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Cambridge researchers are helping launch a nationwide study for children and young to unlock the power of our DNA.

Today we are at the beginning of the most tremendous opportunity which will transform our understanding of genetics for children’s healthAnna Moore

The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) BioResource’s D-CYPHR – the DNA, Children and Young People’s Health Resource – will play a key role in pioneering new treatments and creating better care for children and the adults they will become – everything from improving understanding of mental health to combatting heart disease. The programme is led by NIHR BioResource in partnership with the NHS, Anna Freud and the University of Cambridge.     

Many serious health conditions start in the first two decades of life, with over 1.7 million children in England alone suffering from long-term health conditions. However, most health research is carried out with adults, meaning we are not only missing important opportunities to understand how disease starts, develops and its causes, but are limited in developing new treatments.  

Dr Anna Moore, University of Cambridge, clinical lead for D-CYPHR, said: “Today we are at the beginning of the most tremendous opportunity which will transform our understanding of genetics for children’s health: a moment where families can help much needed health research from home. This will boost all the amazing research happening across the UK.”

The ground-breaking new programme is open to any child and young person aged 0 to 15 in the UK, to create the biggest health initiative of its kind in this country and a world first – a new national childhood DNA health resource for research from birth through adolescence.  

Supporting the programme’s launch, Dr Xand van Tulleken, BBC presenter, urged parents and their children to get involved: “We urgently need research projects that support children’s health and we need children to volunteer to help! Children are amazing – I’m constantly astounded by their bravery in stepping up for causes they believe in. Today, we’re offering the chance to be a hero for healthcare – just by spitting in a tube.

“D-CYPHR will help future children, and it will help all of us in our adult lives. The ambition and scope of the D-CYPHR project is awe inspiring and it relies on these incredible volunteers to make amazing discoveries from which all of us, children and adults, will benefit.” 

Research has shown the power that understanding genetics can have on outcomes for a range of conditions and illness, from improvements to how diabetes is treated in children, to the national roll-out of whole genome sequencing for babies and children in intensive care. Understanding genetics is vital in helping to understand and treat illness.  

D-CYPHR aims to support this, while also mapping development in children and young people. The environment and experiences while growing up work together with genetics to affect development, and the likelihood of getting diseases. The more we can understand about this, the more treatments can be developed, and tailored to individuals. It even opens up the opportunity for earlier identification of problems, and in the future, we hope to be able to avoid some illnesses, like heart disease and type II diabetes. 

Dr Anna Moore continued: “We’ve carefully designed and piloted the programme alongside children, schools and families over two years. This has been very important as this project will also be a way to address inequality in health research – health research needs to benefit everyone, and so we need children and young people from all backgrounds to get involved.

“Each sample joins a resource with thousands of others showing how environment and genetics affect health. The potential of D-CYPHR is therefore massive. We’re excited to unlock these secrets together with the young heroes that are agreeing to help us.” 

Joining D-CYPHR is simple. Each young person, with parental consent, donates a saliva sample and answers a health and lifestyle questionnaire. The information and sample are depersonalised and joins the resource. By studying thousands of DNA samples together with health information, scientists can begin to see the big picture of how our genes and our environment influence our health.

In a world first, the new D-CYPHR programme will support research into any health conditions that begin in or have their origins in childhood – not just a specific condition or age group. This will include mental health conditions, diabetes, heart conditions, rare diseases, immune conditions and many more. It will also help us understand childhood development and what sets the foundations for a healthy life.  

Professor Lucy Chappell, Chief Executive of the NIHR commented: “We’ve seen that genetics can help us unlock our understanding of diseases. Now we want to build on that knowledge by ensuring that our children and young people can access the power of genetics to transform diagnosis and treatment through this research. This exciting new project will help us develop an understanding of their genetics in a way that is more detailed and focused than ever before.”

Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Steve Barclay said: “This pioneering genetic research programme is an exciting opportunity to advance our understanding of the causes of diseases and how they develop from childhood through to adulthood.

“By focusing on the DNA of children and young people we’ll be able to track how genetics affect a child’s development and build a picture of what might impact on their future health. As a result we’ll be able to develop more effective, bespoke treatments and even explore potential preventative measures for a wide range of conditions, including mental health issues and heart disease.”

Find out how you can take part on the D-CYPHR website

Adapted from an NIHR press release

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Suzie, mother of a D-CYPHR participant from Salisbury

“I saw my daughter, Sophie’s, journey from a very unwell newborn to a vibrant and active seven-year-old, enjoying life to the fullest. She’s now thriving and loves reading, baking, riding, and drama, which brings immense joy to her and our family. But in her early days, she faced significant health challenges. The cause of these episodes was unknown, leaving us puzzled and seeking medical answers. Some of these questions remain unanswered, and as a doctor, I know this can happen.

“If by taking part in D-CYPHR, and expanding medical knowledge, then someone else in a similar position gets a better understanding of a cause and so the right treatment, then it’s completely worth it. D-CYPHR is an opportunity for us to support research that might give answers to other parents in our situation, as well as create better treatments for millions of people.” 

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Two academics from the University of Cambridge have been elected Fellows of the British Academy as part of a new group of leading international humanities and social sciences researchers.

Professor Jaideep Prabhu and Professor Sujit Sivasundaram join the latest cohort of Fellows which highlight the depth and breadth of the SHAPE (Social Sciences, Humanities and the Arts for People and the Economy) disciplines and reflects the importance of interdisciplinary research.

Founded in 1902, The British Academy is the UK’s national academy for the humanities and social sciences. Each year, it elects to its fellowship up to 52 outstanding UK-based scholars who have achieved distinction in any branch of the humanities and social sciences. 

Professor Jaideep Prabhu is a Professor of Marketing, the Jawaharlal Nehru Professor of Indian Business & Enterprise at the Judge Business School and Director of the Centre for India & Global Business. He is also a Fellow and Director of Studies at Clare College.

He said: “I am delighted to be joining such a distinguished group of academics, not only in my area of Management and Business Studies, but also across the Humanities and Social Sciences. I look forward to working with the other Fellows of the Academy on issues of importance to the UK and the world where the Humanities and Social Sciences have a crucial role to play. I owe a debt of gratitude to all those I have worked with over the years, and in particular my colleagues at Cambridge. This wouldn’t have been possible without them.”

Professor Sujit Sivasundaram is a Professor of World History and Fellow of Gonville & Caius College. He is currently working on the long history of Colombo as an exemplar of the global South city and also on an environmental history of the Indian Ocean. You can read a recent interview with Professor Sivasundaram in This Cambridge Life.

He said: “World history is about reaching for unexpected places to bring light to the human present and future. Research in this field is necessarily and fittingly collaborative and builds on the insights of librarians, curators, students and intellectuals, among others, in various places in the world. I thank all my friends, spread so far and wide, for pointing me to the right path in my research. This honour belongs to all of them.”

Welcoming the new Fellows, Professor Julia Black, President of the British Academy, said:

“It is with great pleasure that we welcome yet another outstanding cohort to the Academy’s Fellowship. The scope of research and expertise on display across our newly elected UK, Corresponding and Honorary Fellows shows the breadth and depth of knowledge and insight held by the British Academy. It is our role to harness this to understand and help shape a better world.”

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Employment levels for people with learning disabilities in the UK are 5 to 10 times lower than they were a hundred years ago. And the experiences of workers from the 1910s–50s offer inspiration as well as lessons about safeguarding.

We need to have more bold ambition and stop being content with really marginal forms of inclusionLucy Delap

A new study by historian Professor Lucy Delap (Murray Edwards College) argues that loud voices in the 20th-century eugenics movement have hidden a much bigger picture of inclusion in British workplaces that puts today’s low rates to shame.

Professor Delap found that in some parts of Britain, up to 70% of people variously labelled ‘defective’, ‘slow’ and ‘odd’ at the time had paid jobs when demand for labour was high, including during and after the First World War. This proportion fell during recessions, but even then, 30% remained in work. By contrast, in the UK today less than 5% of adults with intellectual disabilities are employed.

“A recession now couldn’t make levels of employment of people with learning disabilities much worse, they are on the floor already,” Professor Delap says. Her study, published in the journal Social History of Medicine follows a decade of painstakingly piecing together evidence of people with learning disabilities in the British workforce in the first half of the 20th century.

Delap found no trace in employers’ records or in state archives which focused on segregation and detaining people. But she struck gold in The National Archives in Kew with a survey of ‘employment exchanges’ undertaken in 1955 to investigate how people then termed ‘subnormal’ or ‘mentally handicapped’ were being employed. She found further evidence in the inspection records of Trade Boards now held at Warwick University’s Modern Records Centre. In 1909, a complex system of rates and inspection emerged as part of an effort to set minimum wages. This led to the development of ‘exemption permits’ for a range of employees not considered to be worth ‘full’ payment.

Delap says: “Once I found these workers, they appeared everywhere and not just in stereotypical trades like shoe repair and basket-weaving. They were working in domestic service, all kinds of manufacturing, shops, coal mining, agriculture, and local authority jobs.”

Delap’s research goes against most previous writing about people with intellectual disabilities which has focused on eugenics and the idea that preindustrial community inclusion gave way to segregation and asylums in the nineteenth century. “We’ve been too ready to accept that narrative and haven’t gone looking for people in the archive,” Delap says. “Many weren’t swept up into institutions, they lived relatively independent lives, precarious lives, but often with the support of families, friends and co-workers.”

‘Wage age’ versus IQ

Previous studies have focused on the rise of IQ testing in this period, but the employment records that Delap studied showed something very different: a more positive sense of ability couched in terms of the wages someone was worth. This involved imagining a person’s ‘wage age’, meaning that an adult worker could begin with a starting age of 14 and advance in wage age through their working life. Not everyone did advance though.

Delap says “The idea of ‘wage age’ was harsh in many ways but it was far less stigmatising than IQ which emphasised divisions between ‘normal’ and ‘defective’ and suggested people couldn’t advance beyond a certain point. By contrast, ideas of fairness, productivity and ‘the going rate’ were deployed to evaluate workers. When labour was in demand, workers had leverage to negotiate their wage age up. IQ didn’t give people that power.”

Appeal to employers

Under the exemption system, employers saw the business case for employing – usually at a significantly lower rate of pay – loyal workers who could be trusted to carry out routine tasks.

Delap says: “If anything, governments gave signals that these people shouldn’t be employed, that they were better off under the care and control of the mental deficiency boards. But employers understood that they could be good workers.”

In 1918, an ‘odd job’ worker employed for 20 years at a London tin works was described as suffering from ‘mental deficiency’ and didn’t know the time of the year or who Britain was fighting. Nevertheless, in the inspector’s opinion, he was ‘little if at all inferior to an ordinary worker of full capacity’ on the hand press and ‘His speed at cutting out on an unguarded fly machine was noticeable.’ His employer agreed to a raise from 18 to 24 shillings a week, just below what a carter could earn.

Employer calculations, Delap emphasises, fluctuated with the state of the labour market. When workers were in short supply, those with learning disabilities became more attractive. When demand for labour fell these workers might be the first to lose their jobs.

Were employers just exploiting vulnerable workers?

Delap found clear evidence of some workers being exploited, being stuck on the same very low wage and the same monotonous task for years.

“We shouldn’t feel nostalgic, this wasn’t a ‘golden age’ of disability-friendly employment,” Delap says. And yet, the archive reveals a strong reciprocal sense of real work being done and wages being paid in exchange. “Many of these people would have considered themselves valued workers and not charity cases. Some were able to negotiate better conditions and many resisted being told to do boring, repetitive work.”

Delap repeatedly encountered families policing the treatment of their relative. In 1922, the owner of a laundry in Lincolnshire considered sacking a 25-year-old ‘mentally deficient’ woman who starched collars because ‘trade is so bad’ but kept her on ‘at request of her parents’. “Workers who had families looking out for them were more able to ask for wage rises, refuse to do certain jobs and limit exploitation,” Delap says. “I found lots of evidence of love and you don’t often see that in archives of intellectual disability.”

Parents or siblings sometimes worked on the same premises which, Delap argues, strengthened the bonds of moral obligation that existed between employers and families. In 1918, for instance, a 16-year-old who attached the bottoms of tin cans in Glamorgan was hired ‘for the sake of her sisters who are employed by the firm and are satisfactory workers’.

Lessons for today

Delap sees concerning similarities between the 1920s and the 2020s in terms of how British institutions manage, care for and educate people with learning disabilities.

Historically, Delap argues, institutions were just stop-gaps, places where people could be kept without onward pathways. People were often not trained at all or trained to do work that didn’t really exist like basket-weaving. “This remains a problem today,” Delap says. “We have a fast-changing labour market and our special schools and other institutions aren’t equipping people well enough for viable paid opportunities.”

Delap argues that evidence of people with learning disabilities successfully working in many different roles and environments in the past undermines today’s focus on a very narrow range of job types and sectors. She highlights the fact that many workers with learning disabilities used to be involved in the service sector, including public facing roles, and not just working in factories. “They were doing roles which brought them into contact with the general public and being a service sector economy today, we have lots of those jobs.”

Delap also believes that structural factors continue to prevent people from accessing jobs. “Credentialism has made it very difficult for people don’t have qualifications to get jobs which they might actually be very good at,” she says. “We need to think much harder about how we make the system work for people with a range of abilities. I also think the rise of IT is a factor, we haven’t been training people with learning disabilities well enough in computer skills so it has become an obstacle.”

Delap believes that Britain’s ageing population and struggle to fill unskilled jobs means there is a growing economic as well as a moral case for employing more people with learning disabilities.

She points out that many people with intellectual disabilities used to work in agriculture, a sector now facing chronic labour shortages. Delap acknowledges that exploitation remains a problem in agriculture, so safeguarding would be paramount, as it would be in every sector.

“I think employers are recognising that they need active inclusion strategies to fill vacancies and that they need to cultivate loyalty,” Delap says. “Work remains a place where we find meaning in our lives and where we make social connections and that’s why so many people with disabilities really want to work and why it deprives them of so much when they are excluded. We need to have more bold ambition and stop being content with really marginal forms of inclusion.”

Reference

L Delap, ‘Slow Workers: Labelling and Labouring in Britain, c. 1909–1955’, Social History of Medicine (2023). DOI: 10.1093/shm/hkad043

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For the first time, the James Webb Space Telescope has observed the chemical signature of carbon-rich dust grains in the early universe.

Similar observational signatures have been observed in the much more recent universe, and have been attributed to complex, carbon-based molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). It is not thought likely, however, that PAHs would have developed within the first billion years of cosmic time.

The international team, including researchers from the University of Cambridge, say that Webb may have observed a different species of carbon-based molecule: possibly minuscule graphite- or diamond-like grains produced by the earliest stars or supernovas. Their results, which suggest that infant galaxies in the early universe developed much faster than anticipated, are reported in the journal Nature.

The seemingly empty spaces in our universe are in reality often not empty at all, but are filled by clouds of gas and cosmic dust. This dust consists of grains of various sizes and compositions that are formed and ejected into space in a variety of ways, including by supernova events.

This material is crucial to the evolution of the universe, as dust clouds ultimately form the birthplaces for new stars and planets. However, the dust absorbs stellar light at certain wavelengths, making some regions of space challenging to observe.

An upside is that certain molecules will consistently absorb or otherwise interact with specific wavelengths of light. This means that astronomers can get information about the cosmic dust’s composition by observing the wavelengths of light that it blocks.

The Cambridge-led team of astronomers used this technique, combined with Webb’s extraordinary sensitivity, to detect the presence of carbon-rich dust grains only a billion years after the birth of the universe.

“Carbon-rich dust grains can be particularly efficient at absorbing ultraviolet light with a wavelength around 217.5 nanometres, which for the first time we have directly observed in the spectra of very early galaxies,” said lead author Dr Joris Witstok from Cambridge’s Kavli Institute for Cosmology.

This 217.5-nanometre feature has previously been observed in the much more recent and local Universe, including within our own Milky Way galaxy, and has been attributed to two different types of carbon-based molecules: polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) or nano-sized graphitic grains.

According to most models, it should take several hundreds of millions of years before PAHs form, so it would be surprising if the team had observed the chemical signature of molecules that shouldn’t have formed yet. However, according to the researchers, this result is the earliest and most distant direct signature for this carbon-rich dust grain.

The answer may lie in the details of what was observed. The feature observed by the team peaked at 226.3 nanometres, not the 217.5-nanometre wavelength associated with PAHs and tiny graphitic grains. A discrepancy of less than ten nanometres could be accounted for by measurement error. Equally, it could also indicate a difference in the composition of the early universe cosmic dust mixture that the team detected.

“This slight shift in wavelength of where the absorption is strongest suggests we may be seeing a different mix of grains, for example, graphite- or diamond-like grains,” said Witstok, who is also a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Sidney Sussex College. “This could also potentially be produced on short timescales by Wolf-Rayet stars or by material ejected from a supernova.”

Models have previously suggested that nano-diamonds could be formed in the material ejected from supernovas; and huge, hot Wolf-Rayet stars, which live fast and die young, would give enough time for generations of stars to have been born, lived, and died, to distribute carbon-rich grains into the surrounding cosmic dust in under a billion years.

However, it is still a challenge to fully explain these results with the existing understanding of the early formation of cosmic dust. These results will go on to inform the development of improved models and future observations.

With the advent of Webb, astronomers are now able to make detailed observations of the light from individual dwarf galaxies, seen in the first billion years of cosmic time. Webb finally permits the study of the origin of cosmic dust and its role in the crucial first stages of galaxy evolution.

“This discovery was made possible by the unparalleled sensitivity improvement in near-infrared spectroscopy provided by Webb, and specifically its Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec),” said co-author Professor Roberto Maiolino, who is based in the Cavendish Laboratory and the Kavli Institute for Cosmology. “The increase in sensitivity provided by Webb is equivalent, in the visible, to instantaneously upgrading Galileo’s 37-millimetre telescope to the 8-metre Very Large Telescope, one of the most powerful modern optical telescopes.”

The team is planning further research into the data and this result. “We are planning to work with theorists who model dust production and growth in galaxies,” said co-author Irene Shivaei of the University of Arizona/Centro de Astrobiología (CAB). “This will shed light on the origin of dust and heavy elements in the early universe.”

These observations were made as part of the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey, or JADES. This programme has facilitated the discovery of hundreds of galaxies that existed when the universe was less than 600 million years old, including some of the farthest galaxies known to date.

“I’ve studied galaxies in the first billion years of cosmic time my entire career and never did we expect to find such a clear signature of cosmic dust in such distant galaxies,” said co-author Dr Renske Smit from Liverpool John Moores University. “The ultradeep data from JWST is showing us that grains made up of diamond-like dust can form in the most primordial of systems. This is completely overthrowing models of dust formation and opening up a whole new way of studying the chemical enrichment of the very first galaxies.”

Webb is an international partnership between NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). This research was supported in part by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

Reference:
Joris Witstok et al. ‘Carbonaceous dust grains seen in the first billion years of cosmic time.’ Nature (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06413-w

Adapted from an ESA press release.

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Cool Concrete – the smart, 3D printed concrete wall used for National Highways project.

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Cambridge researchers, working in partnership with industry, have helped develop the first 3D-printed piece of concrete infrastructure to be used on a National Highways project.

Making the wall digital means it can speak for itself, and we can use our sensors to understand these 3D-printed structures better and accelerate their acceptance in industryAbir Al-Tabbaa

The 3D-printed structure – a type of retaining wall known as a headwall – has been installed on the A30 in Cornwall, where it is providing real-time information thanks to Cambridge-designed sensors embedded in its structure. The sensors provide up-to-date measurements including temperature, strain and pressure. This ‘digital twin’ of the wall could help spot and correct faults before they occur.

Headwall structures are normally made in limited shapes from precast concrete, requiring formwork and extensive steel reinforcement. But by using 3D printing, the team – including specialists from Costain, Jacobs and Versarien – could design and construct a curved hollow wall with no formwork and no steel reinforcement. The wall gets its strength not from steel, but from geometry instead.

The wall – which took one hour to print – is roughly two metres high and three and a half metres across. It was printed in Gloucestershire at the headquarters of the advanced engineering company Versarien, using a robot arm-based concrete printer. Making the wall using 3D printing significantly saves on costs, materials and carbon emissions.

Over the past six years, Professor Abir Al-Tabbaa’s team in the Department of Engineering has been developing new sensor technologies and exploring the effectiveness of existing commercial sensors to get better-quality information out of infrastructure. Her team has also developed various ‘smart’ self-healing concretes. For this project, they supplied sensors to measure temperature during the printing process.

Temperature variations at different layers of the 3D-printed wall were continuously monitored to detect any potential hotspots, thermal gradients, or anomalies. The temperature data will be correlated with the corresponding thermal imaging profile to understand the thermal behaviour of the 3D-printed wall.

“Since you need an extremely fast-setting cement for 3D printing, it also generates an enormous amount of heat,” said Al-Tabbaa. “We embedded our sensors in the wall to measure temperature during construction, and now we’re getting data from them while the wall is on site.”  

In addition to temperature, the sensors measure relative humidity, pressure, strain, electrical resistivity, and electrochemical potential. The measurements provide valuable insights into the reliability, robustness, accuracy, and longevity of the sensors.

A LiDAR system also was used to scan the wall as it was being printed to create a 3D point cloud and generate a digital twin of the wall.

“Making the wall digital means it can speak for itself,” said Al-Tabbaa. “And we can use our sensors to understand these 3D printed structures better and accelerate their acceptance in industry.”

The Cambridge team developed a type of sensor, known as a PZT (Piezoceramic Lead-Zirconate-Titanate) sensor, which measures electromechanical impedance response and monitors changes in these measurements over time to detect any possible damage. These smart sensors can show how 3D-printed mortar hardens over time, while simultaneously monitoring the host structure’s health.

Eight PZT sensors were embedded within the wall layers at different positions during the 3D printing process to capture the presence of loading and strain, both during the construction process and service life after field installation.

The team, which included experts in smart materials, automation and robotics and data science, also developed a bespoke wireless data acquisition system. This enabled the collection of the multifrequency electromechanical response data of the embedded sensors remotely from Cambridge.

“This project will serve as a living laboratory, generating valuable data over its lifespan,” said Al-Tabbaa. “The sensor data and ‘digital twin’ will help infrastructure professionals better understand how 3D printing can be used and tailored to print larger and more complex cement-based materials for the strategic road network.”

Members of the team included Dr Sripriya Rengaraju, Dr Christos Vlachakis, Dr Yen-Fang Su, Dr Damian Palin, Dr Hussam Taha, Dr Richard Anvo and Dr Lilia Potseluyko from Cambridge; as well as Costain’s Head of Materials Bhavika Ramrakhyani, a part-time PhD student in the Department of Engineering, and Ben Harries, Architectural Innovation Lead at Versarien, who is also starting a part-time PhD in the Department of Engineering in October.

The Cambridge team’s work is part of the Resilient Materials for Life Programme and the Digital Roads of the Future Initiative. The research is supported in part by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), and the European Union.

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Animal research aims to improve the prospects for future organ transplant patients

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The ten organisations in Great Britain that carry out the highest number of animal procedures – those used in medical, veterinary and scientific research – have released their annual statistics today.

The statistics for the University of Cambridge are available on the website as part of our ongoing commitment to transparency and openness around the use of animals in research.

This coincides with the publication of the Home Office’s report on the statistics of scientific procedures on living animals in Great Britain in 2022.

The ten organisations carried out 1,434,403 procedures, 52% or just over half of the 2,761,204 procedures carried out on animals for scientific research in Great Britain in 2022. Of these 1,434,403 procedures, more than 99% were carried out on mice, fish and rats and 82% were classified as causing a similar level of pain, or less, as an injection.

The ten organisations are listed below alongside the total number of procedures they carried out in 2022. This is the eighth consecutive year that organisations have come together to publicise their collective statistics and examples of their research.

Organisation	Number of Procedures (2022)
University of Oxford	209,544
University of Cambridge	206,992
Francis Crick Institute	190,981
University of Edinburgh	154,764
UCL	148,050
Medical Research Council	136,732
King’s College London	123,228
University of Glasgow	108,204
University of Manchester	95,004
Imperial College London	60,904
TOTAL	1,434,403

In total, 64 organisations have published their 2022 animal research statistics.

All organisations are committed to the ‘3Rs’ of replacement, reduction and refinement. This means avoiding or replacing the use of animals where possible; minimising the number of animals used per experiment and optimising the experience of the animals to improve animal welfare. However, as institutions expand and conduct more research, the total number of animals used can rise even if fewer animals are used per study. 

All organisations are signatories to the Concordat on Openness on Animal Research in the UK, a commitment to be more open about the use of animals in scientific, medical and veterinary research in the UK. More than 125 organisations have signed the Concordat including UK universities, medical research charities, research funders, learned societies and commercial research organisations.

Wendy Jarrett, Chief Executive of Understanding Animal Research, which developed the Concordat on Openness, said:

“Animal research remains a small but vital part of the quest for new medicines, vaccines and treatments for humans and animals. Alternative methods are gradually being phased in, but, until we have sufficient reliable alternatives available, it is important that organisations that use animals in research maintain the public’s trust in them. By providing this level of information about the numbers of animals used, and the experience of those animals, as well as details of the medical breakthroughs that derive from this research, these Concordat signatories are helping the public to make up their own minds about how they feel about the use of animals in scientific research in Great Britain.” 

Professor Anne C Ferguson-Smith, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research & International Partnerships) and Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics, said:

“In Cambridge we have careful monitoring of our animal usage, applying reduction, replacement and refinement of animal work to ensure that they are used when there is no alternative. For example, animals are used in research tackling neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s and Multiple Sclerosis, and in repairing damaged nerves to restore movement to paralysed limbs.

We want to make major improvements to people’s lives, and we have a moral responsibility to ensure new treatments or procedures are safe, by assessing them first on animals, before developing approaches to apply them to humans.”

Adapted from a press release by Understanding Animal Research.

CASE STUDY: The Ugly Naked Guys who age healthily, don’t feel pain, and rarely get cancer

“Naked mole-rats have many weird features, and we’re trying to work out the underpinning genetic or physiological basis for these. That knowledge could be used to help companion animals or humans with problems such as inflammatory pain, arthritis and cancer,” says Professor Ewan St. John Smith, University of Cambridge Department of Pharmacology.

A team at Cambridge has revealed that naked mole-rats have a genetic variation that makes acid act as an anaesthetic to their nerves. Understanding this better could help develop new pain-relieving drugs for human inflammatory conditions like arthritis.

The animals have exceptional cancer resistance compared to humans. The team found that mutations in naked mole-rat DNA occur at a slower rate than in mouse DNA, and suggest that naked mole-rats have an ultra-good immune system that spots and kills cancer cells.

Naked mole-rats live over 30 years and age healthily. The team is also investigating how the animal’s brain changes with age, offering potential clues for healthy aging and age-related illnesses like dementia.

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The family, wing length and wing colour of tropical butterflies all influence their ability to withstand rising temperatures, say a team led by ecologists at the University of Cambridge. The researchers believe this could help identify species whose survival is under threat from climate change.

Ultimately all insects, including butterflies, the world over are likely to be affected by climate change.Esme Ashe-Jepson

Butterflies with smaller or lighter coloured wings are likely to be ‘losers’ when it comes to climate change, with the Lycaenidae family, which contains over 6,000 species of butterflies, the majority of which live in the tropics, found to be particularly vulnerable.

Butterflies with larger or darker coloured wings are likely to fare better under increasing temperatures, but only to a point. Researchers say these butterflies could still experience dramatic declines if there were sudden heatwaves or if cool microclimates were lost through deforestation.

The results are published today in the Journal of Animal Ecology.

Butterflies rely on the sun’s warmth to give them the energy they need to function. They use ‘thermoregulation’ strategies to maintain a balanced body temperature against changing air temperatures.

Generally, strategies to keep cool involve adaptive behaviours like flying to a shady spot or angling wings away from the sun (thermal buffering). But when this is not possible or temperatures become too hot, species have to rely on physiological mechanisms such as the production of heat shock proteins to withstand high temperatures (thermal tolerance). Both of these strategies are needed to cope with climate change.

Researchers collaborated with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) to study the thermal buffering and thermal tolerance strategies of tropical butterflies. They collected data from multiple habitats in Panama.  

Equipped with hand-held nets, ecologists took the temperature of over 1,000 butterflies using a tiny thermometer-like probe. They compared each butterfly’s temperature to that of the surrounding air or the vegetation it was perched on. This gave a measurement of thermal buffering – the ability to maintain a steady body temperature against fluctuating air temperatures.

A second experiment was conducted at STRI Gamboa facilities and involved assessing butterflies’ thermal tolerance – their ability to withstand extreme temperatures, such as those they may experience during a heatwave. This was assessed by capturing a subset of butterflies and placing them in glass jars within a water bath – the temperature of which was steadily increased. Thermal tolerance was assessed as the temperature at which butterflies could no longer function.

Butterflies that had large wings tended to have greater thermal buffering ability but less thermal tolerance than smaller butterflies. Indeed, in a further study conducted by the same research team, butterflies with larger, longer and narrower wings were found to be better at thermal buffering.

Thermal buffering abilities were found to be stronger in darker-winged butterflies who could also tolerate higher temperatures than paler-winged butterflies.

Butterflies from the Lycaenidae family which have small, bright, and often iridescent, wings had the poorest thermal buffering and low thermal tolerance. If temperatures continue to rise at the current rate, forests continue to be cut down, and cool microclimates are lost, there is a very real threat that we could lose many species in this family in the future, say the researchers.

A trade-off in terms of butterflies’ cooling strategies was observed: those that were good at thermal buffering were less good at thermal tolerance and vice versa.

Scientists say this suggests that tropical butterflies have evolved to cope with temperature changes using one of these strategies at the expense of the other, and that this is likely to be due to selective pressures.

Lead author Esme Ashe-Jepson, a PhD student at Cambridge’s Department of Zoology, said: “Butterflies with physical characteristics that may help them to avoid the sun’s heat, like having large wings that enable them to fly quickly into shade, rarely experience high temperatures, and so have not evolved to cope with them. On the other hand, species which can cope with higher temperatures physiologically have experienced less selective pressure to evolve heat-avoiding behaviours.

“As temperatures continue to rise, and forest fragments get smaller and further apart because of deforestation, butterflies which rely on their surroundings to avoid high temperatures may not be able to travel between forest fragments, or cope with increasingly common heatwaves.”

The researchers say this means that species with large dark wings that are good at thermal buffering may initially be unaffected by warming temperatures, as they can continue to thermoregulate effectively using behaviour and microclimates, but their survival could be at risk if there are sudden heatwaves, or they can no longer escape to cool vegetation.

“Ultimately all insects, including butterflies, the world over are likely to be affected by climate change,” said Ashe-Jepson. “Adaptation to climate change is complex and can be impacted by other factors such as habitat destruction. We need to address these two global challenges together.”

Further research is needed to investigate the effect a warming climate may have on other life stages of butterflies, such as caterpillars and eggs, and other insect groups.

Senior author Greg Lamarre, at the Czech Academy of Science and Research Associate at STRI said: “Worldwide, most entomologists are observing drastic declines in insect biodiversity. Understanding the causes and consequences of insect decline has become an important goal in ecology, particularly in the tropics, where most of terrestrial diversity occurs.”

The research was funded by the GACR Czech Science Foundation, an ERC Starting Grant, a Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute short-term fellowship, and the Sistema Nacional de Investigación (SENACYT), Panama.

Reference:

Esme Ashe-Jepson et al. Tropical butterflies use thermal buffering and thermal tolerance as alternative strategies to cope with temperature increase. Journal of Animal Ecology DOI: 10.1111/1365-2656.13970

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A study in mice has found that fetuses use a copy of a gene inherited from their dad to force their mum to release as much nutrition as possible during pregnancy.

It’s the first direct evidence that a gene inherited from the father is signalling to the mother to divert nutrients to the fetusAmanda Sferruzzi-Perri

The unborn baby ‘remote controls’ its mother’s metabolism so the two are in a nutritional tug of war. The mother’s body wants the baby to survive but needs to keep enough glucose and fats circulating in her system for her own health, to be able to deliver the baby, breastfeed and to reproduce again.

A new study from the University of Cambridge published today examines how the placenta communicates with the mother through the release of hormones so she will accommodate her baby’s growth. The placenta is a vital organ that develops with the fetus in pregnant women and other female mammals to support the developing fetus. In pregnant mice, scientists selectively altered the signalling cells in the placenta that tell mothers to allocate nutrients to her developing fetuses.

Professor Amanda Sferruzzi-Perri, Professor in Fetal and Placental Physiology, a Fellow of St John’s College and co-senior author of the paper, said: “It’s the first direct evidence that a gene inherited from the father is signalling to the mother to divert nutrients to the fetus.”

Dr Miguel Constancia, MRC Investigator based at the Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science and co-senior author of the paper, said: “The baby’s remote control system is operated by genes that can be switched on or off depending on whether they are a ‘dad’s’ or ‘mum’s’ gene’, the so-called imprinted genes.

“Genes controlled by the father are ‘greedy’ and ‘selfish’ and will tend to manipulate maternal resources for the benefit of the fetuses, so to grow them big and fittest. Although pregnancy is largely cooperative, there is a big arena for potential conflict between the mother and the baby, with imprinted genes and the placenta thought to play key roles.”

The findings by researchers from the Centre for Trophoblast Research at Cambridge’s Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience and the Medical Research Council Metabolic Diseases Unit, part of the Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science, have been published in Cell Metabolism.

The baby’s genes controlled by the father tend to promote fetal growth and those controlled by the mother tend to limit fetal growth.

Professor Sferruzzi-Perri explained: “Those genes from the mother that limit fetal growth are thought to be a mother’s way of ensuring her survival, so she doesn’t have a baby that takes all the nutrients and is too big and challenging to birth. The mother also has a chance of having subsequent pregnancies potentially with different males in the future to pass on her genes more widely.”

Researchers deleted the expression of an important imprinted gene called Igf2, which provides instructions for making a protein called ‘Insulin Like Growth Factor 2’. Similar to the hormone insulin, which is responsible for making and controlling glucose levels in our circulation, the gene promotes fetal growth and plays a key part in the development of fetal tissues including the placenta, liver and brain.

Dr Jorge Lopez-Tello, a lead author of the study based at the University’s Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience, said: “If the function of Igf2 from the father is switched off in signalling cells, the mother doesn’t make enough amounts of glucose and lipids – fats – available in her circulation. These nutrients therefore reach the fetus in insufficient amounts and the fetus doesn’t grow properly.”

The scientists found that deleting Igf2 from the placenta’s signalling cells affects the production of other hormones that modulate the way the mother’s pancreas produces insulin, and how her liver and other metabolic organs respond.

“We found Igf2 controls the hormones responsible for reducing insulin sensitivity in the mother during pregnancy. It means the mother’s tissues don’t absorb glucose so nutrients are more available in the circulation to be transferred to the fetus,” said Professor Sferruzzi-Perri.

Babies with Igf2 gene defects can be overgrown or growth-stunted. “Until now, we didn’t know that part of the Igf2 gene’s role is to regulate signalling to the mother to allocate nutrients to the fetus,” added Professor Sferruzzi-Perri.

The mice studied were smaller at birth and their offspring showed early signs of diabetes and obesity in later life.

Professor Sferruzzi-Perri said: “Our research highlights how important the controlled allocation of nutrients to the fetus is for the lifelong health of the offspring, and the direct role the placenta plays.

“The placenta is an amazing organ. At the end of pregnancy, the placenta is delivered by the mother, but the memories of how the placenta was functioning leaves a lasting legacy on the way those fetal organs have developed and then how they’re going to function through life.”

The next step is to understand how placental hormones are controlled by Igf2 and what those hormones are doing. Future research could help scientists discover new strategies to target the placenta to improve health outcomes for mums and babies.

Mice are used in research because the organisation of their DNA and their gene expression is similar to humans, with ninety-eight percent of human genes having a comparable gene in the mouse. They have similar reproductive and nervous systems to humans, and suffer from many of the same diseases such as obesity, cancer and diabetes.

Reference
Lopez-Tello, J et al. Fetal manipulation of maternal metabolism is a critical function of the imprinted Igf2 gene. Cell Metabolism; 11 July 2023; DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2023.06.007

Adapted from a press release from St John’s College Cambridge

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Adults who voluntarily take part in mindfulness courses are less likely to experience symptoms of anxiety and depression for at least six months after completing the programmes, compared to adults who do not take part, a new analysis pooling data from 13 studies has confirmed.

This study is the highest quality confirmation so far that the in-person mindfulness courses typically offered in the community do actually work for the average person.Dr Julieta Galante

University of Cambridge researchers looked at participants of group-based and teacher-led mindfulness courses, conducted in person and offered in community settings.

They say the results, published in the journal Nature Mental Health, should encourage uptake of similar teacher-led programmes in workplaces and educational institutions keen to help prevent mental health problems developing in members of their community.

“In our previous work it was still not clear whether these mindfulness courses could promote mental health across different community settings,” said lead researcher, Dr Julieta Galante, who conducted the research while at the University of Cambridge. “This study is the highest quality confirmation so far that the in-person mindfulness courses typically offered in the community do actually work for the average person.”

Mindfulness in these courses is typically defined as “the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment”.

These courses, formally known as mindfulness-based programmes (MBPs), often combine elements of meditation, body awareness and modern psychology, and are designed to help reduce stress, improve wellbeing, and enhance mental and emotional “resilience”. They consist of groups of participants led by mindfulness teachers, who promote reflection and sharing over several one-to-two hour sessions.

The body of research into the effectiveness of MBPs to date has been mixed. Cambridge researchers sought to confirm the effect of MBPs on psychological distress ‒ which encompasses disturbing or unpleasant mental or emotional experiences including symptoms of anxiety and depression.

They pooled and analysed data from 2,371 adults who had taken part in trials to assess the effectiveness of MBPs. Roughly half the participants had been randomly allocated places on mindfulness programmes that lasted for eight weeks, with a one- to two-and-a-half hour session per week and compared them to those that were not through self-reported questionnaires.

The study found that MBPs generated a small to moderate reduction in adults’ psychological distress, with 13% more participants seeing a benefit than those who did not attend an MBP.

The researchers found that existing psychological distress, age, gender, educational level and a disposition towards mindfulness did not change the effectiveness of MBPs.

Galante said: “We’ve confirmed that if adults choose to do a mindfulness course in person, with a teacher and offered in a group setting, this will, on average, be beneficial in terms of helping to reduce their psychological distress which will improve their mental health. However, we are not saying that it should be done by every single person; research shows that it just doesn’t work for some people.

“We’re also not saying you should absolutely choose a mindfulness class instead of something else you might benefit from, for example a football club – we have no evidence that mindfulness is better than other feel-good practices but if you’re not doing anything, these types of mindfulness courses are certainly among the options that can be helpful.”

The researchers conducted a systematic review to select previous studies for inclusion in their large-scale analysis. They obtained complete but anonymised data from 13 trials representing eight countries. The median age was 34 years-old, while 71% of participants were women.

While mindfulness apps are on the rise, researchers remain unsure whether it is the practice of mindfulness that reduces psychological distress, or the fact that courses involve in-person group-work with a teacher present.  

“Apps may be cheaper, but there is nowhere near the same evidence base for their effectiveness,” said Galante. “Some apps may say they are evidenced based, but they are often referring to trials that are in-person with a teacher and a group.”

The effectiveness of smartphone apps, as well as what happens when people continue to practice mindfulness meditation by themselves, will be investigated by Galante, who has recently taken up a new position as Deputy Director of the Contemplative Studies Centre, at the University of Melbourne.

“If you are offered an in-person four- or eight-week mindfulness course in a group setting with a teacher, and you are curious about it, I’d say based on this study, just go ahead and try it,” said Galante. “And for organisations wondering about offering these types of mindfulness courses to members of their community – this research suggests it may be a good investment if their communities express an interest.”

This research was funded by the National Institute for Health Research.

Reference:

Julieta Galante et al. Systematic review and individual participant data meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials assessing mindfulness-based programs for mental health promotion, Nature Mental Health DOI: 10.1038/s44220-023-00081-5https://www.youtube.com/embed/P5HJSiJxsqY?enablejsapi=1&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cam.ac.uk

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VC’s Address 1

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Professor Deborah Prentice was formally admitted to the office of Vice-Chancellor yesterday afternoon.

Having been admitted, the Vice-Chancellor delivered her inaugural address to the University at the Senate House in Cambridge.

Read the full transcript of the Vice-Chancellor’s speech

Professor Deborah Prentice is the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. An eminent psychologist, her academic expertise is in the study of social norms that govern human behaviour – particularly the impact and development of unwritten rules and conventions, and how people respond to breaches of those rules. She has edited three academic volumes and published more than 50 articles and chapters, and she has specialised in the study of domestic violence, alcohol abuse and gender stereotypes. As Vice-Chancellor, Professor Prentice provides academic and administrative leadership to the whole University community, and represents the University externally, within the UK and internationally.

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Study of 600 teenagers suggests that having stronger self-awareness and sense of purpose may raise GCSE Maths scores “by a couple of grades”.

Wellbeing education needs to move beyond notions of ‘boosting’ happiness towards deeper engagement, helping adolescents to realise their unique talents and aspirationsRos McLellan

Encouraging adolescents to feel capable and purposeful – rather than just happy – could improve their academic results as well as their mental health, according to new research which recommends changing how wellbeing is supported in schools.

The University of Cambridge study, involving over 600 teenagers from seven English schools, examined two separate aspects of their wellbeing: life satisfaction and ‘eudaimonia’. While life satisfaction roughly equates to how happy a person is, eudaimonia refers to how well that person feels they are functioning. It incorporates feelings of competence, motivation and self-esteem.

Researchers found that students with high levels of eudaimonia consistently outperformed their peers in GCSE-level assessments, especially Maths. On average, those achieving top Maths grades had eudaimonic wellbeing levels 1.5 times higher than those with the lowest grades.

No such link was found between academic performance and life satisfaction. Despite this, child wellbeing policy in England tends to focus on life satisfaction. The Government has, for example, recently added ‘happiness’ to national curricula as part of its Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) guidance, emphasising teaching adolescents how to feel happy and resilient while managing negative emotions.

Previous research has pointed to the importance of fostering adolescents’ eudaimonic wellbeing by nurturing their personal values, goals and sense of self-worth. The new study appears to strengthen that case by demonstrating a positive link between eudaimonia and academic performance.

Its lead author, Dr Tania Clarke, is a psychologist of education who now works for the Youth Endowment Fund, but undertook the study for her doctoral research at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. The findings are published in School Psychology Review.

“Wellbeing education often focuses on teaching students about being happy and not being sad.” Clarke said. “That is over-simplistic and overlooks other vital qualities of wellbeing that are particularly salient during the formative period of adolescence.”

“Adolescents also need to develop self-awareness, confidence, and ideally a sense of meaning and purpose. Judging by our findings, an adolescent who is currently getting a 3 or 4 on their Maths GCSE could be helped to rise a couple of grades if schools emphasised these qualities for all students, rather than just promoting positivity and minimising negative emotions.”

The study involved 607 adolescents, aged 14-15. Participants completed an established psychological assessment called ‘How I feel about myself and school’, which measures both life satisfaction and eudaimonia, as well as feelings of interpersonal relatedness and negativity.

These measures were compared with their scores in mock English and Maths GCSEs. The research also assessed whether the students exhibited a ‘growth mindset’: a belief in their personal capacity for improvement. Many educators consider this essential for enhancing academic performance.

The students’ overall wellbeing – their eudaimonia and life satisfaction combined – clearly correlated positively with their exam results. Those attaining top Maths grades (Grades 8 or 9) had, on average, a wellbeing score of 32 out of a possible 50. This was nine points higher than those with a Grade 1, and three to four points higher than the average for all 607 students.

When they analysed the separate dimensions of wellbeing, however, the researchers found a positive relationship between eudaimonia and higher attainment, but no correlation with life satisfaction. In Maths, the average eudaimonic wellbeing score of Grade 9 students was 17.3 from a possible 25, while that of Grade 1 students was just 10.9. These results held true even when accounting for potentially confounding factors, such as school attended, gender, socio-economic status, or special educational needs.

The study also found that a growth mindset did not predict good academic results, although students with high eudaimonic wellbeing did tend to exhibit such a mindset. Other research has similarly struggled to draw a clear link between growth mindset and academic progress, but does link it more generally to positive mental health. This implies that eudaimonia, as well as supporting better attainment, may also underpin important aspects of self-belief, leading to broader mental health benefits.

Clarke’s wider research suggests that various constraints currently limit schools’ capacity to promote eudaimonic wellbeing. In an earlier Review of Education article she published the results of in-depth interviews with some of the same students, which highlighted concerns about a ‘performativity culture’ stemming from a heavy emphasis on high-stakes testing. These interviews indicated that many students associate ‘doing well’ with getting good grades, rather than with their own strengths, values and goals.

Students said they often felt worthless, inadequate or “dumb” if they failed to get high marks in tests. “You let your scores define you,” one student told Clarke. “Then you feel really low about… your worth and everything. You think it’s literally the end of the world.” Ironically, the new findings suggest that by limiting teachers’ capacity to support students’ personal growth, the heavy emphasis on exam results and testing may be undermining academic progress, at least in some cases.

Clarke suggested that eudaimonic therapy, which increasingly features in professional mental health psychology for adolescents, could be incorporated more into wellbeing education. In particular, her study underscores the need to help students understand their academic work and progress in the context of their personal motivations and goals.

“There is a link between better wellbeing and a more nuanced understanding of academic success,” Clarke said. “Because schools are under heavy pressure to deliver academic results, at the moment students seem to be measuring themselves against the exam system, rather than in terms of who they want to be or what they want to achieve.”

Dr Ros McLellan, from the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, who co-authored the study, said: “Wellbeing education needs to move beyond notions of ‘boosting’ happiness towards deeper engagement, helping adolescents to realise their unique talents and aspirations, and a sense of what happiness means for them, personally. This would not just improve wellbeing: it is also likely to mean better exam results, and perhaps fewer issues for students later on.”

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Cambridge Enterprise, the research commercialisation arm of the University of Cambridge, marked its 15th anniversary with a remarkable series of achievements.

With 304 patent applications filed, 144 licences executed, a record 441 consultancy contracts signed, and a seed fund portfolio valuation at an all-time high of £124 million, Cambridge Enterprise is helping the University deliver real impact.

Cambridge Enterprise’s contribution to the UK economy through innovation is part of the wider financial impact of the University of Cambridge – which, according to a recent London Economics report, contributes almost £30 billion to the UK economy. Over 77% of this total contribution is the result of commercialisation of knowledge transfer activities.

Last year Cambridge Enterprise returned over £20 million to the University and its departments – supporting the development of an entrepreneurial culture and re-investing in research and education. The scale of these returns affirms the crucial role of Cambridge Enterprise in fuelling innovation on behalf of the University, and demonstrates the overall success of Cambridge Enterprise’s activity.

It has been a year for demonstrating the value and potential of University research commercialisation activities. Cambridge Enterprise also played a leading role in the publication of the TenU University Spin Out Investment Terms (USIT) guide. The guide was developed in partnership with six leading university technology transfer offices and a number of leading venture capital firms and represented the first joint commitment of both the university sector and venture capitalist community.  The guide sets out a landing zone for University led spin out deals and will be a critical tool in transforming research commercialisation in the UK, speeding up negotiations and attracting greater levels of investment.

In partnership with Cambridge Innovation Capital and the University of Cambridge, Cambridge Enterprise has also this year led to the creation of Innovate Cambridge  – a new initiative to develop an inclusive, forward-looking and ambitious vision for the future of Cambridge and its innovation ecosystem. More than one hundred organisations have pledged their support by signing the Innovate Cambridge Charter, which promotes collaboration, enhancement, and the development of ecosystem-wide initiatives to realise the shared vision. Through the University Enterprise Network, Cambridge Enterprise has additionally established a new IE Cambridge initiative, which aims to make it easier for those who are interested in the Cambridge innovation space to navigate and engage meaningfully with existing activity.

Other standout moments for Cambridge Enterprise this year include:

• The acquisition of portfolio company Gyroscope Therapeutics – a company Cambridge Enterprise has supported since its initial IP disclosure – by Novartis Pharmaceuticals for an impressive sum of up to $1.5 billion.  
• £50 million Series B funding round secured by portfolio company Nyobolt, propelling the company’s mission in sustainable energy storage, and scaling up manufacturing operations.
• A new Commercialisation of Research out of Social Science (CRoSS) initiative in partnership with the University’s Social Sciences Impact team, funded by the UKRI Economic and Social Research Council, inspiring novel approaches to social sciences commercialisation.
• The ongoing success of DigiVis, an innovative software to self-administer eye tests and improve medical support for eye care, the copyright of which was licensed by Cambridge Enterprise to Cambridge Medical Innovation Limited.
• Ongoing work to tackling the innovation gap needed to achieve Net Zero with a newly launched Sustainability Initiative, as part of the University’s leadership on and commitment to Net Zero.
• A total of £10.6 million invested in 34 spin outs in the last financial year.

There has been much to celebrate this year. Universities have long been bastions of optimism and innovation, continuously seeking solutions to global challenges. Cambridge Enterprise is unwavering in its commitment to translating these solutions into real-world impact, benefitting both the economy and the broader society. With the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence and the convergence of physical and digital worlds, the coming decade is poised to be more disruptive than ever. Cambridge Enterprise will therefore seek to increase the impact and influence of University research, acknowledging the urgency for these transformative technologies and supporting the thriving UK innovation ecosystem.

Read the Annual Review 2022 online

Adapted from a press release from Cambridge Enterprise

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A clinical academic community nurse at the University of Cambridge has been named as one of the top 75 nurses and midwives who have contributed in a significant way to the National Health Service since its creation.

Dr Ben Bowers, a Wellcome Postdoctoral Research Fellow, has been honoured by Nursing Times as part of celebrations of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the NHS.

Based at the University’s Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Ben specialises in palliative and end-of-life care and is a Postdoctoral Associate at Jesus College, Cambridge. An alum of Homerton College and Trinity Hall, he left school at 16 with no qualifications to his name and it was a chance visit to an Accident & Emergency department that inspired him to go into nursing.

“I am delighted about this award, I’m actually still a bit in shock!” says Ben.

“To be named as one of the leading lights in my field, I can’t even process it properly.”

As a clinical academic, Ben has a dual role, working in healthcare at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust while researching ways to improve patient outcomes. He is also an interdisciplinary nurse researcher, working with colleagues across engineering, patient safety, social sciences, primary care and palliative care. Ben also co-founded and leads the UK-wide Queen’s Nursing Institute Research Forum, helping to develop community nursing research capacity.

Ben’s research is focused on anticipatory prescribing, under which ‘just in case’ medicine boxes are given to patients who are reaching the end of their life at home. Containing strong prescription painkillers and other drugs, the boxes are intended to ensure that patients have quick and easy access to medicine to ease symptoms of pain and discomfort.

However, Ben’s research has found that prescribing medicine boxes can alarm families, or that they may receive inadequate information about the drugs and symptoms that can be experienced in the last days of life. His research has also found that anticipatory medicine is sometimes used as a ‘sticking plaster’ solution to a more complex problem. 

While Ben fully supports anticipatory prescribing, his research has highlighted a need for better communication with patients and their loved ones. “It’s a critical intervention, we just sometimes need to communicate it better, and put it in place at the right time,” he says.

And his research has had an immediate impact on clinical practice. Ben says: “I’ve had community services come to me and say: ‘It’s so important what you are doing. You’re making us question motherhood and apple pie, challenging clinical assumptions and helping us to improve end-of-life care.’ It’s great to hear that my work is having that impact.”

Ben thinks part of the reason he’s been given the award is because he is still a relatively rare beast in the world of medicine.

“There’s an ambition for at least one in 100 nurses to be clinical academics, when in reality it’s probably less than one in 1,000, so if this award does anything I hope it encourages nurses to consider clinical academia – it’s a brilliant career and can give you the chance to improve patient care on a really wide scale,” says Ben.
 

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Treatment times for radiotherapy could be reduced for some early breast cancer patients, according to a trial led by University of Cambridge and The Institute of Cancer Research, London.

This is a careful step towards even shorter courses of radiotherapy that include more complex techniques. By delivering more targeted boost radiotherapy over shorter time periods, women can get on with their lives more quicklyCharlotte Coles

Results from the IMPORT HIGH trial, published in The Lancet, show that giving some breast cancer patients a targeted additional dose of radiotherapy at the same time as treament to the whole breast (known as simultaneous integrated boost or SIB) cuts the time taken to complete treatment by at least one week.

The trial, funded by Cancer Research UK and the National Institute of Health Research and Care Research (NIHR), found that SIB radiotherapy given at the right dose works just as well as existing radiotherapy techniques in reducing the risk of the cancer returning in the treated breast.

The chance of the cancer returning to the treated breast remained very low after 5 years across all treatment groups. Patients given the lower dose of SIB radiotherapy reported similar rates of side-effects, like breast hardening or firmness, as those who received the standard sequential radiotherapy schedule.

Currently, women with a higher than average risk of cancer coming back in their treated breast are given an additional radiotherapy dose to the original site of the tumour after radiotherapy is given to the entire breast. This approach, known as sequential boost, maximises the chances that any remaining cancer cells are removed from the breast.

But it takes longer for women to complete sequential boost radiotherapy, requiring them to attend more hospital appointments. In the UK, many women requiring breast boost radiotherapy are given 4 weeks of radiotherapy – 3 weeks to the whole breast with 1 week boost afterwards. In some countries, women are given 6.5 weeks of radiotherapy – 5 weeks of whole breast radiotherapy with 1-1.5 weeks boost afterwards. SIB radiotherapy cuts this down to just 3 weeks in total.

A boost treatment also increases the chance of having potentially long term side-effects after treatment, including changes in shape, size and texture of the breast that can affect women’s self-esteem and wellbeing.

In total, 2,617 patients at 76 centres took part in the trial. Patients were divided into three groups. The first group received whole breast radiotherapy with a sequential boost over 4.5 weeks in total. The second and third groups each received two different doses of SIB radiotherapy. Patients received whole breast radiotherapy with a simultaneous boost of either lower or higher dose a dose over 3 weeks in total. There was no advantage shown for those who received the higher boost dose it also led to slightly increased rates of side effects.  

Professor of Breast Cancer Clinical Oncology at Cambridge University, NIHR Professor and chief investigator for the trial, Professor Charlotte Coles, said: “Some women have to live with permanent breast changes after radiotherapy which may affect their well-being. With SIB, we can deliver high-quality effective radiotherapy whilst minimising toxicity from it.

“This is a careful step towards even shorter courses of radiotherapy that include more complex techniques. By delivering more targeted boost radiotherapy over shorter time periods, women can get on with their lives more quickly.”

The NIHR-funded FAST Forward trial, which was also led by the ICR-CTSU and reported results in 2020, showed that whole breast radiotherapy could be given over a week. Researchers are now hoping to run another clinical trial to find out if SIB radiotherapy can be delivered to patients requiring a boost in just one week.

Professor Judith Bliss, Professor of Clinical Trials at The Institute of Cancer Research, London,  Director of the Cancer Research UK-funded Clinical Trials and Statistics Unit at the ICR which is managing the IMPORT HIGH trial, said: “For some patients who have a higher risk of seeing their cancer return in the treated breast, delivering an extra, targeted boost of radiotherapy to breast tissue close to the original tumour site is an effective way to lower that risk and help keep cancer from returning to the breast.

“IMPORT HIGH has uncovered how we can streamline our delivery of these radiotherapy boosts – giving them simultaneously with whole breast radiotherapy – without impacting the effectiveness of treatment, or causing patients additional side effects.  We hope this trial will change clinical practice – allowing women to benefit from sophisticated radiotherapy delivery with shorter treatment times and fewer hospital visits.”

The team hope that SIB radiotherapy could reduce the costs for patients travelling to hospital and cut the time taken to undergo treatment and recovery. It could be quickly adopted by the NHS and health systems worldwide as standard radiotherapy equipment is used, freeing up valuable appointment visits that could be used to treat more cancer patients sooner.

Chief Executive of Cancer Research UK, Michelle Mitchell, said: “At a time when health services across the UK are facing chronic staff shortages in cancer services, we need to look at new ways to get more patients treated as quickly as possible. In addition to training up more staff, more precise forms of radiotherapy can help to reduce the number of people who are waiting too long to begin vital treatment.

“Trials like IMPORT HIGH are leading the way in delivering smarter radiotherapy with existing technology. We hope that treatment centres across the UK and globally will rapidly adopt this approach to beat breast cancer sooner and give patients more precious time with their loved ones.”

Reference
Coles, CE et al. Dose-escalated simultaneous integrated boost radiotherapy in early breast cancer (IMPORT HIGH): a multicentre, phase 3, non-inferiority, open-label, randomised controlled trial. Lancet; 8 June 2023; DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(23)00619-0

Adapted from a press release by Cancer Research UK.

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Helen Lee (46) from Mepal near Cambridge

In October 2013, Helen Lee first noticed an unusual twinge in her right breast and had a hunch that something wasn’t right. Her GP couldn’t feel anything when she examined Helen but referred her to the Breast Unit at Addenbrooke’s Hospital for a mammogram to reassure her.

But, at the young age of 36, Helen was diagnosed with breast cancer. The mammogram revealed a tumour just over 2cm in size located deep in her breast tissue. She remembered:

“I felt quite relieved because I knew there was something wrong. And my surgeon said it was so deep I wouldn’t have felt it. So I was actually really lucky otherwise I would have come in at 51 for screening and it might not have been treatable by then.”

Helen had surgery a few weeks after her diagnosis, followed by a course of chemotherapy. When she was due to begin radiotherapy treatment she was asked if she would like to take part in the IMPORT HIGH trial. Helen was assigned to a group receiving a targeted radiotherapy boost delivered simultaneously during her whole breast radiotherapy treatment, which reduced her treatment from 23 sessions over 4.5 weeks to 15 sessions over 3 weeks.

After undergoing surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment, Helen has now been clear of cancer for nearly 10 years. Since her diagnosis and treatment, she has taken part regularly in Cancer Research UK Race for Life, Pretty Muddy and Shine Night Walk events in Cambridge, Bedford and Stamford, fundraising for life-saving research into future treatments for cancer patients.

Reflecting on her cancer journey, Helen said: “One thing that really struck me, at one of the first Cambridge Race for Life events that I did after my diagnosis, was watching the screen on Parker’s Piece where they’re playing the films where the scientists are talking about what they’ve been working on.

“I felt so overwhelmed that all of the people there that day were part of saving my life, and that all the people who took part in trials 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, everything they’ve done meant that I survived my cancer.”

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A European mission to explore how gravity, dark energy and dark matter shaped the evolution of the Universe soared into space today from Cape Canaveral.

The Euclid mission will finally uncover the mysteries of how these ‘dark’ forces have shaped the cosmos that we see today, from life here on Earth, to our Sun, our Milky Way, our nearby galaxy neighbours, and the wider Universe beyondNicholas Walton

The Euclid space telescope will map the “dark Universe” by observing billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light-years, across more than a third of the sky, to gather data on how its structure has formed over its cosmic history.

Led by the European Space Agency (ESA) and a consortium of 2,000 scientists, including from the University of Cambridge, Euclid will spend six years venturing through space with two scientific instruments: a UK-built visible imager (VIS) that will become one of the largest cameras ever sent into space, and a near infrared spectrometer and photometer, developed in France. The mission is supported by funding from the UK Space Agency.

“Watching the launch of Euclid, I feel inspired by the years of hard work from thousands of people that go into space science missions, and the fundamental importance of discovery – how we set out to understand and explore the Universe,” said Chief Executive of the UK Space Agency, Dr Paul Bate. “The UK Space Agency’s investment in Euclid has supported world-class science on this journey, from the development of the ground segment to the build of the crucial visible imager instrument, which will help humanity begin to uncover the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy.”

Euclid took off on board a SpaceX spacecraft from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 4.11pm (BST) on 1 July.

Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy team has been involved in Euclid since 2010, supporting development of the astrometric calibration pipeline for the optical image data from Euclid, ensuring that the positions of the billions of sources to be imaged by Euclid can be determined to exquisite accuracy.

“Dark energy and dark matter fundamentally govern the formation and evolution of our Universe,” said Dr Nicholas Walton from the Institute of Astronomy. “The Euclid mission will finally uncover the mysteries of how these ‘dark’ forces have shaped the cosmos that we see today, from life here on Earth, to our Sun, our Milky Way, our nearby galaxy neighbours, and the wider Universe beyond.”

The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) also contributed to design and development work on Euclid instrumentation and provided funding to UK astronomy teams who will analyse the data returned from the mission about the physics responsible for the observed accelerated expansion of the Universe. 

“This is a fantastic example of close collaboration between scientists, engineers, technicians, and astronomers across Europe working together to tackle some of the biggest questions in science,” said Mark Thomson, Executive Chair at STFC.

UK Space Agency funding for the Euclid mission is divided between teams at University College London, The Open University, University of Cambridge, University of Edinburgh, University of Oxford, University of Portsmouth and Durham University.

The wider Euclid Consortium includes experts from 300 organisations across 13 European countries, the US, Canada and Japan.

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The Environmental Sustainability Team at the University of Cambridge hosted its first-ever Sustainability Showcase on 21st June at Wolfson College.

Departing from the traditional format of separate award ceremonies, the showcase brought together numerous sustainability engagement programs administered by the Environmental Sustainability Team (EST), along with initiatives from other departments within the university.

Dr Sally Pidgeon, Head of Environmental Sustainability at the EST, opened the showcase which celebrated the exceptional efforts of volunteers, staff, and students, with a particular focus on the Green Impact program. 

A total of 43 awards were bestowed for outstanding contributions to sustainability, including an impressive 12 teams that achieved Platinum status. To earn Platinum recognition, teams had to successfully complete 80% of the Green Impact workbook, demonstrating their dedication to sustainable practices. 

The esteemed institutions and teams that attained Platinum status this year included Cambridge University Press and Assessment Cape Town, Cancer Research UK, IMS-MRL, The Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, The Green Genies – DPHPC, Christ’s College, Churchill College, Clare College, Gonville & Caius College, Robinson College, St John’s College, and Wolfson College.

Additionally, nine teams achieved Excellence status, which involved undertaking a seven-month project centred around a specific sustainability theme of their choosing. These projects encompassed a wide range of sustainability aspects and addressed various challenges. 

Some notable projects included:

• The Botanic Gardens: Exploring methods to reduce energy demands in the uninsulated, Grade II listed building at 1 Brookside.
• Jesus and Churchill Colleges’ Seed Library: Establishing a seed library to promote sustainable agriculture.
• Lucy Cavendish College: Creating a Living Lab for Green Nudges to encourage sustainable behaviours.
• Murray Edwards College: Implementing the Student Sustainability Leaders Programme.
• Robinson College: Enhancing sustainability in guest supplies at the college.

Within the Green Impact program, teams also had the opportunity to nominate colleagues, students, and projects for ‘Special Awards’ to recognize exceptional contributions. Many of these individuals voluntarily dedicated significant amounts of time and effort to promote sustainability within their respective colleges, institutions, departments, or workplaces. 

The winners of these special awards were announced as follows:

• Sustainability Hero:
  • Winner: Ivan Higney, Darwin College
  • Highly Commended: Oscar Holgate, Wolfson College
• Innovation for Engagement:
  • Winner: Animal agriculture, Lucy Cavendish College
  • Highly Commended: Sustainability Thinking Space, Wolfson College
• Environmental Improvement:
  • Winner: Clare College Braeside
  • Highly Commended: Cambridge University Press and Assessment, South Africa Biodiversity Hikes
• Community Action:
  • Winner: Darwin College, Project Second Life
• Student Leadership Award:
  • Winner: Deidre Boodoosingh, Wolfson College
  • Highly Commended: Lauren Court, Girton College

Furthermore, seven LEAF awards were presented to lab-based teams as part of the newly established program. The LEAF awards recognize outstanding sustainability efforts in laboratories that reduce the carbon footprint of their work.

You can read more about the Sustainability Showcase from the EST team here.

Sarah Maycock from Meet Cambridge, winner of a Silver Green Impact Award.1 of 3

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Researchers have demonstrated how carbon dioxide can be captured from industrial processes – or even directly from the air – and transformed into clean, sustainable fuels using just the energy from the sun.

We’re not just interested in decarbonisation, but de-fossilisation – we need to completely eliminate fossil fuels in order to create a truly circular economyErwin Reisner

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, developed a solar-powered reactor that converts captured CO2 and plastic waste into sustainable fuels and other valuable chemical products. In tests, CO2 was converted into syngas, a key building block for sustainable liquid fuels, and plastic bottles were converted into glycolic acid, which is widely used in the cosmetics industry.

Unlike earlier tests of their solar fuels technology however, the team took CO2 from real-world sources – such as industrial exhaust or the air itself. The researchers were able to capture and concentrate the CO2 and convert it into sustainable fuel.

Although improvements are needed before this technology can be used at an industrial scale, the results, reported in the journal Joule, represent another important step toward the production of clean fuels to power the economy, without the need for environmentally destructive oil and gas extraction.

For several years, Professor Erwin Reisner’s research group, based in the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, has been developing sustainable, net-zero carbon fuels inspired by photosynthesis – the process by which plants convert sunlight into food – using artificial leaves. These artificial leaves convert CO2 and water into fuels using just the power of the sun.

To date, their solar-driven experiments have used pure, concentrated CO2 from a cylinder, but for the technology to be of practical use, it needs to be able to actively capture CO2 from industrial processes, or directly from the air. However, since CO2 is just one of many types of molecules in the air we breathe, making this technology selective enough to convert highly diluted CO2 is a huge technical challenge.

“We’re not just interested in decarbonisation, but de-fossilisation – we need to completely eliminate fossil fuels in order to create a truly circular economy,” said Reisner. “In the medium term, this technology could help reduce carbon emissions by capturing them from industry and turning them into something useful, but ultimately, we need to cut fossil fuels out of the equation entirely and capture CO2 from the air.”

The researchers took their inspiration from carbon capture and storage (CCS), where CO2 is captured and then pumped and stored underground.

“CCS is a technology that’s popular with the fossil fuel industry as a way to reduce carbon emissions while continuing oil and gas exploration,” said Reisner. “But if instead of carbon capture and storage, we had carbon capture and utilisation, we could make something useful from CO2 instead of burying it underground, with unknown long-term consequences, and eliminate the use of fossil fuels.”

The researchers adapted their solar-driven technology so that it works with flue gas or directly from the air, converting CO2 and plastics into fuel and chemicals using only the power of the sun.

By bubbling air through the system containing an alkaline solution, the CO2 selectively gets trapped, and the other gases present in air, such as nitrogen and oxygen, harmlessly bubble out. This bubbling process allows the researchers to concentrate the CO2 from air in solution, making it easier to work with.

The integrated system contains a photocathode and an anode. The system has two compartments: on one side is captured CO2 solution that gets converted into syngas, a simple fuel. On the other plastics are converted into useful chemicals using only sunlight.  

“The plastic component is an important trick to this system,” said co-first author Dr Motiar Rahaman. “Capturing and using CO2 from the air makes the chemistry more difficult. But, if we add plastic waste to the system, the plastic donates electrons to the CO2. The plastic breaks down to glycolic acid, which is widely used in the cosmetics industry, and the CO2 is converted into syngas, which is a simple fuel.”

“This solar-powered system takes two harmful waste products – plastic and carbon emissions – and converts them into something truly useful,” said co-first author Dr Sayan Kar.

“Instead of storing CO2 underground, like in CCS, we can capture it from the air and make clean fuel from it,” said Rahaman. “This way, we can cut out the fossil fuel industry from the process of fuel production, which can hopefully help us avoid climate destruction.”

“The fact that we can effectively take CO2 from air and make something useful from it is special,” said Kar. “It’s satisfying to see that we can actually do it using only sunlight.”

The scientists are currently working on a bench-top demonstrator device with improved efficiency and practicality to highlight the benefits of coupling direct air capture with CO2 utilisation as a path to a zero-carbon future.

The research was supported in part by the Weizmann Institute of Science, the European Commission Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship, the Winton Programme for the Physics of Sustainability, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). Erwin Reisner is a Fellow and Motiar Rahaman is a Research Associate of St John’s College, Cambridge. Erwin Reisner leads the Cambridge Circular Plastics Centre (CirPlas), which aims to eliminate plastic waste by combining blue-sky thinking with practical measures.

Reference:
Sayan Kar, Motiar Rahaman et al. ‘Integrated Capture and Solar-driven Utilization of CO2 from Flue Gas and Air.’ Joule (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.joule.2023.05.022

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‘Lightning McGreen’ and the ‘The Sustainable Hulk’ will lead a new fleet of nine electric buses plying routes travelled by students and staff across the University of Cambridge on the Universal bus route, scheduled to be put into service later this year by bus operator Whippet. 

Alongside the two famed children’s animation and comic book-inspired characters, the names ‘Greenhopper’, ‘Net-Zero Hero’, ‘Pollution Solution’, ‘The Peregreen Falcon’, ‘Eco Eddie’ and ‘The Green Clean Machine’, were also chosen for the fleet from a selection offered by students from the University of Cambridge Primary School in a bus naming competition. 

The competition invited students from the school in the University-built neighbourhood of Eddington to unleash their imagination. Participants were encouraged to consider factors such as the sustainability benefits and innovative features of the new buses in their naming choices. This initiative aimed to engage young minds in a fun and educational way, while also contributing to the enhancement of public transport within the local community.  

Over the past few weeks, the competition captured the attention and enthusiasm of a large number of Eddington school children, attracting well over 100 entries. Their creativity and thoughtfulness were truly remarkable, making the selection process a challenging yet enjoyable task for the judging panel.

The final selection was made by a panel of representatives from the University of Cambridge and Whippet’s parent company, Ascendal Group. The panel carefully evaluated each entry and assessed the names based on originality, relevance, and the potential to resonate with the local community.

“We were overwhelmed by the incredible response from the young participants,” said Nicoletta Gennaro, Ascendal’s Group Head of Marketing. “The names suggested by these talented children were not only impressive but also reflected their deep understanding of our community’s values and aspirations. We are thrilled to involve them in shaping the identity of our new electric buses.”

Winners of the competition received special recognition at a dedicated award ceremony at the University of Cambridge Primary School, where they received prizes from representatives from Whippet and the University.

“We believe that involving the youth in important community projects like this fosters a sense of belonging and ownership,” added Mike Davies, Transport Manager at the University of Cambridge. “Through their contribution, we hope to inspire future generations to actively participate in shaping the development of our city and how we move.”

Both Whippet and the University of Cambridge would like to extend their sincere gratitude to all the participating students and staff at the University of Cambridge Primary School for their invaluable contributions to the competition. The event marks a significant milestone in promoting creativity, community engagement, and the importance of sustainable public transport.

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The University of Cambridge has launched a project to develop the first governance framework for research involving stem cell-based human embryo models in the UK.

We hope that the resulting self-governance framework will enable scientists to proceed with their research with confidence, while maintaining public trust in this vital area of researchKathy Niakan

The Governance of Stem Cell-Based Embryo Models (G-SCBEM) project is led by Cambridge Reproduction and brings together scientists, legal scholars and bioethics experts, as well as representatives from major funders and regulators of this research.

Stem cell-based embryo models (SCBEMs) are three-dimensional structures that mimic aspects of embryo development. They can be created from embryonic stem cells, which can be persuaded to form structures that share a number of features with the embryonic blastocyst stage – the stage at which, in conception, the embryo begins the process of implanting into the uterus.

SCBEMs may offer insight into these critical stages of early development – stages that are normally inaccessible to researchers. They also offer potential for understanding some of the problems that can affect early pregnancies and lead to miscarriage or birth defects. Given that one in four pregnancies is estimated to end in miscarriage, this research has the potential to transform treatments for recurrent miscarriage and to improve the success rates of IVF and other fertility treatments.

Research using human embryos in the UK is tightly regulated by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, which prohibits scientists from culturing human embryos in the lab beyond 14 days.  However, despite the resemblance to human blastocysts (the cluster of cells that forms about five days after an egg is fertilised), SCBEMS are not themselves embryos.  They can be derived from embryonic stem cells but can only form in specific conditions within the laboratory.  Because of this, they do not fall under the remit of the HFE Act. 

Currently there is no dedicated regulatory framework addressing research using SCBEMs, although existing UK law does prohibit them from ever being transferred into a woman’s womb.  Nonetheless, the absence of clear, transparent guidance in this area hinders research and risks damaging public confidence.

Cambridge Reproduction, working in partnership with the Progress Educational Trust (PET), aims to break this deadlock by producing a clear and comprehensive recommended governance framework for research using SCBEMs. As this is an emerging area of research, the team is consulting widely to determine the opportunities, areas of consensus and concerns posed by SCBEMs.

The consultation will also lay the groundwork for engaging the public and other stakeholders in a parallel two-way dialogue around the use of SCBEMs for research and in translation.

“This is a fast-developing area and the project will open important dialogues with researchers, funders, regulators and the general public,” said Professor Kathy Niakan, Chair of Cambridge Reproduction. “We hope that the resulting self-governance framework will enable scientists to proceed with their research with confidence, while maintaining public trust in this vital area of research.”

“Given the similarities that SCBEMs have with human embryos, they offer enormous potential to unlock secrets of early pregnancy,” said Professor Roger Sturmey from Hull York Medical School, Chair of the G-SCBEM Guidelines Working Group. “However, because of these similarities, it is important that scientists working in this field maintain high standards and public confidence and so we hope that a self-governance framework will provide this.”

Sandy Starr, Deputy Director of PET and a member of the G-SCBEM Oversight Group, said, “SCBEMs open up avenues of research that are vitally important for people affected by infertility or genetic conditions. Use of SCBEMs can advance our understanding of human development, disease and reproduction, improving established reproductive technologies while opening up new possibilities. For this research to thrive, it needs to be conducted responsibly and governed in a clear and transparent way, which is where the G-SCBEM project comes in.”

The G-SCBEM guidance will be launched in the late autumn, and will be regularly reviewed to ensure that it keeps pace with new scientific developments.

The G-SCBEM project is funded by grants from the BBSRC Impact Acceleration Account and the University of Cambridge Impact and Knowledge Exchange fund.

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The Hardouyn Hours, a jewelled fifteenth-century prayer book in Trinity College Library belonged to Thomas Cromwell, chief minister to King Henry VIII, new research has found.

The most exciting Cromwell discovery in a generation – if not more.Tracy Borman

Hever Castle curator, Alison Palmer, recognised the bejewelled, silver gilt binding of Trinity’s Book of Hours from the famous portrait of Thomas Cromwell painted by Hans Holbein the Younger in 1532-3, which hangs in the Frick Collection in New York. Palmer then worked with colleagues Kate McCaffrey and Dr Owen Emmerson to uncover the mystery of the book’s ownership.

The researchers followed a provenance trail that links the book from its donor, Dame Anne Sadleir, directly back to Thomas Cromwell. A team of experts have reviewed the new evidence and are confident that this is the very same book in the Holbein painting and that it belonged to Thomas Cromwell.

The Hardouyn Hours is thought to be the only object from any Tudor portrait to survive to this day.

The team established that the book, printed in Paris by Germain Hardouyn in 1527 or 1528, would have been among the books left by Cromwell to his secretary and protege Ralph Sadleir.

The book came to Trinity from Dame Anne Sadleir who married the grandson of Cromwell’s secretary. Anne was the daughter of the eminent lawyer Sir Edward Coke, a member of Trinity. She donated this Book of Hours, along with Trinity’s best-known manuscript – The Trinity Apocalypse – to the College in 1660.

Trinity’s Librarian Dr Nicolas Bell has collaborated with researchers at Cambridge and beyond to find out more about the Hardouyn Hours.

Based on a note in the front of the book, the gems on the covers and clasps were thought to be jaspers or jacinths, but analysis by Joanna Symonowicz, a doctoral researcher working with Dr Giuliana Di Martino in the University’s Department of Materials Science & Metallurgy, has used Raman spectroscopy to identify them as grossular garnets.

Michèle Bimbenet-Privat, formerly curator of metalwork at the Louvre in Paris, has confirmed that the silver gilt edging was made by Pierre Mangot, goldsmith to King Francis I of France. Mangot, who had moved to Paris the previous year from Blois, also made items for members of the Boleyn family. Mangot’s hallmark is the letter ‘M’ and a lower case ‘a’ tells us that the binding was made between December 1529 and 1530, in Paris, only a year or two after the book was printed.

The Holbein portrait celebrates Cromwell’s appointment as Master of the Jewel House which may explain why the Hardouyn Hours features so prominently.

Dr Nicolas Bell said: “This book of devotional prayers is remarkable for its unusually grand binding, covered with velvet, jewels and highly decorated silver gilt borders, all of which date from the time it was printed and illuminated. It has been enormously exciting to position this luxurious creation in the very centre of the court of Henry VIII, where we know that both Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn owned copies of the very same edition.”

Kate McCaffrey, from Hever Castle, said: “We now believe that Anne Boleyn, Catherine of Aragon, and Thomas Cromwell all owned a copy of the same prayer book… We are confident that this discovery will shed new light on the often-troubled relationship between these giants of the Tudor court.”

Dr Tracy Borman said it was: “The most exciting Cromwell discovery in a generation – if not more.”

Hever Castle recently exhibited Catherine of Aragon’s 1527 prayer book (on loan from the Morgan Library in New York) alongside Anne Boleyn’s 1527 Book of Hours.

The Hardouyn Hours will be on loan to Hever Castle for their exhibition Catherine & Anne: Queens, Rivals, Mothers which runs until 10 November 2023. This is the first time that the book has ever been lent by Trinity College since it was received on 10th August 1660.

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A study of the DNA of more than 55,000 people worldwide has shed light on how we maintain healthy blood sugar levels after we have eaten, with implications for our understanding of how the process goes wrong in type 2 diabetes.

What’s exciting about this is that it shows how we can go from large scale genetic studies to understanding fundamental mechanisms of how our bodies workAlice Williamson

The findings, published today in Nature Genetics, could help inform future treatments of type 2 diabetes, which affects around 4 million people in the UK and over 460 million people worldwide.

Several factors contribute to an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, such as older age, being overweight or having obesity, physical inactivity, and genetic predisposition. If untreated, type 2 diabetes can lead to complications, including eye and foot problems, nerve damage, and increased risk of heart attack and stroke.

A key player in the development of the condition is insulin, a hormone that regulates blood sugar – glucose – levels. People who have type 2 diabetes are unable to correctly regulate their glucose levels, either because they don’t secrete enough insulin when glucose levels increase, for example after eating a meal, or because their cells are less sensitive to insulin, a phenomenon known as ‘insulin resistance’.

Most studies to date of insulin resistance have focused on the fasting state – that is, several hours after a meal – when insulin is largely acting on the liver.  But we spend most of our time in the fed state, when insulin acts on our muscle and fat tissues.

It’s thought that the molecular mechanisms underlying insulin resistance after a so-called ‘glucose challenge’ – a sugary drink, or a meal, for example – play a key role in the development of type 2 diabetes. Yet these mechanisms are poorly-understood.

Professor Sir Stephen O’Rahilly, Co-Director of the Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science at the University of Cambridge, said: “We know there are some people with specific rare genetic disorders in whom insulin works completely normally in the fasting state, where it’s acting mostly on the liver, but very poorly after a meal, when it’s acting mostly on muscle and fat. What has not been clear is whether this sort of problem occurs more commonly in the wider population, and whether it’s relevant to the risk of getting type 2 diabetes.” 

To examine these mechanisms, an international team of scientists used genetic data from 28 studies, encompassing more than 55,000 participants (none of whom had type 2 diabetes), to look for key genetic variants that influenced insulin levels measured two hours after a sugary drink.

The team identified new 10 loci – regions of the genome – associated with insulin resistance after the sugary drink. Eight of these regions were also shared with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes, highlighting their importance.

One of these newly-identified loci was located within the gene that codes for GLUT4, the critical protein responsible for taking up glucose from the blood into cells after eating. This locus was associated with a reduced amount of GLUT4 in muscle tissue.

To look for additional genes that may play a role in glucose regulation, the researchers turned to cell lines taken from mice to study specific genes in and around these loci. This led to the discovery of 14 genes that played a significant role in GLUT 4 trafficking and glucose uptake – with nine of these never previously linked to insulin regulation.

Further experiments showed that these genes influenced how much GLUT4 was found on the surface of the cells, likely by altering the ability of the protein to move from inside the cell to its surface. The less GLUT4 that makes its way to the surface of the cell, the poorer the cell’s ability to remove glucose from the blood.

Dr Alice Williamson, who carried out the work while a PhD student at the Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science, said: “What’s exciting about this is that it shows how we can go from large scale genetic studies to understanding fundamental mechanisms of how our bodies work – and in particular how, when these mechanisms go wrong, they can lead to common diseases such as type 2 diabetes.”

Given that problems regulating blood glucose after a meal can be an early sign of increased type 2 diabetes risk, the researchers are hopeful that the discovery of the mechanisms involved could lead to new treatments in future.

Professor Claudia Langenberg, Director of the Precision Healthcare University Research Institute (PHURI) at Queen Mary University of London and Professor of Computational Medicine at the Berlin Institute of Health, Germany, said: “Our findings open up a potential new avenue for the development of treatments to stop the development of type 2 diabetes. It also shows how genetic studies of dynamic challenge tests can provide important insights that would otherwise remain hidden.”

The research was supported by Wellcome, the Medical Research Council and the National Institute for Health and Care Research.

Reference
Williamson, A et al. Genome-wide association study and functional characterisation identifies candidate genes for insulin-stimulated glucose uptake. Nat Gen; 8 June 2023; DOI: 10.1038/s41588-023-01408-9

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School leaders in England feel compelled to continue using a system of escalating punitive measures to manage student behaviour, even though they recognise it fails some pupils, new research suggests.

This is not a call to scrap the existing system, but to consider ways to enhance itLaura Oxley

The findings are from a qualitative study which investigated why more school leaders are not exploring alternative approaches to behaviour management. It argues that resource limitations and other concerns have left teachers feeling trapped within the prevailing system of mounting punishments. Under this, more than a thousand students are excluded, and almost 150,000 suspended, every year.

Educators interviewed for the study often acknowledged the potential benefits of alternative methods, but believed they had little choice but to follow the established orthodoxy. The most common reasons included cost, resource constraints, parental perception, and lack of time.

Most schools in England follow a ‘behaviourist’ approach to student discipline, reinforcing positive behaviour and implementing escalating sanctions for repeated misconduct. Initially, students may receive a verbal warning for poor behaviour, followed by mid-level punishments like detention. Those who persist eventually face suspension and ultimately may be excluded from mainstream education.

The approach seems effective with many students, but there are concerns that it is still failing a significant minority. Government data have, for many years, consistently shown that persistent, disruptive behaviour is the main reason for suspensions or exclusions from school. The latest available figures suggest that about 1,500 students are excluded, and 148,000 suspended, each year for this reason.

The study was conducted by Dr Laura Oxley, now at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, drawing on research she undertook while at the University of York. The newly-published element documents very in-depth interviews with a small group of 14 school leaders in England using a method called Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. This was just part of the full study, which also surveyed 84 behaviour referral units in England and involved interviews with teachers in other education systems with different approaches to discipline.

Given the scale of the research, the findings should be interpreted cautiously. They do, however, highlight a possible cycle shaping behaviour management policy in England. Specifically, political and resource constraints limit schools’ capacity to experiment with alternative approaches, resulting in scarce evidence for their efficacy. This reinforces the view that the existing model is the only option.

Prior to her academic career Oxley worked with children who were at risk of exclusion from school, their families, and senior school leaders to support schools to provide appropriate educational provision for children who exhibited persistent misconduct. She held roles as an Exclusions and Reintegration Officer in East Yorkshire, and as an Education Inclusion Officer in Cambridgeshire.

“This is not a call to scrap the existing system, but to consider ways to enhance it,” she said. “For significant numbers of children, the current approach isn’t working.”

“Fundamentally, if a child persists with the same behaviour despite multiple punishments, it’s unlikely that they don’t comprehend the consequences. In those situations, instead of escalating the punishment, we should be asking why we aren’t trying something else? Unfortunately, even if school leaders have the motivation to try a different approach, they often feel that they have little choice. This means the same, standardised approach often prevails, even though it doesn’t suit every child.”

Widely-cited alternative behaviour management techniques include ‘restorative practice’ (RP) and ‘collaborative and proactive solutions’ (CPS). RP focuses on rebuilding positive relationships between students, or students and teachers, after breakdowns occur. CPS involves identifying the triggers behind persistent misbehaviour and addressing them collaboratively.

While neither method suits every situation, trials have yielded encouraging results. A 2019 study, for example, found that RP improved behaviour and reduced bullying. Although these approaches are already used by some schools in England, neither is currently used widely.

In Oxley’s study, school leaders identified cost, time and resource constraints as barriers to these alternatives, as they tend to be labour-intensive and require a thorough culture change. Most feared that they would place an intolerable extra burden on already overstretched staff. Issuing sanctions was seen as more efficient. Even providing space for private discussions with challenging students was sometimes considered unfeasible. One teacher explained: “We don’t have the staffing or capabilities for that”.

Some school leaders were concerned that teachers might perceive restorative approaches as a challenge to their authority in the classroom. There is evidence that training can change teachers’ perspectives on handling challenging students, fostering a deeper understanding of the psychological context. Again, however, limited time and resources pose barriers to this, the study suggests.

Participants also expressed unease about parental reactions to alternative approaches. One school leader told Oxley: “A lot of pupils would tell you that it’s harder to do a restorative meeting than it is to miss your break time. It’s more difficult to get the message across to parents.” Some cited cases where heads had been “held to ransom” by parents demanding the exclusion of so-called “problem” pupils.

Oxley suggests these pressures have fostered a culture of risk aversion in schools, impeding potential reforms. “We need to give teachers and parents opportunities to understand the alternatives available,” she said. “The fact that researchers know methods like RP could work in situations where the current approach is not promoting behaviour change is irrelevant if teachers don’t share that confidence.”

The study highlights insufficient promotion of alternative methods in current Government guidance, which prioritises the sanctions-based approach. It emphasises, however, that providing adequate funding and time to enhance teachers’ and parents’ understanding of collaborative and restorative behaviour management techniques is essential to cultivating a “desire for change”.

“At the moment, alternative approaches are often dismissed as unrealistic,” Oxley said. “This stems from a lack of large-scale evidence due to limited opportunities to explore them in schools. Education researchers must address that by studying real experiences in schools, moving beyond limited trials. This will empower more school leaders to see restorative practice and other methods as valuable and viable, generating momentum for change.”

The findings are reported in the Psychology of Education Review.

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Among the most fundamental questions in astronomy is: How did the first stars and galaxies form? The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a partnership between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, is already providing new insights into this question.

I’m excited that the telescope works so well, allowing us to do such detailed measurements of galaxies that are so distantSandro Tacchella

One of the largest programmes in Webb’s first year of science is the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey, or JADES, which will devote about 32 days of telescope time to uncover and characterise faint, distant galaxies. While data is still coming in, JADES has already discovered hundreds of galaxies that existed when the universe was less than 600 million years old. The international team, including researchers from the University of Cambridge, also has identified galaxies sparkling with a multitude of young, hot stars.

The extragalactic research group at the Cavendish Laboratory co-led by Professor Roberto Maiolino and Dr Sandro Tacchella is playing a leadership role in JADES, which is a partnership between the science team of NIRCam — JWST’s primary imager — and NIRSpec — JWST’s primary spectrograph.

In the autumn of 2022, JADES took deep imaging and spectroscopy in and around the iconic Hubble Ultra Deep Field. The JADES imaging is deep, extends further into the infrared, and covers a wider area than any previous imaging with the Hubble Space Telescope. Results based on this data, which have not yet been peer-reviewed, are being reported at the 242nd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

“With JADES, we want to answer a lot of questions, like: How did the earliest galaxies assemble themselves? How fast did they form stars? Why do some galaxies stop forming stars?” said Marcia Rieke of the University of Arizona, co-lead of the JADES programme.

For hundreds of millions of years after the big bang, the universe was filled with a gaseous fog. By one billion years after the big bang, the fog had cleared and the universe became transparent, a process known as reionisation. Scientists have debated whether active, supermassive black holes or galaxies full of hot, young stars were the primary cause of reionisation.

As part of the JADES programme, researchers studied these galaxies to look for signatures of star formation – and found them in abundance. “Almost every single galaxy that we are finding shows these unusually strong emission line signatures indicating intense recent star formation. These early galaxies were very good at creating hot, massive stars,” said Ryan Endsley from the University of Texas at Austin.

These bright, massive stars pumped out ultraviolet light, which transformed surrounding gas from opaque to transparent by ionising the atoms, removing electrons from their nuclei. Since these early galaxies had such a large population of hot, massive stars, they may have been the main driver of the reionisation process. The later reuniting of the electrons and nuclei produces distinctively strong emission lines.

The team also found evidence that these young galaxies underwent periods of rapid star formation interspersed with quiet periods where fewer stars formed. These fits and starts may have occurred as galaxies captured clumps of the gaseous raw materials needed to form stars. Alternatively, since massive stars quickly explode, they may have injected energy into the surrounding environment periodically, preventing gas from condensing to form new stars.

Another JADES result released today concerns the structural evolution of galaxies. The team used imaging and spectroscopy data to tackle a key unknown in extragalactic astrophysics, which is how the structural diversity of galaxies we observe today came to be.

The team discovered a galaxy in the infant universe – just 700 million years after the big bang – but with the structure of a far more mature galaxy. The galaxy is 100 times less massive than the Milky Way, but it is highly compact. Most of the young stars of this galaxy are in the outskirts, indicating that this galaxy is growing from the inside out.

“I was surprised to find such a compact galaxy this early in the universe,” said Tacchella, from Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory and Kavli Institute for Cosmology. “I’m excited that the telescope works so well, allowing us to do such detailed measurements of galaxies that are so distant.”

Another element of the JADES programme involves the search for the earliest galaxies that existed when the universe was less than 400 million years old. By studying these galaxies, astronomers can explore how star formation in the early years after the big bang was different from what is seen in current times.

The light from faraway galaxies is stretched to longer wavelengths and redder colours by the expansion of the universe – a phenomenon called redshift. By measuring a galaxy’s redshift, astronomers can learn how far away it is and, therefore, when it existed in the early universe. Before Webb, there were only a few dozen galaxies observed above a redshift of 8, when the universe was younger than 650 million years old, but JADES has now uncovered nearly a thousand of these extremely distant galaxies.

The gold standard for determining redshift involves looking at a galaxy’s spectrum, which measures its brightness at closely spaced wavelengths. But a good approximation can be determined by taking photos of a galaxy using filters that each cover a narrow band of colours to get a handful of brightness measurements. In this way, researchers can determine estimates for the distances of many thousands of galaxies at once.

Kevin Hainline of the University of Arizona in Tucson and his colleagues used Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument to obtain these measurements, called photometric redshifts, and identified more than 700 candidate galaxies that existed when the universe was between 370 million and 650 million years old. The sheer number of these galaxies was far beyond predictions from observations made before Webb’s launch. The observatory’s resolution and sensitivity are allowing astronomers to get a better view of these distant galaxies than ever before.

“Previously, the earliest galaxies we could see just looked like little smudges. And yet those smudges represent millions or even billions of stars at the beginning of the universe,” said Hainline. “Now, we can see that some of them are actually extended objects with visible structure. We can see groupings of stars being born only a few hundred million years after the beginning of time.”

“We’re finding star formation in the early universe is much more complicated than we thought,” said Rieke.

Adapted from a NASA press release.

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Robot ‘chef’ learns to recreate recipes from watching food videos

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Researchers have trained a robotic ‘chef’ to watch and learn from cooking videos, and recreate the dish itself.

We wanted to see whether we could train a robot chef to learn in the same incremental way that humans can – by identifying the ingredients and how they go together in the dishGreg Sochacki

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, programmed their robotic chef with a ‘cookbook’ of eight simple salad recipes. After watching a video of a human demonstrating one of the recipes, the robot was able to identify which recipe was being prepared and make it.

In addition, the videos helped the robot incrementally add to its cookbook. At the end of the experiment, the robot came up with a ninth recipe on its own. Their results, reported in the journal IEEE Access, demonstrate how video content can be a valuable and rich source of data for automated food production, and could enable easier and cheaper deployment of robot chefs.

Robotic chefs have been featured in science fiction for decades, but in reality, cooking is a challenging problem for a robot. Several commercial companies have built prototype robot chefs, although none of these are currently commercially available, and they lag well behind their human counterparts in terms of skill.

Human cooks can learn new recipes through observation, whether that’s watching another person cook or watching a video on YouTube, but programming a robot to make a range of dishes is costly and time-consuming.

“We wanted to see whether we could train a robot chef to learn in the same incremental way that humans can – by identifying the ingredients and how they go together in the dish,” said Grzegorz Sochacki from Cambridge’s Department of Engineering, the paper’s first author.

Sochacki, a PhD candidate in Professor Fumiya Iida’s Bio-Inspired Robotics Laboratory, and his colleagues devised eight simple salad recipes and filmed themselves making them. They then used a publicly available neural network to train their robot chef. The neural network had already been programmed to identify a range of different objects, including the fruits and vegetables used in the eight salad recipes (broccoli, carrot, apple, banana and orange).

Using computer vision techniques, the robot analysed each frame of video and was able to identify the different objects and features, such as a knife and the ingredients, as well as the human demonstrator’s arms, hands and face. Both the recipes and the videos were converted to vectors and the robot performed mathematical operations on the vectors to determine the similarity between a demonstration and a vector.

By correctly identifying the ingredients and the actions of the human chef, the robot could determine which of the recipes was being prepared. The robot could infer that if the human demonstrator was holding a knife in one hand and a carrot in the other, the carrot would then get chopped up.

Of the 16 videos it watched, the robot recognised the correct recipe 93% of the time, even though it only detected 83% of the human chef’s actions. The robot was also able to detect that slight variations in a recipe, such as making a double portion or normal human error, were variations and not a new recipe. The robot also correctly recognised the demonstration of a new, ninth salad, added it to its cookbook and made it.

“It’s amazing how much nuance the robot was able to detect,” said Sochacki. “These recipes aren’t complex – they’re essentially chopped fruits and vegetables, but it was really effective at recognising, for example, that two chopped apples and two chopped carrots is the same recipe as three chopped apples and three chopped carrots.”  

The videos used to train the robot chef are not like the food videos made by some social media influencers, which are full of fast cuts and visual effects, and quickly move back and forth between the person preparing the food and the dish they’re preparing. For example, the robot would struggle to identify a carrot if the human demonstrator had their hand wrapped around it – for the robot to identify the carrot, the human demonstrator had to hold up the carrot so that the robot could see the whole vegetable.

“Our robot isn’t interested in the sorts of food videos that go viral on social media – they’re simply too hard to follow,” said Sochacki. “But as these robot chefs get better and faster at identifying ingredients in food videos, they might be able to use sites like YouTube to learn a whole range of recipes.”

The research was supported in part by Beko plc and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

Reference:
Grzegorz Sochacki et al. ‘Recognition of Human Chef’s Intentions for Incremental Learning of Cookbook by Robotic Salad Chef.’ IEEE Access (2023). DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2023.3276234

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Arif Ahmed, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, has been appointed as the Office for Students’ first Director for Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom.

Prof Ahmed, who has been Professor of Philosophy since 2022 and a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College since 2015, will take up his role later in the summer.

Dr Anthony Freeling, Acting Vice-Chancellor, University of Cambridge, said: “I congratulate Professor Ahmed on his appointment. Free speech, and fostering an environment of debate and discussion, are central to the role of all universities. We look forward to working with him.”

Susan Lapworth, chief executive of the OfS, said: “Freedom of speech and academic freedom are essential underpinning principles of higher education in England.  Arif’s appointment will ensure they continue to be robustly defended across the sector.  Arif will bring an important academic perspective to the OfS’s work in this area and I am looking forward to working with him as we implement the new legislation.”
 
 

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