said their dying loved one visited A&E at least once in their final three months of life, and one in eight people who died in hospital had been there less than 24 hours. 

Half of respondents (49%) in the study were also unhappy with at least one aspect of the care the person who died received and of those one in eight people made a formal complaint. Fewer than half of respondents said they had a key contact person to co-ordinate their care. This meant responsibility for care fell on informal carers (family and friends), who often felt unprepared and unsupported.

Professor Stephen Barclay, from the Department of Public Health & Primary Care at the University of Cambridge, a researcher on the project and a practicing GP, said: “GPs, Community Nurses and the wider Primary Care Team have a central and often under-recognised role in the care of people approaching and at the end of their lives. But they are under enormous pressure with increasing workloads, diminishing workforces and inadequate investment over recent years.

“Increasing numbers of people have been dying in the community during and following the COVID-19 pandemic, at home or in care homes. This important survey, undertaken at a time when the NHS was beginning to recover from the worst of the pandemic, reveals how clinical teams in all settings are struggling to meet the needs of this vulnerable patient group.

“The out-of-hours period, which comprises two-thirds of the week, is particularly difficult for patients and their families. Across the UK, GPs and Community Nurses want to provide excellent palliative and end of life care, but the necessary ‘time to care’ is currently often squeezed. The new UK Government’s focus on care close to home is welcome. This report highlights the need for a radical repurposing of NHS funding to resource primary care for that ambition to be achieved.”

The research report is based on a survey sent by the Office for National Statistics in 2023 to a nationally representative sample of people who had registered the death of a family member in the prior six to 10 months. Only non-sudden causes of death were included. Responses were received from 1179 people, making this the largest nationally representative post-bereavement survey in England and Wales for a decade.

Professor Katherine Sleeman, from King’s College London and lead researcher on the project, said:  “This study reveals patchy and inconsistent provision of care for people approaching the end of life. While there were examples of excellent care – including in the community, in care homes, and in hospitals – the overall picture is of services that are overstretched, and of health and care staff lacking the time they need to consistently provide high-quality care. This means that dying people miss out on treatment and care for their symptoms, and families are left feeling unprepared and unsupported which has lasting emotional repercussions into bereavement.

The researchers say the findings are concerning, considering the ageing population and the expected increase in palliative care needs across the UK. By 2048, there will be an additional 147,000 people in the UK who need palliative care before they die, an increase of 25%.

“Without a corresponding increase in capacity of primary and community care teams to support these people as they approach the end of life, the quality of care is likely to further suffer,” said Professor Sleeman. “It has never been more important to ensure high-quality palliative care for all who need it.”

Annette Weatherley, Marie Curie Chief Nursing Officer, added: “The findings are shocking.  Too many people are dying in avoidable pain, struggling with breathlessness and other debilitating symptoms because of the difficulties they face accessing the end-of-life care they need from overstretched GPs and other health and care workers.

“Without urgent action, gaps in access to palliative and end of life care will only grow.

“It is a critical time to improve palliative and end of life care. People at the end of life should be able to have the very best possible care. There is only one chance to get it right at the end of life.  Yet, as the evidence shows, too many people are being failed by a system faced with extreme financial and workforce pressures.  It’s time for Governments to step up and fix care of the dying.”

Professor Stephen Barclay is a fellow at Emmmanuel College, Cambridge.

Adapted from a press release by Marie Curie

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Repurposed cancer drug helps to calm inflammation in arteries.

A cancer drug that unlocks the anti-inflammatory power of the immune system could help to reduce the risk of future heart attacks, according to research part-funded by the British Heart Foundation. By repurposing an existing drug, researchers hope it could soon become part of routine treatment for patients after a heart attack.

The findings will be presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in London by Dr Rouchelle Sriranjan, NIHR Clinical Lecturer in Cardiology at the University of Cambridge.

High levels of inflammation in blood vessels are linked to an increased risk of heart disease and heart attacks. After a heart attack, the body’s immune response can aggravate existing inflammation, causing more harm and increasing risk even further. However, NICE guidelines don’t currently recommend the use of any anti-inflammatory drugs to reduce future risk.

Now, a team of researchers, led by Dr Joseph Cheriyan from Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, have found that low doses of an anti-inflammatory drug called aldesleukin, injected under the skin of patients after a heart attack, significantly reduces inflammation in arteries.

The researchers are currently following up patients to investigate the longer-term impact of this fall in inflammation. To date, in the two and a half years after their treatment, there have been no major adverse cardiac events in the group that received aldesleukin, compared to seven in the group that received the placebo.

Professor Ziad Mallat, BHF Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Cambridge who developed the trial, said: “We associate inflammation with healing – an inbuilt response that protects us from infection and injury. But it’s now clear that inflammation is a culprit in many cardiovascular conditions.

“Early signs from our ongoing trial suggest that people treated with aldesleukin may have better long-term outcomes, including fewer heart attacks. If these findings are repeated in a larger trial, we’re hopeful that aldesleukin could become part of routine care after a heart attack within five to 10 years.”

Aldesleukin is already used to treat kidney cancer, as high doses stimulate the immune system to attack cancer cells. The Cambridge team previously found that doses one thousand times lower than those used in cancer treatment increased the number of regulatory T cells – a type of anti-inflammatory white blood cell – in patients’ blood compared to a placebo.

In the current trial at Addenbrooke’s and Royal Papworth hospitals in Cambridge, 60 patients admitted to hospital with a heart attack or unstable angina received either low dose aldesleukin or placebo. Patients received an injection once a day for the first five days, then once per week over the next seven weeks. Neither the participants nor their doctors knew whether they had received the drug or placebo.

At the end of treatment, Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans showed that inflammation in the artery involved in patients’ heart attack or angina was significantly lower in the group treated with aldesleukin, compared to those who received the placebo.

The anti-inflammatory effect of aldesleukin appeared even more striking in the most inflamed arteries, leading to a larger reduction in inflammation levels in these vessels and a bigger difference between the two groups by the end of the study.

Dr Sonya Babu-Narayan, Associate Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation and consultant cardiologist said: “Thanks to research, we have an array of effective treatments to help people avoid heart attacks and strokes and save lives. But, even after successful heart attack treatment, unwanted inflammation in the coronary arteries can remain, which can lead to life-threatening complications.

“A treatment to reduce inflammation after a heart attack could be a game-changer. It would help doctors to interrupt the dangerous feedback loop that exacerbates inflammation and drives up risk. This research is an important step towards that treatment becoming a reality.”

The study was predominantly funded by the Medical Research Council, with significant support from the BHF and National Institute for Health and Care Research Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre (NIHR-BRC).

Originally published by the British Heart Foundation. 

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Climate change will move and reduce the land suitable for growing food and timber, putting the production of these two vital resources into direct competition, a new study has found.

The sight of vineyards in Britain is becoming more common as hotter summers create increasingly suitable conditions for growing grapes. But behind this success story is a sobering one: climate change is shifting the regions of the world suitable for growing crops.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have uncovered a looming issue: as the land suitable for producing our food moves northwards, it will put a squeeze on the land we need to grow trees.  The timber these trees produce is the basis of much of modern life – from paper and cardboard to furniture and buildings.

They say that the increasing competition between land for timber production and food production due to climate change has, until now, been overlooked – but is set to be an emerging issue as our demand for both continues to increase.

Under the worst-case scenario for climate change, where no action is taken to decarbonise society, the study found that over a quarter of existing forestry land – around 320 million hectares, equivalent to the size of India – will become more suitable for agriculture by the end of the century.

Most forests for timber production are currently located in the northern hemisphere in the US, Canada, China and Russia. The study found that 90% of all current forestry land that will become agriculturally productive by 2100 will be in these four countries.

In particular, tens of millions of hectares of timber-producing land across Russia will become newly suitable for agriculture – more than in the US, Canada and China put together – with conditions becoming favourable for potato, soy, and wheat farming.

“There’s only a finite area of suitable land on the planet where we can produce food and wood – two critical resources for society. As climate change worsens and agriculture is forced to expand northwards, there’s going to be increasing pressure on timber production,” said Dr Oscar Morton, a researcher in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Plant Sciences who co-led the study.

“We’ve got to be thinking fifty years ahead because if we want timber in the future, we need to be planting it now. The trees that will be logged by the end of this century are already in the ground – they’re on much slower cycles than food crops,” said Dr Chris Bousfield, a postdoctoral researcher in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Plant Sciences and co-leader of the study.

Global food demand is projected to double by 2050 as the population grows and becomes more affluent. Global wood demand is also expected to double in the same timeframe, in large part because it is a low-carbon alternative to concrete and steel for construction.

Shifting timber production deeper into boreal or tropical forests are not viable options, because the trees in those regions have stood untouched for thousands of years and logging them would release huge amounts of carbon and threaten biodiversity.

“A major environmental risk of increasing competition for land between farming and forestry is that wood production moves into remaining areas of primary forest within the tropics or boreal zones. These are the epicentres of remaining global wilderness and untouched tropical forests are the most biodiverse places on Earth. Preventing further expansion is critical,” said David Edwards, Professor of Plant Ecology in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Plant Sciences and senior author of the study.

To get their results, the researchers took satellite data showing intensive forestry across the world and overlaid it with predictions of suitable agricultural land for the world’s key crops -including rice, wheat, maize, soy and potato – in the future under various climate change scenarios.

Even in the best-case scenario, where the world meets net zero targets, the researchers say there will still be significant future changes in the regions suitable for timber and crop production.

The study is published today in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Timber production contributes over US $1.5 trillion per year to national economies globally. Heatwaves and associated wildfires have caused huge recent losses of timber forests around the world. Climate change is also driving the spread of pests like the Bark Beetle, which attacks trees.

Climate change is expected to cause areas in the tropics to become too hot and inhospitable for growing food and make large areas of southern Europe much less suitable for food and wood production.

“Climate change is already causing challenges for timber production. Now on top of that, there will be this increased pressure from agriculture, creating a perfect storm of problems,” said Bousfield.

“Securing our future wood supply might not seem as pressing as securing the food we need to eat and survive. But wood is just as integrated within our daily lives and we need to develop strategies to ensure both food and wood security into the future,” said Morton.

Reference:
Bousfield, C.G., et al, ‘Climate change will exacerbate land conflict between agriculture and timber production.’ Nature Climate Change (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41558-024-02113-z

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A study involving 900 students in 6 countries found that a short programme of empathy lessons led to measurable, positive changes in their conduct, emotional awareness and curiosity about different cultures.

An analysis of a short programme teaching empathy in schools has found it had a positive impact on students’ behaviour and increased their emotional literacy within 10 weeks.

The findings come from an evaluation of the ‘Empathy Programme‘: a term-long course developed by the UK-based Empathy Studios. The research was conducted with support from academics at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge.

Empathy Studios develops school-based, video-led programmes which aim to increase empathy in students aged 5 to 18. Students are shown thought-provoking films, then engage in approximately 30 minutes of activities and discussions about the issues raised. An annual flagship festival of films, resources and events, ‘Empathy Week’, is made available for free and has to date reached 1.3 million students worldwide.

Survey and interview data from 900 students and teachers at 10 participating schools in 6 countries, including the UK, revealed measurable, positive changes in students’ conduct, emotional awareness and curiosity about different cultures and the wider world.

Teachers rated students’ empathy, behaviour and other characteristics on a scale of one to 10 before the programme began, and 5 and 10 weeks later. The average empathy score rose from 5.55 to 7, while average behaviour scores increased from 6.52 to 7.89.

In follow-up interviews, one primary school teacher reflected: “I’ve definitely been able to resolve more issues within the classroom and not have parents called in.” A student told the interviewers: “I think that everyone in the class has become kinder.”

Empathy Studios defines empathy as: “the skill to understand others and the ability to create space for someone to reveal their authentic self while reserving judgement.” The company was founded 4 years ago by Ed Kirwan, a former science teacher from North London.

“The programme’s success lies in teaching students to celebrate difference, which changes their wellbeing and behaviour,” he said. “There’s never an excuse for poor behaviour, but often a reason, which greater mutual understanding can potentially address.”

“I think the social unrest we have seen in Britain this summer shows how urgently we need more empathy across society. It won’t solve everything, but it is the foundation for solutions, and it starts with education. If the new government is serious about curriculum reforms that prepare young people for life and work, we must ensure that school equips them to understand, be curious about, and listen to each other, even in moments of disagreement.”

The evaluation was supported by Dr Helen Demetriou, a specialist in empathy education at the University of Cambridge, who helped to design the research, and to collect, quality assure and interpret the data.

“The findings show that a fairly simple, film-based programme can raise pupils’ empathy levels, enhancing their understanding of themselves, others, and global issues,” she said. “That supports a more complete learning experience, developing social and emotional skills that we know contribute to improved behaviour and more engaged learning.”

Although it is often considered innate, evidence suggests that empathy can be taught. A 2021 study co-authored by Demetriou successfully trialled teaching empathy during design and technology lessons. More recently, researchers at the University of Virginia found that empathy between parents and children is ‘paid forward’ by the children to friends and, later, when they become parents themselves.

Empathy has been linked to better leadership and inclusion in workplaces; while a 2023 World Economic Forum White Paper highlighted the importance of socio-emotional skills to the future of work and argued for more education that emphasises interpersonal skills, including empathy.

Empathy Studios offers schools assembly and lesson plans built around films about the real-life stories of diverse people in other parts of the world. Its 2024/5 programme, for example, profiles 5 individuals from Mexico, including a Paralympian, a dancer, and a women’s rights activist.

Their framework focuses on 3 core concepts: ‘Empathy for Myself’, which develops students’ emotional literacy; ‘Empathy for Others’, which covers mutual understanding and interpersonal relations, and ‘Empathy in Action’, during which the students develop their own social action projects.

The new research builds on a 2022 pilot study with the University of Cambridge, which suggested that the programme makes students more responsive to each others’ feelings and improves self-esteem. The new evaluation involved over 900 students and 30 teachers, and took place during 2023.

The teacher surveys indicated that behaviour had improved by up to 10% in some schools, especially those new to empathy lessons. The average improvement in behaviour recorded by UK teachers corresponded to the overall trend, rising from 6.3/10 pre-programme to 7.7/10 post-programme. Empathy and behaviour also appeared to be closely linked: all schools reporting an overall improvement in student empathy also saw improvements in behaviour after five weeks, which was sustained in 80% of cases after 10.

The evaluation recorded small improvements in students’ overall emotional literacy and their ‘affective empathy’; or their ability to share the feelings of others. A change that emerged strongly from interviews with teachers was that the Empathy Programme appeared to increase students’ interest in other cultures. In one primary school, for example, the proportion of students responding positively to the statement “I want to find out more about the world” rose from 86% to 96% after 10 weeks. This echoes Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) evidence linking empathy to civic engagement.

Many students said they had learned valuable lessons from the programme. Their reflections included: “Everyone struggles… I’m not the only one who finds it hard”, and “Although we are all different, we all have so much in common”.

“Empathy is the number one human skill we need to develop for the future,” Kirwan said. “It should not just be an add-on; it should be considered foundational.”

Further information is available from: https://www.empathystudios.com/

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A montage of concept designs for Cambridge Children’s Hospital

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Major milestone for first specialist children’s hospital in the East of England.

Plans for Cambridge Children’s Hospital can move ahead following the news that the Outline Business Case for the project has been signed off by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. The project has been given the green light to begin the detailed process of appointing a contractor, to build the ground-breaking new facility in 2026.

The ministerial backing means that the Project’s Outline Business Case, the second stage of the business case process, has now been fully approved by the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England and HM Treasury. It was approved in principle in September 2023, subject to a capital affordability review by NHS England and the Department for Health and Social Care’s Joint Investment Committee. That review took place in April 2024 and resulted in a recommendation to Ministers to endorse the decision.

In a show of further confidence in its plans, the Outline Business Case was signed off by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care in August 2024. This approval recognises that the hospital will meet the needs of patients and staff across the East of England and that the project has the appropriate funding streams in place, to deliver the specialist children’s facility.

The hospital is being co-designed with the help of children, young people, families and healthcare professionals across the region to ensure the new hospital will meet the needs of patients, families and staff.

Dr Rob Heuschkel, Clinical Lead for Physical Health at Cambridge Children’s Hospital said:

“We are absolutely delighted that we can now move forward to enter contracts with a construction partner, so we can finally start to see work happening on site.

“A huge amount of work has gone into finalising the designs and getting us to this point, and I want to thank our healthcare staff, young people and their families from across the region who have been contributing valuable feedback and helping us shape our plans, right from the very start.

“The East of England is the only region in the UK without a specialist children’s hospital, and we look forward to changing that very soon.”

The approval comes as a programme of groundworks preparing for the build was completed in July, and new access roads have now been installed where the new five-storey, 35,000sqm hospital will be located, opposite the Rosie Maternity Hospital, on Robinson Way and Dame Mary Archer Way.

In the coming weeks, people will be able to see hoardings installed around the site of Cambridge Children’s Hospital, the first hospital truly designed to bring mental and physical health care together for children and young people.

Dr Isobel Heyman, Clinical Lead for Mental Health at Cambridge Children’s Hospital said:

“This really is fantastic news and an exciting moment in our journey to build a truly integrated children’s hospital for the East of England.

“The current model of mental health care is inadequate. Many children with physical ill-health also have significant mental health needs, and vice versa.

“Cambridge Children’s Hospital offers a solution. By delivering holistic care for children, young people, and their families, this not only reduces stigma, but the revolutionary model of care really does act as a blueprint for the NHS and the future of healthcare.”

The fundraising Campaign for Cambridge Children’s Hospital has now passed the halfway mark and the project remains on track to meet its £100m philanthropy target.

The hospital will also house a University of Cambridge research institute, focused on preventing childhood illness and early intervention across mental and physical healthcare.

Professor David Rowitch, Clinical Lead for Research at Cambridge Children’s Hospital said:

“By bringing clinicians and patients together with University of Cambridge investigators and industry partners, we aim to shift the medicine paradigm from traditional reactive approaches, to one based on early detection, precision intervention and disease prevention.

“Co-locating research efforts inside Cambridge Children’s Hospital will mean we can detect disease early or even prevent it altogether, personalise health care and prescribe treatments more appropriate for children and their individual health needs.

“We’ll also be able to foster collaborations to advance the power of advanced diagnostics, digital and telehealth technology to support healthcare professions from a distance, to deliver care closer to people’s homes, wherever they live in our region.”

The Cambridge Children’s Hospital project is a partnership between Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH), Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT), and the University of Cambridge.

Work now continues on the final stage of the business case for Cambridge Children’s Hospital – the Full Business Case.

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Researchers have discovered a way to extend the shelf life of blood stem cells outside the body for use in gene therapy, providing patients with better options and improving their outcomes.

We were able to identify a key molecular pathway…that can be targeted by a drug which is already in use and is safe to use.Elisa Laurenti

Researchers have identified a drug already used for cancer patients, that, when applied to current gene therapy protocols can improve blood stem cell function threefold.

One trillion blood cells are produced every day in humans, and blood stem cells are the only cell types in our body capable of producing all blood cell types over our lifespan, giving them immense regenerative potential.

Blood stem cell gene therapy is a ground-breaking treatment that currently provides the only cure to more than ten life-debilitating genetic diseases and has already saved the lives of more than two million people with blood cancers and other diseases.

These therapies take blood stem cell samples from patients, where their genetic defect is corrected in a dish before being delivered back to the patient. However, limitations persist in blood stem cell therapies because of the shelf life of the cells outside the body. When removed from their environment in the human body and cultured in a dish, most blood stem cells lose their function. The exact timing and cause of this function loss has not previously been well understood.

Now, scientists in the Laurenti Group and others at the University of Cambridge’s Cambridge Stem Cell Institute (CSCI) and Department of Haematology have pinpointed a timeline for the blood stem cells under the current gene therapy protocols, which typically take place over three days. After the first 24 hours in a dish, more than 50% of the blood stem cells can no longer sustain life-long blood production, which is before therapy would even begin in a clinical setting.

During those first 24 hours, the cells activate a complex molecular stress response in order to adapt to the dish. By studying this stress response, the team identified a solution. Through repurposing a cancer growth blocker drug (Ruxolitinib), already in use for cancer treatments, they were able to improve stem cell function in a dish by three times its former capabilities.

The group is now aiming to modify current gene therapy protocols to include this drug, providing patients with the highest number of high-quality blood stem cells and improving their outcomes.

The study is published today in the journal Blood.

Professor Elisa Laurenti at the University of Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, and senior author of the study, said: “This is really exciting because we are now in a position where we can begin to understand the huge stress that these stem cells sense when they are manipulated outside of our body. Biologically it is really fascinating because it affects every aspect of their biology. Luckily, we were able to identify a key molecular pathway which governs many of these responses, and that can be targeted by a drug which is already in use and is safe to use.

“I hope our findings will enable safer treatments for gene therapy patients. Our discovery also opens up many possibilities to better expand blood stem cells ex vivo and expand the set of disease where we can use blood stem cells to improve patients’ lives.”

Dr Carys Johnson at the University of Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, and first author of the study, said: “Although we expected that removing these cells from the body and culturing them on a plastic surface would alter gene expression, the extent of change we found was surprising, with over 10,000 genes altered and a significant stress response detected. It was also striking to discover that the majority of blood stem cells are functionally lost during gene therapy protocols, before transplantation back to the patient.

“We have identified a key bottleneck where function is lost and clinical culture could be improved. I hope that our work will drive advancements in culture protocols to better harness the power of blood stem cells and improve the safety and efficacy of clinical approaches.”

Reference

C.S. Johnson, M.J. Williams, K. Sham, et al. ‘Adaptation to ex vivo culture reduces human hematopoietic stem cell activity independently of cell cycle.’ Blood 2024; DOI: 10.1182/blood.2023021426

Story written by Laura Puhl, Cambridge Stem Cell Institute.

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Around one in four patients with severe brain injury who cannot move or speak – because they are in a prolonged coma, vegetative or minimally conscious state – is still able to perform complex mental tasks, a major international study has concluded in confirmation of much smaller previous studies.

When a patient has sustained a severe brain injury, there are very important, and often difficult, decisions to be made by doctors and family members about their careEmmanuel Stamatakis

Severe brain injury can leave individuals unable to respond to commands physically, but in some cases they are still able to activate areas of the brain that would ordinarily play a role in movement. This phenomenon is known as ‘cognitive motor dissociation’.

To determine what proportion of patients in so-called ‘disorders of consciousness’ experience this phenomenon – and help inform clinical practice – researchers across Europe and North America recruited a total of 353 adults with disorders of consciousness, including the largest cohort of 100 patients studied at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Participants had mostly sustained brain injury from severe trauma, strokes or interrupted oxygen supply to the brain after heart attacks. Most were living in specialised long-term care facilities and a few were living at home with extensive care packages. The median time from injury for the whole group was about eight months.

Researchers assessed patterns of brain activation among these patients using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) or electroencephalography (EEG). Subjects were asked to repeatedly imagine performing a motor activity (for example, “keep wiggling your toes”, “swinging your arm as if playing tennis”, “walking around your house from room to room”) for periods of 15 to 30 seconds separated by equal periods of rest. To be able to follow such instructions requires not only the understanding of and response to a simple spoken command, but also more complex thought processes including paying attention and remembering the command.

The results of the study are published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr Emmanuel Stamatakis from the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Cambridge said: “When a patient has sustained a severe brain injury, there are very important, and often difficult, decisions to be made by doctors and family members about their care. It’s vitally important that we are able to understand the extent to which their cognitive processes are still functioning by utilising all available technology.” 

Among the 241 patients with a prolonged disorder of consciousness, who could not make any visible responses to bedside commands, one in four (25%) was able to perform cognitive tasks, producing the same patterns of brain activity recorded with EEG and/or fMRI that are seen in healthy subjects in response to the same instructions.

In the 112 patients who did demonstrate some motor responses to spoken commands at the bedside, 38% performed these complex cognitive tasks during fMRI or EEG. However, the majority of these patients (62%) did not demonstrate such brain activation. This counter-intuitive finding emphasises that the fMRI and EEG tasks require patients to have complex cognitive abilities such as short-term memory and sustained concentration, which are not required to the same extent for following bedside commands.

These findings are clinically very important for the assessment and management of the estimated 1,000 to 8,000 individuals in the UK in the vegetative state and 20,000 to 50,000 in a minimally conscious state. The detection of cognitive motor dissociation has been associated with more rapid recovery and better outcomes one year post injury, although the majority of such patients will remain significantly disabled, albeit with some making remarkable recoveries.

Dr Judith Allanson, Consultant in Neurorehabilitation, said: “A quarter of the patients who have been diagnosed as in a vegetative or minimally conscious state after detailed behavioural assessments by experienced clinicians, have been found to be able to imagine carrying out complex activities when specifically asked to, is sobering. This sobering fact suggests that some seemingly unconscious patients may be aware and possibly capable of significant participation in rehabilitation and communication with the support of appropriate technology.

“Just knowing that a patient has this ability to respond cognitively is a game changer in terms of the degree of engagement of caregivers and family members, referrals for specialist rehabilitation and best interest discussions about the continuation of life sustaining treatments.”

The researchers caution that care must be taken to ensure the findings are not misrepresented, pointing out, for example, that a negative fMRI/EEG result does not per se exclude cognitive motor dissociation as even some healthy volunteers do not show these responses.

Professor John Pickard, emeritus professorial Fellow of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, said: “Only positive results – in other words, where patients are able to perform complex cognitive processes – should be used to inform management of patients, which will require meticulous follow up involving specialist rehabilitation services.”

The team is calling for a network of research platforms to be established in the UK to enable multicentre studies to examine mechanisms of recovery, develop easier methods of assessment than task-based fMRI/EEG, and to design novel interventions to enhance recovery including drugs, brain stimulation and brain-computer interfaces.

The research reported here was primarily funded by the James S. McDonnell Foundation. The work in Cambridge was supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research UK, MRC, Smith’s Charity, Evelyn Trust, CLAHRC ARC fellowship and the Stephen Erskine Fellowship (Queens’ College). 

Reference
Bodien, YG et al. Cognitive Motor Dissociation in Disorders of Consciousness. NEJM; 14 Aug 2024; DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2400645

Adapted from a press release from Weill Cornell Medicine

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Acknowledgements

The multidisciplinary Cambridge Impaired Consciousness Research Group, led by Emeritus Professors John Pickard (Neurosurgery) & David Menon (Anaesthesia) and Drs Judith Allanson & Emmanuel A. Stamatakis (Lead, Cognition and Consciousness Imaging Group), started its research programme in 1997, partly in response to emerging concern over the misdiagnosis of the vegetative state. This pioneering work has only been possible by having access to the world class resources of the Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre, the NIHR/Wellcome Clinical Research Facility at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit (Professors Barbara Wilson & Adrian Owen), the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability (Putney) and the Central England Rehabilitation Unit (Royal Leamington Spa).

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Pollutants preserved in Antarctic ice document historic fires in the Southern Hemisphere, offering a glimpse at how humans have impacted the landscape and providing data that could help scientists understand future climate change.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the British Antarctic Survey tracked fire activity over the past 150 years by measuring carbon monoxide trapped in Antarctic ice. This gas is released, along with smoke and particulates, by wildfires, cooking and communal fires.

The findings, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveal that biomass burning has been more variable since the 1800s than had been thought. The new data could help improve climate models, which rely on information about past atmospheric gases, such as carbon monoxide, to improve their forecasts.

“We’ve been missing key information from the period when humans started to dramatically alter Earth’s climate; information needed to test and develop climate models,” said Rachael Rhodes, senior author of the paper from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences.  

The new carbon monoxide record fills that gap in time. The researchers charted the strength of biomass burning between 1821 and 1995 by measuring carbon monoxide in ice cores from Antarctica. The layers of ice inside these cores formed when snow was buried under subsequent years’ snowfall, encasing pockets of air that directly sample the atmosphere’s composition at the time.

“It’s rare to find trace gases trapped in ice cores for the most recent decades,” said Ivo Strawson, lead author of the study who is jointly based at Cambridge Earth Sciences and the British Antarctic Survey. “We need information on the atmosphere’s composition following the onset of industrialisation to reduce uncertainties in climate models, which rely on these records to test or drive their simulations.”

A major difficulty with taking gas measurements from very young ice is that pressurised air bubbles haven’t had time to form under the weight of more snow, said Strawson. To get around this problem, the researchers studied ice from locations where snow accumulates rapidly. These ice cores, held in BAS’ dedicated Ice Core Laboratory, were collected from the Antarctic Peninsula as part of previous international projects.

To measure carbon monoxide, the researchers developed a state-of-the-art analysis method, which melts ice continuously while simultaneously extracting the air. They collected tens of thousands of gas measurements for the past 150 years.

The researchers found that the strength of biomass burning has dropped steadily since the 1920s. That decline, said Rhodes, coincides with the expansion and intensification of agriculture in southern Africa, South America, and Australia during the early 20th century. With wildlands converted into farmland, forest cover was restricted and in turn fire activity dropped. “This trend reflects how land conversion and human expansion have negatively impacted landscapes and ecosystems, causing a major shift in the natural fire regime and in turn altering our planet’s carbon cycle,” said Rhodes.

One assumption made by many climate models, including those used by the IPCC, is that fire activity has increased in tandem with population growth. But, said Rhodes, “our work adds to a growing mass of evidence that this assumption is wrong, and the inventories of historic fire activity need to be corrected so that models can accurately replicate the variability we see in our record.”

Rachael Rhodes is a Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge. 

Reference:
Ivo Strawson et al. “Preindustrial Southern Hemisphere biomass burning variability inferred from ice core carbon monoxide records.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(2024). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2402868121

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Offering patients with concussion a type of brain scan known as diffusion tensor imaging MRI could help identify the one in three people who will experience persistent symptoms that can be life changing, say Cambridge researchers.

Concussion is the number one neurological condition to affect adults, which is why we need a way of identifying those patients at greatest risk of persistent symptomsVirginia Newcombe

Around one in 200 people in Europe every year will suffer concussion. In the UK, more than 1 million people attend Emergency Departments annually with a recent head injury. It is the most common form of brain injury worldwide.

When a patient in the UK presents at an Emergency Department with head injury, they are assessed according to the NICE head injury guidelines. Depending on their symptoms, they may be referred for a CT scan, which looks for brain injuries including bruising, bleeding and swelling.

However, CT scans identify abnormalities in fewer than one in 10 patients with concussion, yet 30-40% of patients discharged from the Emergency Department following a scan experience significant symptoms that can last for years and be potentially life-changing. These include severe fatigue, poor memory, headaches, and mental health issues (including anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress).

Dr Virginia Newcombe from the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge and an Intensive Care Medicine and Emergency Physician at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, said: “The majority of head injury patients are sent home with a piece of paper telling them the symptoms of post-concussion to look out for and are told to seek help from their GP if their symptoms worsen.

“The problem is that the nature of concussion means patients and their GPs often don’t recognise that their symptoms are serious enough to need follow-up. Patients describe it as a ‘hidden disease’, unlike, say, breaking a bone. Without objective evidence of a brain injury, such as a scan, these patients often feel that their symptoms are dismissed or ignored when they seek help.”

In a study published today in eClinicalMedicine, Dr Newcombe and colleagues show that an advanced form of MRI known as diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) can substantially improve existing prognostic models for patients with concussion who have been given a normal CT brain.

DTI measures how water molecules move in tissue, providing detailed images of the pathways, known as white matter tracts, that connect different parts of the brain. Standard MRI scanners can be adapted to measure this data, which can be used to calculate a DTI ‘score’ based on the number of different brain regions with abnormalities.

Dr Newcombe and colleagues studied data from more than 1,000 patients recruited to the Collaborative European NeuroTrauma Effectiveness Research in Traumatic Brain Injury (CENTER-TBI) study between December 2014 and December 2017. 38% of the patients had an incomplete recovery, meaning that three months after discharge their symptoms were still persisting.

The team assigned DTI scores to the 153 patients who had received a DTI scan. This significantly improved the accuracy of the prognosis – whereas the current clinical model would correctly predict in 69 cases out of 100 that a patient would have a poorer outcome, DTI increased this to 82 cases out of 100.

dti_images_web.jpg

Whole brain diffusion tensor tractography showing healthy patient (left) and patient at two days (centre) and six weeks (right) after severe traumatic brain injury (Credit: Virginia Newcombe)

The researchers also looked at blood biomarkers – proteins released into the blood as a result of head injury – to see whether any of these could improve the accuracy of the prognosis. Although the biomarkers alone were not sufficient, concentrations of two particular proteins – glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) within the first 12 hours and neurofilament light (NFL) between 12 and 24 hours following injury – were useful in identifying those patients who might benefit from a DTI scan.

Dr Newcombe said: “Concussion is the number one neurological condition to affect adults, but health services don’t have the resources to routinely bring back every patient for a follow-up, which is why we need a way of identifying those patients at greatest risk of persistent symptoms.

“Current methods for assessing an individual’s outlook following head injury are not good enough, but using DTI – which, in theory, should be possible for any centre with an MRI scanner – can help us make much more accurate assessments. Given that symptoms of concussion can have a significant impact on an individual’s life, this is urgently needed.”

The team plan to look in greater details at blood biomarkers, to see if they can identify new ways to provide even simpler, more practical predictors. They will also be exploring ways to bring DTI into clinical practice.

Dr Sophie Richter, a NIHR Clinical Lecturer in Emergency Medicine and first author, Cambridge, added: “We want to see if there is a way to integrate the different types of information obtained when a patient presents at hospital with brain injury – symptoms assessment, blood tests and brain scans, for example – to improve our assessment of a patient’s injury and prognosis.”

The research was funded by European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme, Wellcome and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.

Reference
Richter, S et al. Predicting recovery in patients with mild traumatic brain injury and a normal CT using serum biomarkers and diffusion tensor imaging (CENTER-TBI): an observational cohort study. eClinMed; 8 Aug 2024; DOI: 10.1016/j.eclinm.2024.102751

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source: www.cam.ac.uk

Cambridge researchers have cast doubt on whether new amyloid immunotherapy drugs will have the desired effect of significantly reducing the impact of Alzheimer’s disease.

While the current amyloid immunotherapies may show a glint of promise for very selected groups, it’s clear these drugs will not address dementia risk at scaleCarol Brayne

Writing in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, the team from Cambridge Public Health argue that substantial challenges including the risk-benefit ratio, limited eligibility and high cost of roll-out will limit any benefits of these treatments.

Alzheimer’s disease is often quoted as causing 70% of the 55 million cases of dementia worldwide, though the definition of what constitutes the disease is hotly debated. One characteristic of Alzheimer’s is the build-up of clusters of misfolded proteins, one of these being a form of amyloid, leading to plaques in the brain. The cascade hypothesis, a dominant theory in the field, suggests that this triggers a series of processes which together lead to dementia symptoms.

Advances in developing treatments to reduce symptoms and slow down the progression in the early stages of Alzheimer’s has been slow. However, there has been recent excitement surrounding amyloid immunotherapy agents, drugs that harness the immune system to remove amyloid pathology.

Two completed phase III randomised controlled trials of amyloid immunotherapy reported statistically significant reductions in the rate of cognitive and functional decline compared to the placebo.

But as the Cambridge team point out, the effect sizes were small – small enough that a doctor would struggle to tell the difference between the average decline of a patient on the drug and another on placebo, after 18 months. The drugs were also associated with significant adverse events, including brain swelling and bleeding; during the phase III trial of one agent, donanemab, there were also three deaths attributed to the treatment.

Crucially, there is little known about the long-term effects of the drugs beyond the 18 month trial periods. Long-term placebo-controlled trials, which would be needed to see if there is any clinically meaningful slowing of decline, are unlikely to be feasible where drugs are already approved.    

Despite this, the US Food and Drug Administration has licensed two such drugs. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has recommended rejecting one (lecanemab) predominantly on the grounds that the small effects seen do not outweigh the risk from side effects; it is reviewing the other. The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is expected to take a decision on both drugs imminently.

Edo Richard, Professor of Neurology at Radboud University Medical Centre in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, and co-author, said: “If these drugs are approved by regulators in the UK and Europe, and become available, it is understandable that some people with early Alzheimer’s will still want to try these drugs, given their despair living with this dreadful disease. But there is a lot of hyperbole around the reporting of these drugs, and significant effort will be needed to provide balanced information to patients to enable informed decisions.”

Press coverage of the drugs has implied they are suitable for anyone with a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s. However, while the trials included those with ‘early symptomatic Alzheimer’s disease’, it excluded those with other conditions that may have been contributing to their symptoms.  Evidence suggests that the people in the trials represent less than 8% of those in the community with early Alzheimer’s disease. Those in the trials were up to 10 to 15 years younger than those typically presenting to health services with early symptoms.

Lead author Dr Sebastian Walsh, NIHR Doctoral Fellow in Public Health Medicine at Cambridge Public Health, University of Cambridge, added: “If approved, the drugs are likely to be relevant only for a relatively small cohort of Alzheimer’s patients, so potential recipients will need to undergo a range of assessments before being given access to the drugs. Plus, effect sizes seen in the trials are very small and the drugs will need be administered as early in the disease process as possible, when symptoms are mild – and people in these phases of disease can be hard to identify.”

The resource requirements for rolling out such treatments are likely to be considerable. Even if approved for only a small proportion of Alzheimer’s patients, a much broader group of people will need to be assessed for eligibility, requiring rapid specialist clinical assessment and tests. The authors question whether this is the best use of these resources, given the strain health systems are already under. Support would also be required for the large number of Alzheimer’s patients (potentially as many as 92%) found to be ineligible. Those found to have insufficient amyloid to be eligible may then require follow-up assessments to determine eligibility in the future, with the further implications for services this would entail.

Professor Carol Brayne, Co-director of Cambridge Public Health, said: “Even in high-income countries, rolling out such types of treatments at scale is highly challenging, but most dementia occurs in low- and middle-income countries. Health systems in these countries are highly unlikely to have the resources required to offer these new drugs, even to a very narrow group.

“Other compelling evidence suggests that attention to inequalities and health experience across people’s lives could have greater impact on the rates of dementia in populations. Most dementia is more complicated than a single protein.”

The team concludes that based on current evidence, it is far from clear whether amyloid immunotherapy can ever significantly reduce suffering caused by dementia at scale in the community, and we must continue to explore other approaches.

Professor Brayne added: “With an ageing population, we urgently need effective ways to support people living with dementia, but while the current amyloid immunotherapies may show a glint of promise for very selected groups, it’s clear these drugs will not address dementia risk at scale.”

Reference
Walsh, S et al. Considering challenges for the new Alzheimer’s drugs: clinical, population, and health system perspectives. Alz&Dem; 6 Aug 2024; DOI: 10.1002/alz.14108

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Astronomers have discovered that red dwarf stars can produce stellar flares that carry far-ultraviolet (far-UV) radiation levels much higher than previously believed.

The discovery suggests that the intense UV radiation from these flares could significantly impact whether planets around red dwarf stars can be habitable.

“Few stars have been thought to generate enough UV radiation through flares to impact planet habitability. Our findings show that many more stars may have this capability,” said first author Vera Berger, who led the research while based at the University of Hawai’i and who is now based at the University of Cambridge.  

Berger and her team used archival data from the GALEX space telescope to search for flares among 300,000 nearby stars. GALEX is a now-decommissioned NASA mission that simultaneously observed most of the sky at near-and far-UV wavelengths from 2003 to 2013. Using new computational techniques, the team mined insights from the data.

“Combining modern computer power with gigabytes of decades-old observations allowed us to search for flares on thousands and thousands of nearby stars,” said co-author Dr Michael Tucker from Ohio State University.

According to researchers, UV radiation from stellar flares can either erode planetary atmospheres, threatening their potential to support life, or contribute to the formation of RNA building blocks, which are essential for the creation of life.

The study, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, challenges existing models of stellar flares and exoplanet habitability, showing that far-UV emission from flares is on average three times more energetic than typically assumed, and can reach up to twelve times the expected energy levels.

“A change of three is the same as the difference in UV in the summer from Anchorage, Alaska to Honolulu, where unprotected skin can get a sunburn in less than 10 minutes,” said co-author Benjamin J. Shappee from the University of Hawai’i.

The exact cause of this stronger far-UV emission remains unclear. The team believes it might be that flare radiation is concentrated at specific wavelengths, indicating the presence of atoms like carbon and nitrogen.

“This study has changed the picture of the environments around stars less massive than our Sun, which emit very little UV light outside of flares,” said co-author Jason Hinkle.

According to Berger, now a Churchill Scholar at Cambridge, more data from space telescopes is needed to study the UV light from stars, which is crucial for understanding the source of this emission.

“Our work puts a spotlight on the need for further exploration into the effects of stellar flares on exoplanetary environments,” said Berger. “Using space telescopes to obtain UV spectra of stars will be crucial for better understanding the origins of this emission.”

Reference:
Vera L Berger et al. ‘Stellar flares are far-ultraviolet luminous.’ Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2024). DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stae1648

Adapted from a University of Hawai’i media release.

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