Members of the Business and Trade Select Committee visited Cambridge on 27 October, at the start of their annual programme of engagement around the UK, which this year is focused on identifying priorities for driving economic growth.
It’s people that drive world-leading innovation, and create a system that drives through into creating the companies for the future that are not just scale-ups, but world-beaters.Rt Hon Liam Byrne MP
Liam Byrne MP, Chair of the Business and Trade Committee, and his colleagues Charlie Maynard MP (Witney), John Cooper MP (Dumfries and Galloway), Sarah Edwards MP (Tamworth) and Cambridge MP Daniel Zeichner drew on expertise in the room to develop potential areas of focus for their programme of work in 2026.
The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Deborah Prentice, welcomed the Committee to Cambridge and reflected on the new government announcements highlighting the Oxford to Cambridge Corridor as a key focus for strengthening the UK’s global position as a leader in science and technology.
Hosted at the Ray Dolby Centre, home of the Cavendish Laboratory, Committee members met with around 30 senior academics, business leaders, and investors representing a range of sectors across the Cambridge innovation ecosystem. The session provided an opportunity for open discussion about what is needed to keep the UK at the forefront of global research and enterprise.
Business and Trade Select Committee visit Cambridge1 of 3
A central theme of the discussion was how to attract and retain world-class talent. Participants emphasised the importance of investing in opportunities for the best global graduates to undertake PhDs in the UK, supported by a competitive and welcoming visa system. Access to finance was another key focus, with contributors exploring how to help spin outs and scale-ups grow through improved access to capital and foreign direct investment. Attendees also underlined the critical role of infrastructure, from housing and transport to water and energy systems, in ensuring regions like Cambridge can continue to grow sustainably and support frontier industries.
Overall, the session conveyed strong optimism about the opportunities presented by high-growth sectors such as life sciences, technology, and advanced manufacturing. It also highlighted Cambridge’s position as a global leader in transformative fields including artificial intelligence and quantum engineering.
Rt Hon Liam Byrne MP, Chair of the Business and Trade Committee said, “We had a brilliant first session in Cambridge with lots of people from across this extraordinary innovation ecosystem – they’ve got a lot of things right here, not least the Innovate Cambridge model.
“The big overriding issue that’s come out today is making sure that the UK, including through places like this, is a place where you can access world class talent – because of course it’s people that drive world-leading innovation, and create a system that drives through into creating the companies for the future that are not just scale-ups, but world-beaters.”
Jonny Davidson, Senior Business Development Manager, of Riverlane said, “I was delighted to meet with members of the Business and Trade Committee, alongside partners in the city, to hear about the success, and opportunities, here in Cambridge. We discussed how Riverlane, a global leader in quantum error correction technology, is a national success story, driving advances in quantum computing, and economic growth. For companies like Riverlane, continued investment in science and infrastructure and a financial system that rewards long-term growth will be key to helping Cambridge and the wider UK remain a world leader in advanced technologies.”
Is your ultra-high-definition television really worth it? Do you need a 4K or an 8K screen to get the best viewing experience at home?
According to researchers at the University of Cambridge and Meta Reality Labs, the human eye has a resolution limit: in other words, there are only so many pixels the eye can see. Above this limit, a screen gives our eyes more information than they can detect.
To calculate the resolution limit, the researchers conducted a study that measured participants’ ability to detect specific features in colour and greyscale images on a screen, whether looking at the images straight on or through their peripheral vision, and when the screen was close to them or further away.
The precise resolution limit depends on a number of variables, including the size of the screen, the darkness of the room, and the distance between the viewer and the screen. However, for an average-size UK living room, with 2.5 metres between the TV and the sofa, a 44-inch 4K or 8K TV would not provide any additional benefit over a lower resolution Quad HD (QHD) TV of the same size.
Any consumer buying a new TV is bombarded with technical information from manufacturers, all trying to persuade them that the display resolution of their screens – whether Full HD, 4K or 8K – offers them the best viewing experience.
And display resolution is considered equally important for the many other screens we use, on our phones or computers, whether we’re using them to take pictures, watch films or play video games, including games in virtual or augmented reality. Even car manufacturers are offering higher and higher resolutions for in-car information displays and satnav screens.
“As large engineering efforts go towards improving the resolution of mobile, AR and VR displays, it’s important to know the maximum resolution at which further improvements bring no noticeable benefit,” said first author Dr Maliha Ashraf from Cambridge’s Department of Computer Science and Technology. “But there have been no studies that actually measure what it is that the human eye can see, and what the limitations of its perception are.”
“If you have more pixels in your display, it’s less efficient, it costs more and it requires more processing power to drive it,” said co-author Professor Rafał Mantiuk, also from Cambridge’s Department of Computer Science and Technology. “So we wanted to know the point at which it makes no sense to further improve the resolution of the display.”
The researchers created an experimental set-up with a sliding display that allowed them to measure exactly what the human eye can see when looking at patterns on a screen. Instead of measuring the specifications of a particular screen, they measured pixels per degree (PPD): a measurement of how many individual pixels can fit into a one-degree slice of your field of vision. Measuring PPD helps answer a more useful question than ‘how high is the resolution of this screen?’ Instead, it answers the question ‘how does this screen look from where I’m sitting?’
The widely accepted 20/20 vision standard, based on the Snellen chart that will be familiar to anyone who has ever had their vision checked, suggests that the human eye can resolve detail at 60 pixels per degree.
“This measurement has been widely accepted, but no one had actually sat down and measured it for modern displays, rather than a wall chart of letters that was first developed in the 19th century,” said Ashraf.
Participants in the study looked at patterns with very fine gradations, in shades of grey and in colour, and were asked whether they were able to see the lines in the image. The screen was moved towards and away from the viewer to measure PPD at different distances. PPD was also measured for central and peripheral vision.
The researchers discovered that the eye’s resolution limit is higher than previously believed, but that there are important differences in resolution limits between colour and black-and-white. For greyscale images viewed straight on, the average was 94 PPD. For red and green patterns, the number was 89 PPD, and for yellow and violet, it was 53 PPD.
“Our brain doesn’t actually have the capacity to sense details in colour very well, which is why we saw a big drop-off for colour images, especially when viewed in peripheral vision,” said Mantiuk. “Our eyes are essentially sensors that aren’t all that great, but our brain processes that data into what it thinks we should be seeing.”
The researchers modelled their results to calculate how the resolution limit varies across the population, which will help manufacturers make decisions that are relevant for the majority of the population: for example, designing a display which has retinal resolution for 95% of people rather than an average observer.
Based on this modelling, the researchers developed their online calculator, which enables people to test their own screens or help inform future buying decisions.
“Our results set the north star for display development, with implications for future imaging, rendering and video coding technologies,” said co-author Dr Alex Chapiro from Meta Reality Labs.
The United Nations has selected a University of Cambridge student as a Young Leader for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Every two years, the United Nations Youth Office recognises 17 exceptional young changemakers who are driving solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges and whose leadership is helping to advance the achievement of the SDGs.
Tanatswa Amanda Chikaura, 26, from Zimbabwe, is a Hughes Hall PhD candidate under the supervision of Dr Elizabeth Weir and Professor Tamsin Ford. Her research interests are centred on autism, mental health and suicide prevention. In addition to her academic pursuits, Tanatswa is the Founder and Director of Ndinewe Foundation, a mental health organisation in Zimbabwe.
Tanatswa said: “Young people are everywhere and sometimes it takes a fellow youth to understand another’s needs. “We have the ideas, solutions, creativity and so much more to add to the development of our nations. Youth leadership gives hope and inspiration to all. We are not only the future of tomorrow but the leaders of today.”
Her supervisor Dr Weir said: “I’m delighted that Tanatswa has been selected as one of 17 Young Leaders for the SDGs. There were over 33,000 applicants for the cohort from more than 150 countries and Tanatswa will work with the UN over the next two years in this role. “She has been selected for this prestigious cohort on the basis of her impactful PhD scholarship on the relationship between trauma and suicidality among autistic people, as well as her ongoing work as the founder of the Ndinewe Foundation in Zimbabwe.”
The announcement was made on United Nations Day, on 24 October, which marks the date when the United Nations officially came into being.
Hundreds of experts working on AI in education gathered for the first ever Connecting Cambridge event at Cambridge University Press & Assessment’s headquarters on 21 October.
Helena Renfrew Knight, Chief Strategy Officer of Cambridge University Press & Assessment, and Professor Bhaskar Vira, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education at Cambridge University, welcomed teams working on AI to share knowledge and innovation, and identify areas for future collaboration.
Experts across Cambridge are navigating the opportunities and challenges of AI-enabled technology in education and publishing, underpinned by a human-first approach to transformation and a shared commitment to delivering on the University’s mission to contribute to society.
Caretaker and senior woman using digital tablet at nursing home – stock photo Credit: Maskot (Getty Images)
Problems with the brain’s waste clearance system could underlie many cases of dementia and help explain why poor sleep patterns and cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure increase the risk of dementia.
Treating high blood pressure or encouraging people to stop smoking would be an achievable way to helping the glymphatic system work betterHugh Markus
A study led by researchers at the University of Cambridge found that impaired movement of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) – the clear liquid that cushions and cleans the brain – predicted risk of dementia later in life among 40,000 adults recruited to UK Biobank. Their findings are published today in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association and are being presented at the World Stroke Congress 2025 in Barcelona.
In the healthy brain, the so-called glymphatic system serves to clear out toxins and waste materials, keeping the brain healthy. Only discovered as recently as 2012, this system functions by flushing CSF through the brain along tiny channels around blood vessels known as perivascular spaces. It collects waste then drains out of the brain, helping keep it clean and healthy.
The glymphatic system is thought to be important in protecting against many of the common forms of dementia, which are often characterised by the build-up of toxic substances in the brain – for example, Alzheimer’s disease sees amyloid ‘plaques’ and tau ‘tangles accumulate in brain tissue.
One of the most common forms of dementia is vascular dementia, caused by reduced blood flow to the brain. The most common cause of this type of dementia is cerebral small vessel disease, which affects the small blood vessels in the brain. But the impact of cerebral small vessel disease is even greater because it also interacts with other dementias making them worse; for example, a study of nuns in the US found that among those nuns whose brains showed signs of Alzheimer’s disease post mortem, only around a half exhibited symptoms of dementia – but this increased to around nine in 10 if they also had cerebral small vessel disease.
Professor Hugh Markus and colleagues at the University of Cambridge wanted to see whether cerebral small vessel disease and other cardiovascular risk factors damage the glymphatic system – and whether this in turn increases the risk of dementia.
Until recently, it has only been possible to study glymphatic function in mice, but recent advances in MRI scanning have made it possible to study it indirectly in humans. Even so, it was only possible to do this practically in relatively small numbers, but Yutong Chen, while a medical student at the University of Cambridge, developed machine learning algorithms capable of assessing glymphatic functions from MRI scans at scale.
The team applied the algorithm to MRI scans taken from around 40,000 adults in UK Biobank. They found three biomarkers – biological signatures – associated with impaired glymphatic function assessed at baseline, predicted the risk of dementia occurring over the subsequent decade. One of these was DTI-ALPS, a measure of the diffusion of water molecules along the perivascular spaces. Another was the size of the choroid plexus, where the CSF is produced. The third measure reflected the flow velocity of CSF into the brain.
Yutong Chen, from the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at Cambridge, said: “Although we have to be cautious about indirect markers, our work provides good evidence in a very large cohort that disruption of the glymphatic system plays a role in dementia. This is exciting because it allows to ask: how can we improve this?”
Further analysis showed that several cardiovascular risk factors impaired glymphatic function – and hence increased dementia risk, and that this was partly via causing cerebral small vessel disease, which is visible in the MRI scans.
First author Hui Hong, now a radiologist at the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, said: “We already have evidence that small vessel disease in the brain accelerates diseases like Alzheimer’s, and now we have a likely explanation why. Disruption to the glymphatic system is likely to impair our ability to clear the brain of the amyloid and tau that causes Alzheimer’s disease.”
The research suggests possible approaches for reducing dementia risk. One is to look at strategies for improving glymphatic function. Sleep plays an important role in glymphatic function, and so disrupted sleep patterns are likely to impair its ability to clear toxins. Alternatively, there may be existing medicines that could be repurposed, or new ones that could be developed, to improve glymphatic function.
Another possible approach is to treat vascular risk factors such as high blood pressure. This is supported by recent studies: the SPRINT MIND trial, for example, showed that intensive blood pressure control (maintaining a systolic blood pressure of less than 120 mm Hg) led to a 20% reduction in cognitive decline or dementia compared to participants in the standard treatment group.
Professor Markus, who leads the Stroke Research Group at the University of Cambridge and is a Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge, said: “We already know the importance of cardiovascular risk factors when it comes to dementia, and our findings further emphasise this link.
“At least a quarter of all dementia risk is accounted for by common risk factors like blood pressure and smoking. If these impair glymphatic function, then we can intervene. Treating high blood pressure or encouraging people to stop smoking would be an achievable way to helping the glymphatic system work better.”
Professor Bryan Williams, Chief Scientific and Medical Officer at the British Heart Foundation, said: “This study offers us a fascinating glimpse into how problems with the brain’s waste clearance system could be quietly increasing the chances of developing dementia later in life. By improving our understanding of the glymphatic system, this study opens exciting new avenues for research to treat and prevent dementia. It also emphasises the importance of managing known cardiovascular risk factors, such as high blood pressure, for reducing dementia risk.”
The research was funded by the British Heart Foundation, with additional support from the National Institute for Health and Care Research Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.
The 10 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.
Animal research… is an essential step in the development of new medicines, vaccines and treatments for both humans and animals.Jon Simons
The statistics for the University of Cambridge are available on our 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 report on the statistics of scientific procedures on living animals in Great Britain in 2024.
The 10 organisations are listed below alongside the total number of procedures they carried out on animals for scientific research in Great Britain in 2024. Of these 1,379,399 procedures, more than 99% were carried out on mice, fish, rats, and birds and 82% were classified as causing pain equivalent to, or less than, an injection.
This is the tenth consecutive year that organisations have come together to publicise their collective statistics and examples of their research.
Organisation
Number of Procedures (2024)
The Francis Crick Institute
200,055
University of Oxford
199,730
University of Cambridge
190,448
UCL
175,687
Medical Research Council
140,602
University of Edinburgh
136,862
King’s College London
106,300
University of Glasgow
99,509
University of Manchester
81,252
Imperial College London
48,954
TOTAL
1,379,399
In total, 72 organisations have voluntarily published their 2024 animal research statistics.
All organisations are committed to the ethical framework called 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 listed are signatories to the Concordat on Openness on Animal Research in the UK, which commits them to being more open about the use of animals in scientific, medical and veterinary research in the UK. More than 130 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 increasingly 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 Jon Simons, Head of the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Cambridge, said: “Animal research remains critical for understanding complex biological systems and is an essential step in the development of new medicines, vaccines and treatments for both humans and animals. We are committed to continuing to reduce the number of animals used in biomedical research, and our scientists are actively working on new methods and techniques that will provide robust scientific alternatives.”
CASE STUDY: Mice are vital in the search for effective new dementia treatments
Cambridge researchers are leading drug discovery to develop safer, more effective treatments for the millions of people affected by Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.
“Dementia has often been viewed as something that happens normally as people age, but it’s not. It’s a disease that we need to treat, so that people can live well and stay independent in later life,” said David Harrison. “But many pharmaceutical companies have lost confidence in working in this area because the risk of failure is too great.”
With expertise in drug discovery, Harrison’s team at Cambridge’s ALBORADA Drug Discovery Institute is designing and making chemical molecules – the basis of future drugs – and testing whether they work on novel targets in the body. The aim is to develop these ideas to the point where pharmaceutical partners can more confidently take things forward.
While the team routinely uses test-tube and computer-based models, animal models are vital in understanding how the many different cell types in the brain interact together in disease.
They’re also vital in understanding how potential drugs are metabolised and distributed throughout the body, and in looking for any adverse effects that may occur in other tissues.
Harrison said: “Almost one million people are estimated to be living with dementia in the UK. We need to find better treatment options. The animals we use are an essential part of the drug discovery process – they could help us change people’s lives.”
The Cambridge Innovation Hub has received cornerstone Government funding of at least £15 million to maintain the city’s position as a global leader in innovation.
The world is coming to Cambridge for science. Government support means that work will now start at pace to make the Innovation Hub a reality.Professor Deborah Prentice, Vice-Chancellor
Designed to drive UK growth, the Hub will connect entrepreneurs, investors, corporates, and researchers on a 2.7-acre site in Hills Road, in the centre of Cambridge, as the UK’s answer to Boston’s Lab Central and Paris’s Station F. The new facility will support science start ups to grow and compete on the world stage.
The announcement was made as the annual Innovate Cambridge Summit brings together entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers and political leaders this week, and is part of a £500 million growth package for new homes, infrastructure and business space for the Oxford to Cambridge Growth Corridor.
It follows a new report that reveals the Cambridge area is now the most investible hub for science, and has had the highest growth of any UK region outside the capital in the last decade.
According to the new report from Beauhurst, Cambridge Enterprise, Innovate Cambridge and Cambridge Innovation Capital, Cambridge is a national economic asset where early-stage life sciences and deep tech companies have raised £7.9billion since 2015. International investors are now involved in nearly 40% of all deals, up from just 7% a decade ago.
Cambridge’s innovation ecosystem has grown by almost 80% in the past decade, from 473 active companies in 2015 to 848 in 2025. Its spinout companies, born from University research, are powering this momentum, with spinouts accounting for 27.9% of all equity raised in the region. Total spinout investment has grown from £46 million in 2015 to £879 million in 2024, with life science spinouts raising an average of £8.4 million each in 2024, the highest for any UK city.
This growth and success have been embodied by Cambridge-born success stories, including CellCentric, a leading clinical-stage biotech developing novel cancer therapeutics; CuspAI, an AI-driven materials discovery company; and Featurespace, a world leader in adaptive behavioural analytics for financial crime prevention.
Science Minister and Oxford-Cambridge Innovation Champion, Lord Vallance, said: “Cambridge is one of the world’s most fertile grounds for innovation to take root, and blossom into opportunities for investment, job creation, and progress in fields ranging from life sciences to deep tech.
“As impressive as these figures are, there is still more potential here for us to unleash. This is precisely why we are backing the Cambridge Innovation Hub, as part of our programme of work across Government to boost the entire Oxford to Cambridge Growth Corridor, and fulfil its promise as an economic engine the whole nation benefits from.”
Professor Deborah Prentice, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, said: “Fast-tracking the Innovation Hub will help drive UK growth. It will connect entrepreneurs, investors, corporates, and our world-class researchers. It will quickly become Europe’s leading destination for early-stage deep tech and life sciences companies, and means Cambridge will continue to be a global leader in research and innovation. The world is coming to Cambridge for science. Government support means that work will now start at pace to make the Innovation Hub a reality.”
Professor Andy Neely OBE, Chair of Innovate Cambridge, said: “Cambridge’s science and innovation ecosystem is one of the UK’s greatest economic assets. The data shows that the world is increasingly looking to Cambridge to find the breakthrough ideas that can change lives and drive global progress.”
Dr Kathryn Chapman, Executive Director, Innovate Cambridge, said: “The Summit is a chance to demonstrate how Cambridge continues to lead on innovation worldwide. Recognition as the fastest-growing UK hub for science investment, combined with cornerstone funding for a new international innovation hub, reflects the success of our unified vision and commitment to building a truly global innovation economy.”
This latest report follows Dealroom data published earlier this year which showed Cambridge was #1 in Europe for deep tech VC per capita, and was second globally to only the Bay Area when it came to unicorns per capita.
Girl takes exam in a London secondary school. Credit: Caia images/Getty
A new book warns that the school system may be “broken beyond repair”, claiming that it is deepening inequality and making children ill.
We are crying out for systemic transformation: a completely new vision of what education involves, however challenging that may beHilary Cremin
In Rewilding Education, Professor Hilary Cremin argues that modern schooling is defined by an obsession with standardisation and outdated thinking, while it fails to nurture creativity, critical thought, or the physical and mental health of students and teachers.
Cremin, who is Head of the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge, draws on decades of experience as a teacher, academic and consultant – as well as the work of other scholars – to put forward a programme for “long-term, radical change”, including a stronger focus on students’ social and emotional development alongside academic achievement.
The book’s numerous proposals include more lessons outdoors, and more projects that connect students to their communities beyond the school gates. Steps such as these, she argues, would help prepare young people to live responsibly – and well – in a rapidly changing world.
Cremin acknowledges that these ideas may be disparaged by traditionalists and policy-makers – as, indeed, they have been before. In 2013, she was one of 100 academic critics of Michael Gove’s educational reforms whom the then Education Secretary branded “enemies of promise”.
More than a decade later, she argues, there is still no evidence that those reforms, like many before and since, have narrowed the attainment gap between wealthy and poorer students as promised. Research shows that the gap widens throughout school, reaching the equivalent of more than 19 months of learning by the end of secondary education.
“Despite decades of reform, I think the school system as we presently configure it may be beyond redemption,” Cremin said. “This isn’t an attack on the idea of education, or on the thousands of brilliant teachers who give the job their all. But government after government has tinkered with education when the basic model is obsolete.”
“If we keep preparing children for the second half of the 21st century using a system designed in the 19th, it could do catastrophic harm. We need to rethink what it means to educate, and what we are educating for.”
Rewilding Education challenges the ‘myth of social mobility’, arguing that education functions more as a sorting mechanism than a levelling force. High-performing school still admit disproportionately few disadvantaged young people, and poverty remains the strongest available predictor of student outcomes.
The chimerical belief persists that good grades will secure students a better future. “None of the ideas driving schools policy really stands up to scrutiny,” Cremin writes, “yet this hardly seems to matter”.
Cremin contends that schools often resemble outdated, factory-style production lines: rigid, standardised and with sometimes militaristic discipline. This, she suggests, suppresses curiosity, discourages critical thinking and disempowers teachers.
Her critique of the effects on physical and mental health is particularly urgent. Cremin argues that schools are making students and teachers ill. She presents evidence linking the loss of physical education and the sale of school playing fields to rising childhood obesity, and notes that even basic needs – such as access to adequate toilet facilities – often go unmet.
High-stakes testing, she adds, is fuelling poor mental health, while zero-tolerance behaviour policies have driven a 60% rise in permanent exclusions since 2015, with disadvantaged students four times more likely to be excluded. Students and teachers, she suggests, sometimes turn to medication to cope with an “ailing system”.
This bleak reality, she argues, demands more than incremental reform. The book calls for a new educational model for a new kind of future – one shaped by the climate crisis, downward mobility, Generative AI and post-truth politics. “We are educating for jobs and lifestyles that will soon cease to exist,” Cremin writes, “while failing to educate for those that don’t yet exist.”
This leads Cremin to call for education to be ‘rewilded’ – a metaphor drawn from ecological restoration. In schools, it implies letting go of rigid, one-size-fits-all structures, and allowing less predictable and more holistic forms of learning to emerge.
Nature plays a central role in her vision. Drawing on thinkers like Rabindranath Tagore, Cremin argues that schools should treat the natural world as a “co-educator”. She encourages outdoor and experience-based learning and suggests that even small changes – like planting trees, creating school gardens or nature-inspired arts activities – could help foster greater respect for the environment.
Rewilding Education also urges a rebalancing towards project-based learning, the arts and civic engagement. Students, Cremin argues, must learn not only to reproduce knowledge, but to act with wisdom and care, and to think critically about complex problems. This requires education for “body, mind, heart and soul”.
She proposes, for example, giving students time to walk and reflect when grappling with difficult questions, and highlights research linking later start times for adolescents – who have different sleep patterns – to better performance and wellbeing. She also champions mindfulness and ‘metacognitive’ approaches, that help children reflect on how they are thinking while they are learning.
In a chapter Cremin anticipates critics will deliberately misread, she calls for greater trust and deeper relationships between teachers and students. Risk aversion in schools, she argues, has counter-intuitively made it harder for teachers to care and support pupils, in favour of rule enforcement and teaching facts.
The book draws on examples from the UK, India, Germany and the US to show how ‘rewilding’ is not just possible, but already happening, in some schools that emphasise education for togetherness, harmony and wellbeing. “Something fundamental needs to change,” Cremin added. “We are crying out for systemic transformation: a completely new vision of what education involves, however challenging that may be.”
Dr Nick Cunniffe running a “visual evoked potential” test with a trial participant in the Cambridge Clinical Vision Laboratory. Credit: MS Society
Scientists behind the trial say they are “on the brink of a new class of treatments” and that the findings take us another step closer to stopping disease progression in MS.
My instinct is that we are on the brink of a new class of treatments to stop MS progressionDr Nick Cunniffe
A combination of metformin, a common diabetes drug, and clemastine, an antihistamine, can help repair myelin – the protective coating around nerves, which gets damaged in multiple sclerosis (MS) causing symptoms like fatigue, pain, spasms and problems with walking.
This is according to early findings from the phase two clinical trial, CCMR-Two, carried out by researchers at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Clinical Neurosciences, and funded by the MS Society.
The scientists say the results take us another step closer to finally being able to stop disease progression in MS. However, they stress that people should not attempt to acquire the drugs outside a clinical trial, as further research is needed to fully understand their efficacy and safety in MS.
Previous evidence from animal studies showed that metformin enhances the effect of clemastine on myelin repair, but until now the two drugs had never been tested together in people. News of the latest trial was presented today at this year’s European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ECTRIMS) – one of the world’s biggest MS research conferences.
“I am increasingly sure that remyelination is part of the solution to stopping progressive disability in MS,” said Dr Nick Cunniffe, a clinical lecturer in Neurology at Cambridge, who led the CCMR-Two trial.
“We still need to research the long-term benefits and side effects before people with MS consider taking these drugs. But my instinct is that we are on the brink of a new class of treatments to stop MS progression, and within the next decade we could see the first licensed treatment that repairs myelin and improves the lives of people living with MS.”
Over 150,000 people live with MS in the UK. While there are around 20 disease-modifying therapies for people with relapsing MS, and some emerging for active progressive MS, tens of thousands of people remain without effective treatment.
Those drugs that do exist only work on one aspect of the condition – the immune system. They don’t stop the gradual nerve damage that leads to long-term disability. Scientists say that protecting nerves from damage by boosting the body’s natural ability to put myelin back onto nerves could offer a way forward.
“We desperately need ways to protect nerves from damage and repair lost myelin, and this research gives us real hope that myelin repair drugs will be part of the armoury of MS treatments in the future,” said Dr Emma Gray, Director of Research at the MS Society. “These results are truly exciting, and could represent a turning point in the way MS is treated.”
Some 70 people with relapsing MS took part in the trials for six months, half of whom took the drug combination and half took a placebo. The primary outcome used to gauge the effectiveness of the drug was a ‘visual evoked potential’ test, which measures how quickly signals travel between the eyes and the brain. The speed of signals slowed down in the placebo group over the course of six months, but remained constant in the drug group.
While the primary outcome was positive, scientists point out that people did not feel better on the drugs. The benefit from myelin repair is to insulate and protect damaged nerves, preventing them from degenerating over years. Researchers believe that drugs that promote remyelination will have an effect on disability in the long term, which will be the subject of further research.
Researchers argue that MS is just the beginning. Finding ways to protect the brain before irreversible damage sets in is vital across all neurodegenerative conditions, from Alzheimer’s to Parkinson’s. These diseases collectively cost the UK hundreds of billions and place an enormous burden on the NHS and carers.
Hannah Threlfell, 43, from Abington was diagnosed with relapsing MS in 2019 after experiencing optic neuritis. She joined the CCMR-Two trial in the hope she could help future generations.
“Before I was diagnosed, I sat through a talk from MS specialist Professor Alasdair Coles about groundbreaking MS research. Even though I didn’t know I had it then, I remember thinking how incredible it was that so much had been achieved. And now I have MS, joining the trial was a no brainer,” said Threlfall, a former teacher who has recently become a curate.
“I love helping and I know being on this trial will make a difference to someone else in the future – even small ripples have long-lasting effects! This research gives me even more reason to believe that in my lifetime everyone with MS will have treatments that work for them.”
CCMR-Two is being funded by donations to the MS Society’s Stop MS Appeal. The appeal hopes to raise £100 million by the end of 2025 to help find treatments that could slow or stop the build-up of disability for everyone with MS.
Celebrations at the University of Cambridge honour the life, work and legacy of Sir Robert Edwards, whose work revolutionised fertility treatment through the invention of in vitro fertilisation.
Scientists studying human reproduction at the University of Cambridge today are building on Sir Bob Edwards’ incredible legacy.Kathy Niakan
A Nobel prize-winner and one of the most influential scientists of the twentieth century, Edwards spent much of his career in the Department of Physiology at the University of Cambridge.
Together with gynaecologist Patrick Steptoe and technician and embryologist Jean Purdy, Edwards pioneered the technique of IVF, in which eggs are fertilised by sperm in a laboratory, creating an embryo that is transferred into a woman’s womb to achieve pregnancy.
Their breakthrough came when the first IVF baby, Louise Brown, was born in July 1978 – marking the beginning of a new era of medicine.
Researchers estimate there have now been over 13 million babies born from IVF worldwide.
A two-part event on Friday 26 September at the University of Cambridge will celebrate Edwards’ life, work and legacy, marking what would have been his 100th birthday on Saturday 27 September.
An afternoon of talks and discussion, focusing on science and clinical practice, will take part in the Physiology Lecture Theatre – the building where Edwards succeeding in fertilising a human egg in a test tube. It will involve clinicians and scientists who were trained or inspired by Edwards.
This will be followed by an evening panel discussion open to the public at Churchill College, Cambridge, where Edwards was a Fellow from 1979 and a Member from 1974.
Among the evening panellists will be Louise Brown – the first IVF baby, Dr Jenny Joy – the second of Edwards’ five daughters, Emma Barnett – British Broadcaster and Journalist with a young IVF child, and Dr Mike Macnamee – former CEO of the world’s first IVF clinic, Bourn Hall Clinic, which was established in 1980 by Edwards together with Steptoe and Purdy.
“Scientists studying human reproduction at the University of Cambridge today are building on Sir Bob Edwards’ incredible legacy. Many of their careers overlapped with his, and now they’re developing his science further, and also building on his pioneering contributions to the ethics of assisted reproduction,” said Professor Kathy Niakan, Director of the University of Cambridge’s Loke Centre for Trophoblast Research, who will chair the scientific sessions at Friday’s event.
She added: “To be part of this field today is a unique opportunity for discovery and innovation, and a great honour to carry forward Sir Bob Edwards’ vision in advancing our understanding of human reproduction.”
Dr Jenny Joy, Edwards’ daughter, said, “Our family is delighted to be involved in this event, working with the Loke Centre in the Physiology Department and Churchill College, which both meant a great deal to our father.”
Edwards joined the University of Cambridge in 1963, and went on to win the Nobel Prize in 2010 for his work, by which time around four million people had been born following IVF treatment. Edwards died in 2013, aged 87.
Infertility affects over 10% of all couples worldwide, and IVF is now one of the most commonly used and successful fertility treatments available.
The Bob Edwards centenary conference has been organised by the family of Sir Robert Edwards, the Loke Centre for Trophoblast Research, and Churchill Archives Centre (Churchill College) – which houses Edwards’ papers.
Two Cambridge researchers have been named Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering in recognition of their exceptional contributions to their fields.
Professor Cecilia Mascolo, Professor of Mobile Systems in the Department of Computer Science and Technology and Professor Swami Swaminathan, Professor of Mechanical Engineering in the Department of Engineering, are among 74 leading figures in the field of engineering and technology elected to a Fellowship.
This year’s group consists of 60 Fellows, nine International Fellows and five Honorary Fellows.
They are drawn from every specialism from within the engineering and technology professions and cover sectors ranging from energy and defence to new materials. They have made exceptional contributions to their field: pioneering new innovations within academia and business, providing expert advice to government, and fostering a wider comprehension of engineering and technology.
Professor Cecilia Mascolo, who is also a Fellow of Jesus College, is a pioneer in devising frameworks to collect sensing data from devices such as phones and wearables with the purpose of developing models to understand behaviour and health. During the pandemic, she and her colleagues developed the COVID-19 Sounds App, which collects and analyses short recordings of users coughing and breathing to detect if they are suffering from COVID-19.
Since then, she has been working on ways to turn the devices we wear – such as earbuds – into mobile monitors that can collect data about our state of health, and developing cutting edge machine learning tools to evaluate that data on the device itself.
Professor Swami Swaminathan, who is also a Fellow of Robinson College, is an expert in the physics and chemistry of turbulent reacting flows, their modelling and simulations. His significant finding in turbulence-scalar-chemistry interaction led to a robust and accurate modelling framework enabling quantitative estimates of temperature distribution, emissions, combustion noise and instabilities in combustors using single simulation. His work helps engineers find robust designs of ‘green combustion systems’ for power generation using low- and zero-carbon fuel and helps devise simple models for complex fundamental phenomena.
This year’s new Fellows continue to reflect the Academy’s ongoing Fellowship Fit for the Future initiative announced in July 2020, to drive more nominations of outstanding engineers from underrepresented groups. This commits the Academy to strive for increased representation from women, disabled and LGBTQ+ engineers, those from minority ethnic backgrounds, non-traditional education pathways and emerging industries, and those who have achieved excellence at an earlier career stage than normal.
“As we approach our 50th anniversary next year it’s a good time to reflect on how much we have achieved,” said Sir John Lazar CBE FREng, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering. “The Academy is built on the foundation of our Fellowship, and that remains as true today as half a century ago.
“Today’s cohort join a community of around 1,700 of some of the most talented engineers and innovators in the UK and around the globe. Their knowledge and experience make them uniquely well placed to tackle the biggest challenges facing the world, and our determination to advance and promote excellence in engineering remains undimmed.”
The new Fellows will be formally admitted to the Academy at a ceremony in London on 18 November.
As artificial intelligence becomes embedded in everyday tools and decisions, ensuring the safety and reliability of large language models (LLMs) is more critical than ever. Cambridge spinout Trismik has raised £2.2 million to help it make AI testing faster, smarter and more trustworthy.
AI is no longer just generating answers, it’s shaping decisions, products and lives. If we want trustworthy AI, we need to treat evaluation as seriously as we take training.Nigel Collier, Professor of Natural Language Processing and co-founder of Trismik
LLMs are powering more and more products, but testing their safety, reliability and performance is a significant challenge. Current testing methods are slow, manual and inconsistent, making it difficult for teams to iterate quickly or trust their results.
Trismik aims to solve this by using adaptive testing and automatic scoring to evaluate models against a number of dimensions including factual accuracy, bias and toxicity. Inspired by psychometrics and machine learning, the system dynamically selects the most informative test cases, dramatically reducing the number of datapoints required while achieving high reliability and enabling faster development cycles.
“AI is no longer just generating answers, it’s shaping decisions, products and lives. If we want trustworthy AI, we need to treat evaluation as seriously as we take training. Trismik aims to lead that charge by giving AI engineers the tools to test with precision, act with confidence and build with integrity,” said Nigel Collier, Professor of Natural Language Processing at the University of Cambridge and co-founder and Chief Scientist at Trismik.
Collier, who started his career in the 1990s with a PhD in machine translation using neural networks, has increasingly focused on how we can ensure AI acts as a trusted partner to humanity rather than a risk to it. Collier’s curiosity for whether AI could be assessed in the same efficient and fair way as humans, created the genesis for Trismik’s approach to adaptive evaluation.
In 2023 Collier met co-founder Rebekka Mikkola, a repeat founder and enterprise sales executive with a passion both for building in AI and opening doors for women in tech. The pair were backed early by Cambridge Enterprise and in 2025 were joined by former Amazon scientist Marco Basaldella as CTO, completing a founding team that blends science, engineering and commercial expertise.
Dr Christine Martin, Head of Ventures at Cambridge Enterprise, said: “Trismik exemplifies Cambridge’s continued contribution to global AI development with the team combining world-class academic credentials and practical industry experience that has given them the unique authority to define how AI capabilities should be measured. By solving a pivotal challenge in AI adoption, Trismik is positioned to drive trust at scale – we’re excited to support their journey to market.”
The £2.2m in pre-seed financing was led by Twinpath Ventures, with participation from Cambridge Enterprise Ventures, Parkwalk Advisors, Fund F, Vento Ventures and angel investors from Ventures Together.
People and Artificial Intelligence Credit: Weiquan Lin
Cambridge scientists are using artificial intelligence technology to boost research in a range of fields – from better understanding human intelligence, to describing turbulent flows, to freeing computer systems from the cloud – after securing new Fellowships launched to drive breakthrough discoveries.
The Encode: AI for Science Fellowships embed top AI talent in the UK’s leading labs to tackle scientific challenges and accelerate the path to real-world solutions. Three Fellowships in the first cohort are being hosted at Cambridge.
Encode Fellow Jonathan Carter is using technology originally developed for astrophysics research to decipher how humans understand physics – for example, how the human brain performs intuitive physics calculations, like predicting where a thrown ball will land. Working with Hiranya Peiris, who holds the Cambridge Professorship of Astrophysics (1909), their approach uses interpretable variational encoders, a specialised neural network that can find compact, meaningful representations in complex data. This cross-disciplinary research could advance both our understanding of human intelligence and our ability to build AI systems that learn and generalise like humans do.
Shruti Mishra, another Encode Fellow, is developing an AI system that can discover clear, understandable equations describing how turbulent flows behave across different scales. This is a long-standing challenge in physics that affects everything from weather prediction to aerospace design. Guided by Miles Cranmer, Assistant Professor of Data Intensive Science at Cambridge, Shruti is combining machine learning with symbolic mathematics to automatically produce equations that scientists can interpret and trust, rather than ‘black-box predictions’, where the decision-making process is difficult to understand. Their work has the potential to enable more accurate climate predictions and improve industrial designs.
And Encode Fellow Martyna Stachaczyk is working with Rika Antonova, Associate Professor at Cambridge, to design a biologically inspired, on-device control architecture for real-time, local intelligence. This research could free intelligent systems from the cloud – which can be insecure and inaccessible where connectivity is limited – enabling robust, adaptive autonomy for prosthetics, robots, and environmental platforms even in resource-constrained or disconnected settings.
The Encode AI for Science Fellowship programme is run by Pillar VC, with funding from the Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA) and the UK Government’s Sovereign AI Unit.
An artificial heart valve made from a new type of plastic could be a step closer to use in humans, following a successful long-term safety test in animals.
A research team, led by the Universities of Bristol and Cambridge, demonstrated that the polymer material used to make the artificial heart valve is safe following a six-month test in sheep.
Currently, the 1.5 million patients who need heart valve replacements each year face trade-offs. Mechanical heart valves are durable but require lifelong blood thinners due to a high risk of blood clots, whereas biological valves, made from animal tissue, typically last between eight to 10 years before needing replacement.
The artificial heart valve developed by the researchers is made from SEBS (styrene-block-ethylene/butyleneblock-styrene) – a type of plastic that has excellent durability but does not require blood thinners – and potentially offers the best of both worlds. However, further testing is required before it can be tested in humans.
In their study, published in the European Journal of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery, the researchers tested a prototype SEBS heart valve in a preclinical sheep model that mimicked how these valves might perform in humans.
The animals were monitored over six months to examine potential long-term safety issues associated with the plastic material. At the end of the study, the researchers found no evidence of harmful calcification (mineral buildup) or material deterioration, blood clotting or signs of cell toxicity. Animal health, wellbeing, blood tests and weight were all stable and normal, and the prototype valve functioned well throughout the testing period, with no need for blood thinners.
“More than 35 million patients’ heart valves are permanently damaged by rheumatic fever, and with an ageing population, this figure is predicted to increase four to five times by 2050,” said Professor Raimondo Ascione from the University of Bristol, the study’s clinical lead. “Our findings could mark the beginning of a new era for artificial heart valves: one that may offer safer, more durable and more patient-friendly options for patients of all ages, with fewer compromises.”
“We are pleased that the new plastic material has been shown to be safe after six months of testing in vivo,” said Professor Geoff Moggridge from Cambridge’s Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, biomaterial lead on the project. “Confirming the safety of the material has been an essential and reassuring step for us, and a green light to progress the new heart valve replacement toward bedside testing.”
The results suggest that artificial heart valves made from SEBS are both durable and do not require the lifelong use of blood thinners.
While the research is still early-stage, the findings help clear a path to future human testing. The next step will be to develop a clinical-grade version of the SEBS polymer heart valve and test it in a larger preclinical trial before seeking approval for a pilot human clinical trial.
The study was funded by a British Heart Foundation (BHF) grant and supported by a National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Invention for Innovation (i4i) programme Product Development Awards (PDA) award. Geoff Moggridge is a Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge.
A new total-body PET scanner to be hosted in Cambridge – one of only a handful in the country – will transform our ability to diagnose and treat a range of conditions in patients and to carry out cutting-edge research and drug development.
This is an exciting new technology that will transform our ability to answer important questions about how diseases arise and to search for and develop new treatmentsFranklin Aigbirhio
The scanner, funded through a £5.5m investment from the UKRI Medical Research Council (MRC), will form part of the National PET Imaging Platform (NPIP), the UK’s first-of-its-kind national total-body PET imaging platform for drug discovery and clinical research.
Positron emission tomography (PET) is a powerful technology for imaging living tissues and organs down to the molecular level in humans. It can be used to investigate how diseases arise and progress and to detect and diagnose diseases at an early stage.
Total-body PET scanners are more sensitive than existing technology and so can provide new insights into anatomy that have never been seen before, improving detection, diagnosis and treatment of complex, multi-organ diseases.
Current PET technology is less sensitive and requires the patient to be repositioned multiple times to achieve a full-body field of view. Total-body PET scans can achieve this in one session and are quicker, exposing patients to considerably lower doses of radiation. This means more patients, including children, can participate in clinical research and trials to improve our understanding of diseases.
ANGLIA network of universities and NHS trusts
Supplied by Siemens Healthineers, the scanner will also be the focus of the ANGLIA network, comprising three universities, each paired with one or more local NHS trusts: the University of Cambridge and Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust; UCL and University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust; and the University of Sheffield with Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
The network, supported by UKRI, is partnered with biotech company Altos Labs and pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, both with R&D headquarters in Cambridge, and Alliance Medical, a leading provider of diagnostic imaging.
Franklin Aigbirhio, Professor of Molecular Imaging Chemistry at the University of Cambridge, will lead the ANGLIA network. He said: “This is an exciting new technology that will transform our ability to answer important questions about how diseases arise and to search for and develop new treatments that will ultimately benefit not just our patients, but those across the UK and beyond.
“But this is more than just a research tool. It will also help us diagnose and treat diseases at an even earlier stage, particularly in children, for whom repeated investigations using standard PET scanners were not an option.”
The scanner will be located in Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre, ensuring that the discoveries and breakthroughs it enables can be turned rapidly into benefits to patients. It will expand NHS access to PET services, particularly in underserved areas across the East of England, and support more inclusive trial participation.
Patrick Maxwell, Regius Professor of Physic and Head of the School of Clinical Medicine at the University of Cambridge, said: “The ANGLIA network, centred on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus and with collaborations across the wider University and its partners, will drive innovations in many areas of this key imaging technology, such as new radiopharmaceuticals and application of AI to data analysis, that will bring benefits to patients far beyond its immediate reach. Its expertise will help build the next generation of PET scientists, as well as enabling partners in industry to use PET to speed up the development of new drugs.”
Roland Sinker, Chief Executive of Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Addenbrooke’s Hospital, said: “I am pleased that our patients will be some of the first to benefit from this groundbreaking technology. Harnessing the latest technologies and enabling more people to benefit from the latest research is a vital part of our work at CUH and is crucial to the future of the NHS.
“By locating this scanner at Addenbrooke’s we are ensuring that it can be uniquely used to deliver wide ranging scientific advances across academia and industry, as well as improving the lives of patients.”
It is anticipated that the scanner will be installed by autumn 2026.
The co-location of the total-body PET scanner with existing facilities and integration with systems at the University of Cambridge and Addenbrooke’s Hospital will also enhance training and research capacity, particularly for early-career researchers and underrepresented groups.
The ANGLIA network will provide opportunities to support and train more by people from Black and other minority ethnic backgrounds to participate in PET chemistry and imaging. The University of Cambridge will support a dedicated fellowship scheme, capacity and capability training in key areas, and strengthen the network partnership with joint projects and exchange visits.
Professor Aigbirhio, who is also co-chair of the UKRI MRC’s Black in Biomedical Research Advisory Group, added: “Traditionally, scientists from Black and other minority ethnic backgrounds are under-represented in the field of medical imaging. We aim to use our network to change this, providing fellowship opportunities and training targeted at members of these communities.”
The National PET Imaging Platform
Funded by UKRI’s Infrastructure Fund, and delivered by a partnership between Medicines Discovery Catapult, MRC and Innovate UK, NPIP provides a critical clinical infrastructure of scanners, creating a nationwide network for data sharing, discovery and innovation. It allows clinicians, industry and researchers to collaborate on an international scale to accelerate patient diagnosis, treatment and clinical trials. The MRC funding for the Cambridge scanner will support the existing UKRI Infrastructure Fund investment for NPIP and enables the University to establish a total-body PET facility.
Dr Ceri Williams, Executive Director of Challenge-Led Themes at MRC said: “MRC is delighted to augment the funding for NPIP to provide an additional scanner for Cambridge in line with the original recommendations of the funding panel. This additional machine will broaden the geographic reach of the platform, providing better access for patients from East Anglia and the Midlands, and enable research to drive innovation in imaging, detection, and diagnosis, alongside supporting partnership with industry to drive improvements and efficiency for the NHS.”
Dr Juliana Maynard, Director of Operations and Engagement for the National PET Imaging Platform, said: “We are delighted to welcome the University of Cambridge as the latest partner of NPIP, expanding our game-changing national imaging infrastructure to benefit even more researchers, clinicians, industry partners and, importantly, patients.
“Once operational, the scanner will contribute to NPIP’s connected network of data, which will improve diagnosis and aid researchers’ understanding of diseases, unlocking more opportunities for drug discovery and development. By fostering collaboration on this scale, NPIP helps accelerate disease diagnosis, treatment, and clinical trials, ultimately leading to improved outcomes for patients.”
The University of Cambridge hosted a visit from local MP, and Farming Minister Daniel Zeichner MP, at the Sainsbury Laboratory.
The visit brought together fundamental plant science research with crop and Agri-Tech researchers from across the University for a series of research demonstrations and a roundtable discussion.
Mr Zeichner toured the award-winning facility, meeting researchers in the open-plan office and lab spaces, which foster collaboration and advances in multi-disciplinary research.
The Minister saw exciting examples of foundational research, which have the potential to transform agriculture and ensure long term sustainability.
The first demonstration was led by Dr Sebastian Schornack and PhD student Nicolas Hernandez, who are investigating the plant developmental processes. The Minister saw through the microscope how they are using beetroot pigments to enable us to see how fungi is colonising living plant roots. This research allows us to track and measure in real time how chemicals, soil tillage and environmental conditions impact this beneficial plant-microbe relationship.
Mr Zeichner then visited the Lab’s microscopy room, and met with Dr Madelaine Bartlett and her colleague Terice Kelly. Dr Madelaine Bartlett’s team researches the development of maize flowers (among other grass and cereal species) with a particular focus on the genetics behind these specialised flowers and future crop improvement. The team demonstrated how they image a maize flower on the Lab’s desktop scanning electron microscope.
The Sainsbury Laboratory boasts its own Bee Room, where Dr Edwige Moyroud demonstrated how bumble bees are helping to reveal the characteristics of petal patterns that are most important for attracting pollinators. Dr Moyroud and her team are identifying the genes that plants use to produce patterns that attract pollinators by combining various research techniques, including experiments, modelling, microscopy and bee behaviour.
Finally, overlooking Cambridge’ Botanic Gardens, academics from the Department of Plant Sciences and the Crop Science Centre presented on research into regenerative agriculture and using AI to measure and prevent crop disease.
Professor Lynn Dicks presented on the latest findings of the H3 research on regenerative agriculture. Professor Dicks and colleagues, during this ongoing five-year project, have worked collaboratively with farming clusters in the UK to study the impacts of a transition on regenerative agriculture, which has so far has been shown to improve soil health and reduce the use of chemicals.
Professor Eves-van Den Akker and his team, based at the University’s Crop Science Centre, have combined low-cost 3D printing of custom imaging machines with state-of-the-art deep-learning algorithms to make millions of measurements, of tens of thousands of parasites across hundreds of genotypes. They are now working with companies to translate this fundamental research, with the aim of accelerating their breeding programs for crop resistance to pests and disease.
The visit concluded with a discussion of the UK’s leading strengths in Agri-Tech and crop science, and how the UK and Cambridge are an attractive place for researchers from around the world to work, and make exciting advances, with global impact.
Immune cells released from bone marrow in the skull in response to chronic stress and adversity could play a key role in symptoms of depression and anxiety, say researchers.
There’s a significant proportion of people for whom antidepressants don’t work. If we can figure out what’s happening with the immune system, we may be able to alleviate or reduce depressive symptomsStacey Kigar
The discovery – found in a study in mice – sheds light on the role that inflammation can play in mood disorders and could help in the search for new treatments, in particular for those individuals for whom current treatments are ineffective.
Around 1 billion people will be diagnosed with a mood disorder such as depression or anxiety at some point in their life. While there may be many underlying causes, chronic inflammation – when the body’s immune system stays active for a long time, even when there is no infection or injury to fight – has been linked to depression. This suggests that the immune system may play an important role in the development of mood disorders.
Previous studies have highlighted how high levels of an immune cell known as a neutrophil, a type of white blood cell, are linked to the severity of depression. But how neutrophils contribute to symptoms of depression is currently unclear.
In research published today in Nature Communications, a team led by scientists at the University of Cambridge, UK, and the National Institute of Mental Health, USA, tested a hypothesis that chronic stress can lead to the release of neutrophils from bone marrow in the skull. These cells then collect in the meninges – membranes that cover and protect your brain and spinal cord – and contribute to symptoms of depression.
As it is not possible to test this hypothesis in humans, the team used mice exposed to chronic social stress. In this experiment, an ‘intruder’ mouse is introduced into the home cage of an aggressive resident mouse. The two have brief daily physical interactions and can otherwise see, smell, and hear each other.
The researchers found that prolonged exposure to this stressful environment led to a noticeable increase in levels of neutrophils in the meninges, and that this was linked to signs of depressive behaviour in the mice. Even after the stress ended, the neutrophils lasted longer in the meninges than they did in the blood. Analysis confirmed the researchers’ hypothesis that the meningeal neutrophils – which appeared subtly different from those found in the blood – originated in the skull.
Further analysis suggested that long-term stress triggered a type of immune system ‘alarm warning’ known as type I interferon signalling in the neutrophils. Blocking this pathway – in effect, switching off the alarm – reduced the number of neutrophils in the meninges and improved behaviour in the depressed mice. This pathway has previously been linked to depression – type 1 interferons are used to treat patients with hepatitis C, for example, but a known side effect of the medication is that it can cause severe depression during treatment.
Dr Stacey Kigar from the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge said: “Our work helps explain how chronic stress can lead to lasting changes in the brain’s immune environment, potentially contributing to depression. It also opens the door to possible new treatments that target the immune system rather than just brain chemistry.
“There’s a significant proportion of people for whom antidepressants don’t work, possibly as many as one in three patients. If we can figure out what’s happening with the immune system, we may be able to alleviate or reduce depressive symptoms.”
The reason why there are high levels of neutrophils in the meninges is unclear. One explanation could be that they are recruited by microglia, a type of immune cell unique to the brain. Another possible explanation is that chronic stress may cause microhaemorrhages, tiny leaks in brain blood vessels, and that neutrophils – the body’s ‘first responders’ – arrive to fix the damage and prevent any further damage. These neutrophils then become more rigid, possibly getting stuck in brain capillaries and causing further inflammation in the brain.
Dr Mary-Ellen Lynall from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge said: “We’ve long known that something is different about how neutrophils behave after stressful events, or during depression, but we didn’t know what these neutrophils were doing, where they were going, or how they might be affecting the brain and mind. Our findings show that these ‘first responder’ immune cells leave the skull bone marrow and travel to the brain, where they can influence mood and behaviour.
“Most people will have experienced how our immune systems can drive short-lived depression-like symptoms. When we are sick, for example with a cold or flu, we often lack energy and appetite, sleep more and withdraw from social contact. If the immune system is always in a heightened, pro-inflammatory state, it shouldn’t be too surprising if we experience longer-term problems with our mood.”
The findings could provide a useful signature, or ‘biomarker’, to help identify those patients whose mood disorders are related to inflammation. This could help in the search for better treatments. For example, a clinical trial of a potential new drug that targets inflammation of the brain in depression might appear to fail if trialled on a general cohort of people with depression, whereas using the biomarker to identify individuals whose depression is linked to inflammation could increase the likelihood of the trial succeeding.
The findings may also help explain why depression is a symptom common in other neurological disorders such as stroke and Alzheimer’s disease, as it may be the case that neutrophils are being released in response to the damage to the brain seen in these conditions. But it may also explain why depression is itself a risk factor for dementia in later life, if neutrophils can themselves trigger damage to brain cells.
The research was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, Medical Research Council and National Institute for Health and Care Research Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.
The Trump assassination attempt on the front page of German newspaper Bild. Credit: conceptphoto.info via Flickr
Research reveals how political crises cause a shift in the force behind viral online content ‘from outgroup hate to ingroup love’.
It appears that political crises evoke not so much outgroup hate but rather ingroup loveMalia Marks
While previous research shows outrage and division drive engagement on social media, a new study of digital behaviour during the 2024 US election finds that this effect flips during a major crisis – when “ingroup solidarity” becomes the engine of online virality.
Psychologists say the findings show positive emotions such as unity can cut through the hostility on social media, but it takes a shock to the system that threatens a community.
In a little over a week during the summer of 2024, the attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a rally (July 13) and Joe Biden’s suspension of his re-election campaign (21 July) completely reshaped the presidential race.
The University of Cambridge’s Social Decision-Making Lab collected over 62,000 public posts from the Facebook accounts of hundreds of US politicians, commentators and media outlets before and after these events to see how they affected online behaviour.*
“We wanted to understand the kinds of content that went viral among Republicans and Democrats during this period of high tension for both groups,” said Malia Marks, PhD candidate in Cambridge’s Department of Psychology and lead author of the study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Negative emotions such as anger and outrage along with hostility towards opposing political groups are usually rocket fuel for social media engagement. You might expect this to go into hyperdrive during times of crisis and external threat.”
“However, we found the opposite. It appears that political crises evoke not so much outgroup hate but rather ingroup love,” said Marks.
Just after the Trump assassination attempt, Republican-aligned posts signalling unity and shared identity received 53% more engagement than those that did not – an increase of 17 percentage points compared to just before the shooting.
These included posts such as evangelist Franklin Graham thanking God that Donald Trump is alive, and Fox News commentator Laura Ingraham posting: “Bleeding and unbowed, Trump faces relentless attacks yet stands strong for America. This is why his followers remain passionately loyal.”
At the same time, engagement levels for Republican posts attacking the Democrats saw a decrease of 23 percentage points from just a few days earlier.
After Biden suspended his re-election campaign, Democrat-aligned posts expressing solidarity received 91% more engagement than those that did not – a major increase of 71 percentage points over the period shortly before his withdrawal.
Posts included former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich calling Biden “one of our most pro-worker presidents”, and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi posting that Biden’s “legacy of vision, values and leadership make him one of the most consequential Presidents in American history.”
Biden’s withdrawal saw the continuation of a gradual rise in engagement for Democrat posts attacking Republicans – although over the 25 July days covered by the analysis almost a quarter of all conservative posts displayed “outgroup hostility” compared to just 5% of liberal posts.
Research led by the same Cambridge Lab, published in 2021, showed how social media posts criticizing or mocking those on the rival side of an ideological divide typically receive twice as many shares as posts that champion one’s own side.
“Social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook are increasingly seen as creating toxic information environments that intensify social and political divisions, and there is plenty of research now to support this,” said Yara Kyrychenko, study co-author and PhD candidate in Cambridge’s Social Decision-Making Lab.
“Yet we see that social media can produce a rally-round-the-flag effect at moments of crisis, when the emotional and psychological preference for one’s own group takes over as the dominant driver of online behaviour.”
Last year, the Cambridge team (led by Kyrychenko) published a study of 1.6 million Ukrainian social media posts in the months before and after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February of 2022.
Following the invasion they found a similar spike for “ingroup solidarity” posts, which got 92% more engagement on Facebook and 68% more on Twitter, while posts hostile to Russia received little extra engagement.
Researchers argue that the findings from the latest study are even more surprising, given the gravity of the threat to Ukraine and the nature of its population.
“We didn’t know whether moments of political rather than existential crisis would trigger solidarity in a country as deeply polarised as the United States. But even here, group unity surged when leadership was threatened,” said Dr Jon Roozenbeek, Lecturer in Psychology at Cambridge University and senior author of the study.
“In times of crisis, ingroup love may matter more to us than outgroup hate on social media.”
* The study used 62,118 public posts from 484 Facebook accounts run by US politicians and partisan commentators or media sources from 5-29 July 2024.
The brain holds a ‘map’ of the body that remains unchanged even after a limb has been amputated, contrary to the prevailing view that it rearranges itself to compensate for the loss, according to new research from scientists in the UK and US.
We suspected that the brain maps would be largely unchanged, but the extent to which the map of the missing limb remained intact was jaw-droppingTamar Makin
The findings, published today in Nature Neuroscience, have implications for the treatment of ‘phantom limb’ pain, but also suggest that controlling robotic replacement limbs via neural interfaces may be more straightforward than previously thought.
Studies have previously shown that within an area of the brain known as the somatosensory cortex there exists a map of the body, with different regions corresponding to different body parts. These maps are responsible for processing sensory information, such as touch, temperate and pain, as well as body position. For example, if you touch something hot with your hand, this will activate a particular region of the brain; if you stub your toe, a different region activates.
For decades now, the commonly-accepted view among neuroscientists has been that following amputation of a limb, neighbouring regions rearrange and essentially take over the area previously assigned to the now missing limb. This has relied on evidence from studies carried out after amputation, without comparing activity in the brain maps beforehand.
But this has presented a conundrum. Most amputees report phantom sensations, a feeling that the limb is still in place – this can also lead to sensations such as itching or pain in the missing limb. Also, brain imaging studies where amputees have been asked to ‘move’ their missing fingers have shown brain patterns resembling those of able-bodied individuals.
To investigate this contradiction, a team led by Professor Tamar Makin from the University of Cambridge and Dr Hunter Schone from the University of Pittsburgh followed three individuals due to undergo amputation of one of their hands. This is the first time a study has looked at the hand and face maps of individuals both before and after amputation. Most of the work was carried out while Professor Makin and Dr Schone were at UCL.
Prior to amputation, all three individuals were able to move all five digits of their hands. While lying in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner – which measures activity in the brain – the participants were asked to move their individual fingers and to purse their lips. The researchers used the brain scans to construct maps of the hand and lips for each individual. In these maps, the lips sit near to the hand.
The participants repeated the activity three months and again six months after amputation, this time asked to purse their lips and to imagine moving individual fingers. One participant was scanned again 18 months after amputation and a second participant five years after amputation.
The researchers examined the signals from the pre-amputation finger maps and compared them against the maps post-amputation. Analysis of the ‘before’ and ‘after’ images revealed a remarkable consistency: even with their hand now missing, the corresponding brain region activated in an almost identical manner.
Professor Makin, from the Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Science Unit at the University of Cambridge, the study’s senior author, said: “Because of our previous work, we suspected that the brain maps would be largely unchanged, but the extent to which the map of the missing limb remained intact was jaw-dropping.
“Bearing in mind that the somatosensory cortex is responsible for interpreting what’s going on within the body, it seems astonishing that it doesn’t seem to know that the hand is no longer there.”
As previous studies had suggested that the body map reorganises such that neighbouring regions take over, the researchers looked at the region corresponding to the lips to see if it had moved or spread. They found that it remained unchanged and had not taken over the region representing the missing hand.
The study’s first author, Dr Schone from the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, University of Pittsburgh, said: “We didn’t see any signs of the reorganisation that is supposed to happen according to the classical way of thinking. The brain maps remained static and unchanged.”
To complement their findings, the researchers compared their case studies to 26 participants who had had upper limbs amputated, on average 23.5 years beforehand. These individuals showed similar brain representations of the hand and lips to those in their three case studies, suggesting long-term evidence for the stability of hand and lip representations despite amputation.
Brain activity maps for the hand (shown in red) and lips (blue) before and after amputation
The researchers offer an explanation for the previous misunderstanding of what happens within the brain following amputation. They say that the boundaries within the brain maps are not clear cut – while the brain does have a map of the body, each part of the map doesn’t support one body part exclusively. So while inputs from the middle finger may largely activate one region, they also show some activity in the region representing the forefinger, for example. Previous studies that argue for massive reorganisation determined the layout of the maps by applying a ‘winner takes all’ strategy – stimulating the remaining body parts and noting which area of the brain shows most activity; because the missing limb is no longer there to be stimulated, activity from neighbouring limbs has been misinterpreted as taking over.
The findings have implications for the treatment of phantom limb pain, a phenomenon that can plague amputees. Current approaches focus on trying to restore representation of the limb in the brain’s map, but randomised controlled trials to test this approach have shown limited success – today’s study suggests this is because these approaches are focused on the wrong problem.
Dr Schone said: “The remaining parts of the nerves — still inside the residual limb — are no longer connected to their end-targets. They are dramatically cut off from the sensory receptors that have delivered them consistent signals. Without an end-target, the nerves can continue to grow to form a thickening of the nerve tissue and send noisy signals back to the brain.
“The most promising therapies involve rethinking how the amputation surgery is actually performed, for instance grafting the nerves into a new muscle or skin, so they have a new home to attach to.”
Of the three participants, one had substantial limb pain prior to amputation but received a complex procedure to graft the nerves to new muscle or skin; she no longer experiences pain. The other two participants, however, received the standard treatment and continue to experience phantom limb pain.
The University of Pittsburgh is one of a number of institutions that is researching whether movement and sensation can be restored to paralysed limbs or whether amputated limbs might be replaced by artificial, robotic limbs controlled by a brain interface. Today’s study suggests that because the brain maps are preserved, it should – in theory – be possible to restore movement to a paralysed limb or for the brain to control a prosthetic.
Dr Chris Baker from the Laboratory of Brain & Cognition, National Institutes of Mental Health, said: “If the brain rewired itself after amputation, these technologies would fail. If the area that had been responsible for controlling your hand was now responsible for your face, these implants just wouldn’t work. Our findings provide a real opportunity to develop these technologies now.”
Dr Schone added: “Now that we’ve shown these maps are stable, brain-computer interface technologies can operate under the assumption that the body map remains consistent over time. This allows us to move into the next frontier: accessing finer details of the hand map — like distinguishing the tip of the finger from the base — and restoring the rich, qualitative aspects of sensation, such as texture, shape, and temperature. This study is a powerful reminder that even after limb loss, the brain holds onto the body, waiting for us to reconnect.”
The research was supported by Wellcome, the National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health and Medical Research Council.
An analysis of studies incorporating data from almost 30 million people has highlighted the role that air pollution – including that coming from car exhaust emissions – plays in increased risk of dementia.
Tackling air pollution can deliver long-term health, social, climate, and economic benefitsHaneen Khreis
Dementias such as Alzheimer’s disease are estimated to affect more than 57.4 million people worldwide, a number that is expected to almost triple to 152.8 million cases by 2050. The impacts on the individuals, families and caregivers and society at large are immense.
While there are some indications that the prevalence of dementia is decreasing in Europe and North America, suggesting that it may be possible to reduce the risk of the disease at a population level, elsewhere the picture is less promising.
Air pollution has recently been identified as a risk factor for dementia, with several studies pointing the finger at a number of pollutants. However, the strength of evidence and ability to determine a causal effect has been varied.
In a paper published today in The Lancet Planetary Health, a team led by researchers at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge, carried out a systematic review and meta-analysis of existing scientific literature to examine this link further. This approach allowed them to bring together studies that on their own may not provide sufficient evidence, and which sometimes disagree with each other, to provide more robust overarching conclusions.
In total, the researchers included 51 studies, including data from more than 29 million participants who had been exposed to air pollutants for at least one year, mostly from high-income countries. Of these, 34 papers were included in the meta-analysis: 15 originated in North America, 10 in Europe, seven in Asia, and two in Australia.
The researchers found a positive and statistically-significant association between three types of air pollutant and dementia. These were:
Particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 microns or less (PM2.5), a pollutant made up of tiny particles small enough that they can be inhaled deep into the lungs. These particles come from several sources, including vehicle emissions, power plants, industrial processes, wood burning stoves and fireplaces, and construction dust. They also form in the atmosphere because of complex chemical reactions involving other pollutants such as sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. The particles can stay in the air for a long time and travel a long way from where they were produced.
Nitrogen dioxide (NO2), one of the key pollutants that arise from burning fossil fuels. It is found in vehicle exhaust, especially diesel exhaust, and industrial emissions, as well as those from gas stoves and heaters. Exposure to high concentrations of nitrogen dioxide can irritate the respiratory system, worsening and inducing conditions like asthma and reducing lung function.
Soot from sources such as vehicle exhaust emissions and burning wood. It can trap heat and affect the climate. When inhaled, it can penetrate deep into the lungs, aggravating respiratory diseases and increasing the risk of heart problems.
Senior author Dr Haneen Khreis from the MRC Epidemiology Unit said: “Epidemiological evidence plays a crucial role in allowing us to determine whether or not air pollution increases the risk of dementia and by how much. Our work provides further evidence to support the observation that long-term exposure to outdoor air pollution is a risk factor for the onset of dementia in previously healthy adults.
“Tackling air pollution can deliver long-term health, social, climate, and economic benefits. It can reduce the immense burden on patients, families, and caregivers, while easing pressure on overstretched healthcare systems.”
Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain how air pollution may cause dementia, primarily involving inflammation in the brain and oxidative stress (a chemical process in the body that can cause damage to cells, proteins, and DNA). Both oxidative stress and inflammation play a well-established role in the onset and progression of dementia. Air pollution is thought to trigger these processes through direct entry to the brain or via the same mechanisms underlying lung and cardiovascular diseases. Air pollution can also enter circulation from the lungs and travel to solid organs, initiating local and wide-spread inflammation.
The researchers point out that the majority of people included in the published studies were white and living in high-income countries, even though marginalised groups tend to have a higher exposure to air pollution. Given that studies have suggested that reducing air pollution exposure appears to be more beneficial at reducing the risk of early death for marginalised groups, they call for future work to urgently ensure better and more adequate representation across ethnicities and low- and middle-income countries and communities.
Joint first author Clare Rogowski, also from the MRC Epidemiology Unit, said: “Efforts to reduce exposure to these key pollutants are likely to help reduce the burden of dementia on society. Stricter limits for several pollutants are likely to be necessary targeting major contributors such as the transport and industry sectors. Given the extent of air pollution, there is an urgent need for regional, national, and international policy interventions to combat air pollution equitably.”
Further analysis revealed that while exposure to these pollutants increased the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, the effect seemed stronger for vascular dementia, a type of dementia caused by reduced blood flow to the brain. Around 180,000 people in the UK are thought to be affected by this type of dementia. However, as there were only a small number of studies that examined this difference, the researchers did not class it as statistically significant.
Joint first author Dr Christiaan Bredell from the University of Cambridge and North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust said: “These findings underscore the need for an interdisciplinary approach to dementia prevention. Preventing dementia is not just the responsibility of healthcare: this study strengthens the case that urban planning, transport policy, and environmental regulation all have a significant role to play.”
The research was funded by the European Research Council under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Framework Programme.
Lord Chris Smith has been elected as the new Chancellor of the University of Cambridge.
To be elected as Chancellor of the University I love is a huge honour. I’m thrilled. I look forward to being the best possible ambassador for Cambridge, to being a strong voice for higher education more generally, and to working closely together with the Vice-Chancellor and her team.Lord Smith
Lord Smith, the outgoing Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge, becomes the 109th Chancellor and will hold the office for ten years.
He said: “To be elected as Chancellor of the University I love is a huge honour. I’m thrilled. I look forward to being the best possible ambassador for Cambridge, to being a strong voice for higher education more generally, and to working closely together with the Vice-Chancellor and her team.”
Lord Smith’s election follows a process which attracted ten candidates. For the first time the election was opened to online voting and more than 23,000 alumni and staff participated. In addition, almost 2,000 chose to vote in person at the University’s Senate House.
Professor Deborah Prentice, the Vice-Chancellor, said: “On behalf of everyone at the University, I offer my warm congratulations to Chris on his election. I very much look forward to working with him and building on the strong relationship that we have developed since I became Vice-Chancellor. Chris has had a long involvement with the University and brings a wealth of relevant experience to this important role.”
“I would like to thank the other nine candidates for standing for the role and their willingness to serve Cambridge.”
Lord Smith has been the Master of Pembroke since 2015 and steps down at the end of July. He is a former Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and later Chairman of the Environment Agency.
Born in 1951, Lord Smith was educated in Edinburgh and then Pembroke College, Cambridge, achieving a double first in English (and later a PhD on Wordsworth and Coleridge) and was also a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard.
He began his political career as a Labour Councillor for the London Borough of Islington, becoming MP for Islington South and Finsbury in 1983. In 1992 he joined the Shadow Cabinet and held a number of front bench posts before Labour came to power in 1997. He served as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport until 2001 when he returned to the back benches, standing down from the Commons in 2005. Immediately afterwards he was made a life peer.
In July 2008 he became Chairman of the Environment Agency. He chaired the Environment Agency from 2008 to 2014; from 2007 to 2017 he was also Chairman of the Advertising Standards Authority.
The position of Chancellor stretches back more than 800 years to the foundation of the University. Although the role is primarily ceremonial and without executive responsibilities, the Chancellor has an important part to play in acting as a sounding board for senior figures within the University, in supporting fundraising and in acting as an ambassador for Cambridge. The most significant commitment for the Chancellor is to advocate and support the University’s aims and strategic interests.
The election was held between 9 and 18 July. It was conducted under the single transferable vote system and administered on behalf of the University by Civica Election Services. The results, based on the final numbers of votes allocated to each candidate, were as follows:
Savanna hawk is a widespread species that invades formerly forested areas after clearance Credit: David Edwards
In the largest ever survey of rainforest birdlife, scientists have discovered that deforestation to create pastureland in Colombia is causing around 60% more damage to biodiversity than previously estimated.
The food we eat comes with a much great environmental cost than we thought. We need policy makers to think much more about the larger scale biodiversity impact of deforestation.David Edwards
Researchers have conducted the world’s biggest ever bird survey, recording 971 different species living in forests and cattle pastures across the South American country of Colombia. This represents almost 10% of the world’s birds.
They combined the results, gathered over a decade, with information on each species’ sensitivity to habitat conversion to find that the biodiversity loss caused by clearing rainforest for cattle pasture is on average 60% worse than previously thought.
Until now, understanding the biodiversity impact of land-use change has generally involved small-scale, local surveys. The researchers say that this approach does not represent the larger-scale damage caused to nature.
When forests are converted to pasture, some species win and others lose. Measuring the biodiversity loss at local scale does not capture the larger-scale effect of forest conversion, which is occurring across the ranges of many different species. While the same species usually survive on pastureland, a wide range of other species don’t, so overall biodiversity is more severely reduced at large scale.
Professor David Edwards in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Plant Sciences and Conservation Research Institute, senior author of the report, said: “This is a really surprising result. We found that the biodiversity loss caused by clearing rainforest for pastureland is being massively underestimated.”
He added: “When people want to understand the wider impact of deforestation on biodiversity, they tend to do a local survey and extrapolate the results. But the problem is that tree clearance is occurring at massive spatial scales, across all sorts of different habitats and elevations.
“When we looked the biodiversity impact of deforestation across thirteen different eco-regions in Colombia, we found a 62% greater biodiversity loss than local survey results would indicate.”
The study also showed that at least six different eco-regions – that is, regions containing distinct types of plants and animals – must be considered for an accurate assessment of overall biodiversity impact. This is because the species in different eco-regions have different sensitivities to habitat conversion.
Biodiversity offsetting schemes, which aim to compensate for species losses caused by developments in one place by boosting biodiversity in another, rely on accurate measures of biodiversity.
Trees are also being cleared at huge scales in Colombia and other tropical regions to create growing space for major agricultural crops including rubber, oil palm, sugar cane and coffee.
Edwards said: “The food we eat comes with a much great environmental cost than we thought. We need policy makers to think much more about the larger scale biodiversity impact of deforestation.”
Tropical birdsong recordings
The team studied Columbia’s birdlife across its diverse landscapes for over seven years, recording the song of hundreds of bird species to help them identify the species present in landscapes across the country, from pasture to mountain forest. In about 80% of cases the birds were heard but not seen, requiring the team to make identifications from the sounds alone.
With information about the birds, including their size and diet, the team could predict which other species were likely to be living in the same regions and how they too would respond to deforestation.
A highly biodiverse country
Colombia is home to some of the most beautiful and exotic animal and plant life in the world, with almost one third made up of rainforest.
Particularly biodiverse areas, including the Caqueta moist forests and the Napo moist forests, can have 500-600 different bird species within an area of ten square kilometres – but many of these species have very specific habitat requirements. The study showed that if trees are cleared across their range these species are likely to die out.
Land-use change, particularly in the highly biodiverse tropics, is one of the main causes of the global biodiversity crisis.
This research was funded by the Research Council of Norway and the Natural Environment Research Council.
Researchers from the University of Cambridge are using AI to speed up landslide detection following major earthquakes and extreme rainfall events—buying valuable time to coordinate relief efforts and reduce humanitarian impacts.
On 3 April 2024, a magnitude 7.4 quake—Taiwan’s strongest in 25 years—shook the country’s eastern coast. Stringent building codes spared most structures, but mountainous and remote villages were devastated by landslides.
When disasters affect large and inaccessible areas, responders often turn to satellite images to pinpoint affected areas and prioritise relief efforts.
But mapping landslides from satellite imagery by eye can be time-intensive, said Lorenzo Nava, who is jointly based at Cambridge’s Departments of Earth Sciences and Geography. “In the aftermath of a disaster, time really matters,” he said. Using AI, he identified 7,000 landslides after the Taiwan earthquake, and within three hours of the satellite imagery being acquired.
Since the Taiwan earthquake, Nava has been developing his AI method alongside an international team. By employing a suite of satellite technologies—including satellites that can see through clouds and at night—the researchers hope to enhance AI’s landslide detection capabilities.
Multiplying hazards
Triggered by major earthquakes or intense rainfall, landslides are often worsened by human activities such as deforestation and construction on unstable slopes. In certain environments, they can trigger additional hazards such as fast-moving debris flows or severe flooding, compounding their destructive impact.
Nava’s work fits into a larger effort at Cambridge to understand how landslides and other hazards can set off cascading ‘multihazard’ chains. The CoMHaz group, led by Maximillian Van Wyk de Vries, Professor of Natural Hazards in the Departments of Geography and Earth Sciences, draws on information from satellite imagery, computer modelling and fieldwork to locate landslides, understand why they happen and ultimately predict their occurrence.
They’re also working with communities to raise landslide awareness. In Nepal, Nava and Van Wyk de Vries teamed up with local scientists and the Climate and Disaster Resilience in Nepal (CDRIN) consortium to pilot an early warning system for Butwal, which sits beneath a massive unstable slope.
Improved AI-detection
Nava is training AI to identify landslides in two types of satellite images—optical images of the ground surface and radar data, the latter of which can penetrate cloud cover and even acquire images at night.
Radar images can, however, be difficult to interpret, as they use greyscale to depict contrasting surface properties and landscape features can also appear distorted. These challenges make radar data well-suited for AI-assisted analysis, helping extract features that may otherwise go unnoticed.
By combining the cloud-penetrating capabilities of radar with the fidelity of optical images, Nava hopes to build an AI-powered model that can accurately spot landslides even in poor weather conditions.
His trial following the 2024 Taiwan earthquake showed promise, detecting thousands of landslides that would otherwise go unnoticed beneath cloud cover. But Nava acknowledges that there is still more work needed, both to improve the model’s accuracy and its transparency.
He wants to build trust in the model and ensure its outputs are interpretable and actionable by decision-makers. “Very often, the decision-makers are not the ones who developed the algorithm,” said Nava. “AI can feel like a black box. Its internal logic is not always transparent, and that can make people hesitant to act on its outputs.
“It’s important to make it easier for end users to evaluate the quality of AI-generated information before incorporating it into important decisions.”
This is something he is now addressing as part of a broader partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the International Telecommunication Union’s AI for Good Foundation and Global Initiative on Resilience to Natural Hazards through AI Solutions.
At a recent working group meeting at the ESA Centre for Earth Observation in Italy, the researchers launched a data-science challenge to crowdsource efforts to improve the model. “We’re opening this up and looking for help from the wider coding community,” said Nava.
Beyond improving the model’s functionality, Nava says the goal is to incorporate features that explain its reasoning—potentially using visualisations such as maps that show the likelihood of an image containing landslides to help end users understand the outputs.
“In high-stakes scenarios like disaster response, trust in AI-generated results is crucial. Through this challenge, we aim to bring transparency to the model’s decision-making process, empowering decision-makers on the ground to act with confidence and speed.”
How might AI change the way we advance human knowledge? Could it change how universities like Cambridge carry out one of their core functions: research? Could AI be a technological transformation unlike anything we’ve seen before?
A group of Cambridge researchers say that the answer to the last two questions is yes. But this is not because of some mysterious breakthrough or wishful thinking, but the relentless march of computational power. “What’s changed isn’t the methods – we’ve had most of those since the 1970s,” said Dr James Fergusson from Cambridge’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP). “What’s changed is that we now have enough computing power and data to make them work.”
If Moore’s Law holds – as it has for the past 50 years – computing power will keep growing by a factor of 30 every decade. Even without smarter algorithms, hardware power alone will drive AI systems to become exponentially more capable and more embedded in our lives in the coming years.
“Most of the AI tools in widespread use today are essentially mimicking things humans already do, but just doing them faster,” said Fergusson. “We want to really push the maths of AI, so we can get it to do new things. We don’t want it to mimic data, but to tell you how it works and break it down. That’s where the real change will happen.”
Dr James Fergusson
In addition to his role in DAMTP, Fergusson is Director of the Infosys-Cambridge AI Centre, which was opened in the autumn of 2024 at Infosys’ London premises in Canary Wharf. The AI Lab is part of a wider University partnership with the multinational technology and consulting company, meant to make Cambridge’s cutting-edge AI research accessible to industry.
“In the past, companies have found it hard to navigate Cambridge,” said Fergusson. “We want to create a gateway: somewhere businesses can come to ask their questions, and find out what AI can really do for them, and we can learn what challenges they face. We hope this partnership with Infosys is a model of how that could be done.”
There are three main research themes in the AI Centre:
AI-enhanced simulations for improving our understanding of physical systems, which will help AI ‘think’ like scientists, including initiatives such as the Polymathic AI project
Mathematical AI, or theoretical physics for AI, which will look at how we take ideas from theoretical physics and use them to understand how neural networks work and how they learn; and how we extract knowledge from machine learning systems
Agentic AI systems, a way of automating much of the process of scientific research, such as processing data, building software and writing things up.
Dr Boris Bolliet from Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory and Agentic AI Research Lead at the Infosys-Cambridge AI Centre is developing these custom multi-agent systems, based on large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. Bolliet and his team use multi-agent systems, such as CMBAgent and DENARIO, to plan and execute complex tasks, from financial simulations and cosmological data analysis, to autonomous research and paper writing.
“I believe that a lot of things are going to change in the way we do research,” said Bolliet, whose research background is in cosmology and computational astrophysics. “Maybe that means that a lot of repetitive, time-consuming tasks that I spend a lot of my energy on will soon be automated, giving me more time and space to do more interesting things.”
Dr Boris Bolliet
Multi-agent systems work by breaking complex problems into smaller tasks, verify their own outputs, and work like digital research assistants. They are more robust than single AI models because they can plan, review, and cross-check their own work.
The multi-agent model allows Bolliet to assign a role or even a ‘personality’ to each agent. For example, one agent could be a researcher and one an engineer, or one could be an idea generator and one could be a ‘hater’, relentlessly challenging and criticising to make the end product more robust.
Bolliet says that using these multi-agent systems, AI will not only be able to generate research but can also review and correct scientific literature at scale. And unlike humans, it will be able to seamlessly jump across academic fields, from astronomy to oncology, to find the best solutions.
“We want to use AI to accelerate the exchange of information across fields,” said Bolliet. “AI agents don’t have these barriers. They’re not stuck in one discipline like we human researchers are.”
Bolliet says that while we often think of LLMs as black boxes prone to hallucinations, using the multi-agent model allows him to check every step of the research process. “I can see every single step that has occurred and go through the code line by line,” he said. “I can reproduce the research entirely, which is not necessarily true when you talk to your colleagues and ask them what they did in their paper.”
Using tools such as multi-agent systems, the coming AI revolution is poised to replace many tasks that require human intelligence – everything from legal drafting to scientific research. For many people, this raises a worrying question: if machines can do our jobs, what’s left for us to do?
The answer, Fergusson says, is surprisingly hopeful. As AI systems increasingly take over routine and specialised tasks – writing code, analysing data, automating customer service – the most valuable commodity becomes something machines can’t yet replicate: original ideas.
“To paraphrase Edison, AI might handle 99% of the perspiration, but it still takes a human for that 1% of inspiration,” he said. “This shift could unlock extraordinary potential.”
For example, a student who has a great idea for an app who doesn’t know how to code can now describe their idea to an AI, and it will write the code, test it, and launch it. As implementation becomes easier, the emphasis will move from skills to creativity. The future, Fergusson says, will belong to those who can ask the best questions.
“There is a transformational opportunity to change the way scientific research is done using AI,” he said. “It will no longer be something only humans can do, but as something we do in collaboration with machines, that can carry out high-level scientific analysis, fast and accurately.”
The research happening at the AI Centre is also relevant to Infosys and its clients because, ultimately, the problems they are trying to solve are the same. How do we harness the enormous volumes of data at our fingertips into real knowledge?
“Many of Infosys’ clients want to have explainability,” said Fergusson. “They want to have simulations that can run faster and can be trusted. They want to use the power of multi-agent systems to automate business processes for knowledge processing tasks. Infosys is the connector between the centre and the business world, so this knowledge can be shared globally across all sectors.
“The universality of the challenge of AI is bringing science and industry together – we all face the same challenges in adopting it and using it for our work.”
Of course, AI is far from perfect. The amount of water and energy used by the data centres powering most AI technology is gigantic, and risks derailing the progress humans are making towards achieving net zero.
And language models still make things up, or forget their own logic in longer responses. They’re more convincing than correct. But Fergusson says these flaws can be managed – especially with agent-based systems that check each other’s work and bring in outside data sources.
He also warns against viewing AI as purely hype or purely harmful. “Most people’s experience of AI is a chatbot that’s trying and failing to get you to buy a washing machine,” said Fergusson. “But under the surface, it’s changing everything, from scientific discovery to creative industries.”
University of Cambridge students walking into the Senate House for their graduation ceremony. Credit: University of Cambridge
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) has today announced the launch of the Spärck AI Scholarships, a major new initiative to nurture the next generation of AI leaders, with Cambridge University proud to join as a founding partner.
We are delighted to be a founding partner in this ambitious initiative, which reflects a shared commitment to attracting exceptional talent and reinforcing the UK’s position as a home for world-class AI.Professor Deborah Prentice, University of Cambridge Vice-Chancellor,
The scholarships, aimed at exceptionally high-potential domestic and international students, will support study towards AI-related Masters degrees and provide an unparalleled package of benefits. Students will receive full tuition fees, a living stipend, and access to priority work placements with leading UK AI companies and government institutions.
The programme, which will open to its first cohort in the 2026/27 academic year, intends to enrol 100 scholars over its first four years. Scholars will be selected from the top 1% of AI talent worldwide, with applicants required to demonstrate academic excellence, leadership, and ambassadorial potential, alongside a STEM background.
Uniquely, the Spärck AI Scholarships will provide its students with priority access to work placements within UK-based AI companies and organisations, including the UK government’s AI Security Institute (AISI) and i.AI, their in-house AI incubator.
The scholarships are named in honour of Professor Karen Spärck Jones (1935–2007), a pioneering British computer scientist whose ground breaking work at Cambridge University laid the foundations for modern search engines and natural language processing. One of the most remarkable women in computer science, her seminal 1972 paper introduced the concept of inverse document frequency (IDF), a fundamental principle still central to information retrieval today.
Professor Deborah Prentice, University of Cambridge Vice-Chancellor, said: “Cambridge combines academic excellence with a dynamic, interdisciplinary AI community, from foundational research to real-world impact. We are delighted to be a founding partner in this ambitious initiative, which reflects a shared commitment to attracting exceptional talent and reinforcing the UK’s position as a home for world-class AI. We are especially proud that these scholarships are named after Karen Spärck Jones, a brilliant Cambridge computer scientist.”
A long-time valued member of the Cambridge community, Professor Spärck Jones was an undergraduate at Girton College (1953-1956), a Research Fellow at Newnham College (1965-1968), an Official Fellow of Darwin College (1968-1980) and a Fellow of Wolfson College (2000-2007).
She began her research career at the Cambridge Language Research Unit in the late 1950s and later taught for the MPhil in Computer Speech and Language Processing, on language systems, and for the Computer Science Tripos on information retrieval. She supervised many Cambridge PhD students across a wide range of topics and was a tireless advocate for women in computing, famously declaring: “I think it’s very important to get more women into computing. My slogan is: Computing is too important to be left to men.”
Her international influence was recognised by numerous awards, including the ACM SIGIR Salton Award, the BCS Lovelace Medal, and election as a Fellow of the British Academy (of which she was also Vice-President from 2000 to 2002) and the American Association for Artificial Intelligence.
The University of Cambridge is delighted to honour her legacy by co-founding this exciting new programme, which was formally announced today at London Tech Week.
