Tree planting has been widely touted as a cost-effective way of reducing global warming, due to trees’ ability to store large quantities of carbon from the atmosphere.

But, writing in the journal Nature Geoscience, an international group of scientists, led by the University of Cambridge and the University of Århus, argue that tree planting at high latitudes will accelerate, rather than decelerate, global warming.

As the climate continues to warm, trees can be planted further and further north, and large-scale tree-planting projects in the Arctic have been championed by governments and corporations as a way to mitigate the worst effects of climate change.

However, when trees are planted in the wrong places – such as normally treeless tundra and mires, as well as large areas of the boreal forest with relatively open tree canopies – they can make global warming worse.

According to lead author Assistant Professor Jeppe Kristensen from Aarhus University in Denmark, the unique characteristics of Arctic and sub-Arctic ecosystems make them poorly suited for tree planting for climate mitigation.

“Soils in the Arctic store more carbon than all vegetation on Earth,” said Kristensen. “These soils are vulnerable to disturbances, such as cultivation for forestry or agriculture, but also the penetration of tree roots. The semi-continuous daylight during the spring and early summer, when snow is still on the ground, also makes the energy balance in this region extremely sensitive to surface darkening, since green and brown trees will soak up more heat from the sun than white snow.” 

In addition, the regions surrounding the North Pole in North America, Asia and Scandinavia are prone to natural disturbances – such as wildfires and droughts – that kill off vegetation. Climate change makes these disturbances both more frequent and more severe.

“This is a risky place to be a tree, particularly as part of a homogeneous plantation that is more vulnerable to such disturbances,” said Kristensen. “The carbon stored in these trees risks fuelling disturbances and getting released back to the atmosphere within a few decades.”

The researchers say that tree planting at high latitudes is a prime example of a climate solution with a desired effect in one context but the opposite effect in another.

“The climate debate is very carbon-focused because the main way humans have modified the Earth’s climate in the last century is through emitting greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels,” said Kristensen. “But at the core, climate change is the result of how much solar energy entering the atmosphere stays, and how much leaves again – Earth’s so-called energy balance.”

Greenhouse gases are one important determinant of how much heat can escape our planet’s atmosphere. However, the researchers say that at high latitudes, how much sunlight is reflected back into space, without being converted into heat (known as the albedo effect), is more important than carbon storage for the total energy balance.

The researchers are calling for a more holistic view of ecosystems to identify truly meaningful nature-based solutions that do not compromise the overall goal: slowing down climate change.

“A holistic approach is not just a richer way of looking at the climate effects of nature-based solutions, but it’s imperative if we’re going to make a difference in the real world,” said senior author Professor Marc Macias-Fauria, from the University of Cambridge’s Scott Polar Research Institute.

However, the researchers recognise that there can be other reasons for planting trees, such as timber self-sufficiency, but these cases do not come with bonuses for climate mitigation.

“Forestry in the far North should be viewed like any other production system and compensate for its negative impact on the climate and biodiversity,” said Macias-Fauria. “You can’t have your cake and eat it, and you can’t deceive the Earth. By selling northern afforestation as a climate solution, we’re only fooling ourselves.”

So how can we moderate global warming at high latitudes? The researchers suggest that working with local communities to support sustainable populations of large herbivores, such as caribou, could be a more viable nature-based solution to climate change in Arctic and subarctic regions than planting millions of trees. 

“There is ample evidence that large herbivores affect plant communities and snow conditions in ways that result in net cooling,” said Macias-Fauria. “This happens both directly, by keeping tundra landscapes open, and indirectly, through the effects of herbivore winter foraging, where they modify the snow and decrease its insulation capacity, reducing soil temperatures and permafrost thaw.”

The researchers say it’s vital to consider biodiversity and the livelihoods of local communities in the pursuit of nature-based climate solutions.

“Large herbivores can reduce climate-driven biodiversity loss in Arctic ecosystems and remain a fundamental food resource for local communities,” said Macias-Fauria. “Biodiversity and local communities are not an added benefit to nature-based solutions: they are fundamental. Any nature-based solutions must be led by the communities who live at the front line of climate change.”

More about this story

Reference:
Jeppe Å Kristensen et al. ‘Tree planting is no climate solution at northern high latitudes.’ Nature Geoscience (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41561-024-01573-4

Explore more discoveries, innovations and research on climate and nature at the University of Cambridge: www.cam.ac.uk/climate-and-nature

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After two weeks of negotiations last week in Cali, Colombia, the COP16 biodiversity summit was suspended with no overall agreement on a path forward on “resource mobilisation.”

4 November 2024 – After two weeks of negotiations last week in Cali, Colombia, the meeting was suspended with no overall agreement on a path forward on “resource mobilisation.” CISL’s Chief Innovation Officer, James Cole, looks back at happened at COP16, and asks what comes next.

The extended talks were suspended after it became apparent there were no longer enough parties involved to take decisions, leaving some of the hardest areas of discussion unresolved, including the establishment of a new biodiversity fund to help poorer nations restore their depleted natural environments, which was blocked by developed countries including the EU, Japan and Canada. 

During COP16 there was no argument about the dire state of nature on our planet, our critical reliance on it for our prosperity, resilience and wellbeing; nor the overarching global goal under the GBF agreed two years ago in Montreal to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030.  

The progress and path towards that goal, however, neither reflects the urgency nor the seriousness of the crisis we find ourselves in – with only 44 countries having submitted their National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans (NBSAPs).  This is perhaps not surprising given the lack of resources provided to emerging and developing countries to write such strategies. 

Nature protection is no longer only about saving endangered species and plant life for its own sake, but about the very future of our societies. We have degraded the natural world such that it may not for much longer be able to sustain us as we live today, nor on our current trajectory.  

Our material prosperity has been built on a linear model of extracting natural resources which are consumed, used and disposed at a rate beyond which they can replenish; our food and industrial production and consumption systems drive deforestation and soil degradation; and our seas, forests and soils cannot absorb all the climate changing greenhouse gas emissions we produce. And yet this system is not even successfully meeting basic needs for everyone.  

Negotiations in Cali centred on the ($700bn) financing needed to achieve the GBF; ‘resource mobilisation’; the role and rights of indigenous people; and how biodiverse countries share in the financial and other benefits of scientific discoveries made in their countries, amongst other things.  However, the meeting was suspended in extra time with agreement only on the role indigenous peoples and communities; and a benefits sharing mechanism on digital sequencing information of genetic resources (DSI) – both groundbreaking in their own right, but not the full solution.  

Issues around who pays, who has a say, who benefits and how effort is shared underlie the disagreement – playing into tensions between global north countries perceived to have driven much of the damage through colonial models of industrialisation, and biodiversity-rich countries in the global south who being asked to constrain their economies to conserve nature.  

A team of Cambridge-based professionals, academics, researchers and conservationists from the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), the Conservation Research Institute, the Cambridge Conservation Initiative, and many of its charity members – TRAFFIC, BirdLife International and Fauna and Flora International – amongst others, attended the Convention as expert advisors and as observers. 

Representatives from business, finance and civil society showed up in force to support the negotiations, willing to be part of the solution, and reflecting the ‘whole of society’ effort that will be needed to turn the tide on nature destruction. 

Whilst negotiations under the treaty stalled, there was heart to be taken in the level of engagement, alongside an acknowledgement of our collective failure to truly take to heart the scale and structural nature of the changes needed to our economies and societies.  

In terms of the private sector, over 500 companies are now committed to assessing, disclosing and managing their impacts on nature in line with the Taskforce of Nature Related Financial Disclosure (TNFD) with many more preparing to submit their ‘nature strategy’ for public record and scrutiny.  Business-led conversations centred on biodiversity restoration projects inside or outside their supply chains, the need for better and more aligned metrics applicable at the level of country and company disclosures, and the uncertain pathway towards company ‘transformation’ to be ‘nature-positive’. 

Global banks and asset managers participated in discussions centring on the role of private finance to help plug the estimated $700bn ‘nature-finance gap’ and the role of the private sector in filling it.  There are now over 10 nature-related equity funds, which promise financial and nature benefits.  Nation state debt-for-nature swaps were celebrated as mechanisms to solve emerging economy debt problems whilst restoring nature – such as Belize’s 2021 blue bond, which reduced debt by 12% of GDP and unlocked funding for conservation in line with the 30% GBF goal. The multilateral Asian Development Bank (ADB) issued $100m biodiversity and nature bond, and the IFC, part of the World Bank, announced a $50m investment into a Colombian nature bond set up by Banco Davivienda. Overall a drop in the ocean, so to speak, but perhaps a proof of concept? 

Despite the disappointing end to these international negotiations, there were signals that national nature laws aligning with the treaty were creating new markets for nature restoration.  The EU Nature Restoration Law (which aims to 20% of the EU’s land and sea areas by 2030) and the UK’s Biodiversity Net Gain Law (where developers must pay for nature improvements to offset site-level impacts) are examples. The latter is a blunt and imperfect instrument, but another step forward in tying nature into our markets and economics.  

To activate leadership on sustainability in business, government and finance, we at CISL we have been working with the finance sector members of our Investment Leaders Group and Banking Environment Initiative to reframe nature finance and channel more private capital into nature protection and restoration within the EU Horizon funded project A-track. The report was launched at COP16, with leaders in finance such as Standard Chartered Bank recognising its potential to “mobilise finance to where it’s needed to make a material impact towards both halting and reversing nature loss”.   

CISL has been working in partnership with the Capitals Coalition and the World Business Council on Sustainable Development, with funding from the EU Horizon project, to develop and launch a playbook of nature-positive business model archetypes with potential to restore and protect nature by design. In 2025 we will pilot these models with leading corporates in our network and the nature-positive startups in CISL’s Canopy startup accelerator to test the theory in practice. The three Canopy members and startups participating in COP16 – Earthblox, SPUN and Think-Nature – provided everyone with the feeling solutions are possible.  

But at the whole systems-level, despite these signs of enlightened self-interest from progressive businesses and banks, and the efforts of sustainability-led startups, these shifts will not become mainstream nor be able to protect and restore nature at the scale needed unless we collectively redesign our economic systems and markets to do so. Whilst there is profit to be made in liquidating natural capital for shareholder returns, no matter what the long term cost, the short-term market logic will win out. 

What we need now is the political will to write a new narrative around human development, and dispel the false dichotomy between social and ecological or economic health. We need to embrace more rounded progress indicators to guide our economies and build new markets. We need to properly integrate and value nature-positive activities and discourage and disincentivise those activities which degrade and impoverish our planet and our societies. 

How we achieve this is the new leadership agenda. In less than two weeks another set of international negotiators will meet in Baku, Azerbaijan, for the COP29 UN-led climate negotiations – and our collective future depends on global agreements commensurate with our global challenges.  

To tackle the interconnected climate and biodiversity crises, in fair and just ways, we need all those leaders in governments, business, finance and civil society to look to the future beyond their commitments, targets and pioneering projects within the bounds of today’s economy, to do the hard work to build consensus among countries in the global north and global south, and to build the new economic system we all know is needed, for the future we want. 

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A drug commonly used to treat glaucoma has been shown in zebrafish and mice to protect against the build-up in the brain of the protein tau, which causes various forms of dementia and is implicated in Alzheimer’s disease.

Zebrafish provide a much more effective and realistic way of screening drug compounds than using cell cultures, which function quite differently to living organismsAna Lopez Ramirez

Researchers in the UK Dementia Research Institute at the University of Cambridge screened more than 1,400 clinically-approved drug compounds using zebrafish genetically engineered to make them mimic so-called tauopathies. They discovered that drugs known as carbonic anhydrase inhibitors – of which the glaucoma drug methazolamide is one – clear tau build-up and reduce signs of the disease in zebrafish and mice carrying the mutant forms of tau that cause human dementias.

Tauopathies are neurodegenerative diseases characterised by the build-up in the brain of tau protein ‘aggregates’ within nerve cells. These include forms of dementia, Pick’s disease and progressive supranuclear palsy, where tau is believed to be the primary disease driver, and Alzheimer’s disease and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (neurodegeneration caused by repeated head trauma, as has been reported in football and rugby players), where tau build-up is one consequence of disease but results in degeneration of brain tissue.

There has been little progress in finding effective drugs to treat these conditions. One option is to repurpose existing drugs. However, drug screening – where compounds are tested against disease models – usually takes place in cell cultures, but these do not capture many of the characteristics of tau build-up in a living organism.

To work around this, the Cambridge team turned to zebrafish models they had previously developed. Zebrafish grow to maturity and are able to breed within two to three months and produce large numbers of offspring. Using genetic manipulation, it is possible to mimic human diseases as many genes responsible for human diseases often have equivalents in the zebrafish.

In a study published today in Nature Chemical Biology, Professor David Rubinsztein, Dr Angeleen Fleming and colleagues modelled tauopathy in zebrafish and screened 1,437 drug compounds. Each of these compounds has been clinically approved for other diseases.

Dr Ana Lopez Ramirez from the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience and the UK Dementia Research Institute at the University of Cambridge, joint first author, said: “Zebrafish provide a much more effective and realistic way of screening drug compounds than using cell cultures, which function quite differently to living organisms. They also enable us to do so at scale, something that it not feasible or ethical in larger animals such as mice.”  

Using this approach, the team showed that inhibiting an enzyme known as carbonic anhydrase – which is important for regulating acidity levels in cells – helped the cell rid itself of the tau protein build-up. It did this by causing the lysosomes – the ‘cell’s incinerators’ – to move to the surface of the cell, where they fused with the cell membrane and ‘spat out’ the tau.

When the team tested methazolamide on mice that had been genetically engineered to carry the P301S human disease-causing mutation in tau, which leads to the progressive accumulation of tau aggregates in the brain, they found that those treated with the drug performed better at memory tasks and showed improved cognitive performance compared with untreated mice.

Analysis of the mouse brains showed that they indeed had fewer tau aggregates, and consequently a lesser reduction in brain cells, compared with the untreated mice.

Fellow joint author Dr Farah Siddiqi, also from the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research and the UK Dementia Research Institute, said: “We were excited to see in our mouse studies that methazolamide reduces levels of tau in the brain and protects against its further build-up. This confirms what we had shown when screening carbonic anhydrase inhibitors using zebrafish models of tauopathies.”

Professor Rubinsztein from the UK Dementia Research Institute and Cambridge Institute for Medical Research at the University of Cambridge, said: “Methazolamide shows promise as a much-needed drug to help prevent the build-up of dangerous tau proteins in the brain. Although we’ve only looked at its effects in zebrafish and mice, so it is still early days, we at least know about this drug’s safety profile in patients. This will enable us to move to clinical trials much faster than we might normally expect if we were starting from scratch with an unknown drug compound.

“This shows how we can use zebrafish to test whether existing drugs might be repurposed to tackle different diseases, potentially speeding up significantly the drug discovery process.”

The team hopes to test methazolamide on different disease models, including more common diseases characterised by the build-up of aggregate-prone proteins, such as Huntington’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

The research was supported by the UK Dementia Research Institute (through UK DRI Ltd, principally funded through the Medical Research Council), Tau Consortium and Wellcome.

Reference
Lopez, A & Siddiqi, FH et al. Carbonic anhydrase inhibition ameliorates tau toxicity via enhanced tau secretion. Nat Chem Bio; 31 Oct 2024; DOI: 10.1038/s41589-024-01762-7
 

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Military musicians returning from the Napoleonic wars invented Britain’s first brass bands earlier than previously thought

By Tom Almeroth-Williams

It is widely believed that brass bands originated with coal miners and other industrial communities in northern England and Wales between the 1830s and the 1850s. New evidence rewrites this history.

Cambridge historian, Dr Eamonn O’Keeffe, has found compelling evidence to show that Britain’s earliest brass bands were founded by military musicians in the 1810s.

In a study published in The Historical Journal, O’Keeffe argues that regimental bands first experimented with all-brass formats in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars.

While wartime bands included woodwind instruments such as clarinets and bassoons, O’Keeffe points out that the 15th Regiment of Foot had already organized a bugles-only band by 1818 and that numerous regiments had established all-brass bands by 1830, taking advantage of new instrument designs developed at home and in Continental Europe. The Life Guards, for example, performed on valved trumpets gifted by the Russian Czar. Local defence units also mustered brass bands, including a volunteer rifle corps in Paisley (1819) and yeomanry troops in Devon (1827) and Somerset (1829).

O’Keeffe also shows that veterans of the Napoleonic wars founded many of Britain’s earliest non-military brass bands from the 1820s onwards. These ensembles often emerged far beyond the northern English and Welsh industrial communities with which they later became associated.

The first named civilian band which O’Keeffe has identified, the Colyton Brass Band, played God Save the King in a village in Devon in November 1828 as part of birthday festivities for a baronet’s son. O’Keeffe found slightly later examples in Chester and Sunderland (both 1829), Derby and Sidmouth (1831), and Poole (1832).

In 1834, Lincoln’s brass band was being trained by William Shaw, ‘formerly trumpeter and bugleman’ in the 33rd Regiment of Foot.

“These findings illustrate just how deeply brass bands are embedded in British history and culture,” said Dr O’Keeffe, who is the National Army Museum Junior Research Fellow at Queens’ College, Cambridge and part of the University’s Centre for Geopolitics.

“We already knew about their relationship with industrialization. Now we know that brass bands emerged from Britain’s wars against Napoleon.”

O’Keeffe discovered most about a band founded by James Sanderson, a Waterloo veteran, in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. Sanderson, a former trumpet-major, publicized his ‘military brass band’ in the Leamington Spa Courier in February 1829.

Surviving newspaper reports from that summer reveal that the outfit, equipped with keyed bugles, trumpets, French horns, and trombones, performed at several well-attended fetes and other events in the area.

Sanderson’s military pension describes him as a labourer born in Thrapston, Northamptonshire. He joined the 23^rd Light Dragoons, a cavalry regiment, in 1809, fought at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 and went on to become the trumpet-major of the 13th Light Dragoons. He left the army due to epileptic fits in the 1820s.

On 29^th June 1829, the Leamington Spa Courier reported that ‘Sanderson’s Warwick and Leamington Military Brass Band’ performed at a Waterloo anniversary parade in Warwick. Wearing his Waterloo medal, Sanderson mustered his fellow veterans to the tune of ‘See the conquering hero comes’.

On 1st July, the Leicester Herald reported that Sanderson’s band played for up to 300 people at a village feast in Stoneleigh, Warwickshire, inspiring a ‘merry dance’.

War and peace

O’Keeffe points out that the Napoleonic Wars (1793 – 1815) led to a dramatic proliferation of British military bands. By 1814, more than twenty thousand instrumentalists were serving in uniform, in the regular army and militia, as well as a host of part-time home defence formations.

Most of those in full-time service received higher pay than regular soldiers but were still subject to military discipline. The majority were fifers, drummers, trumpeters and buglers, whose music conveyed commands while enhancing parade-ground pageantry and morale. The remainder served in regimental bands of music, which not only enlivened military ceremonies but performed at a wide variety of public occasions, including balls, concerts, and civic processions.

By studying previously overlooked press reports, memoirs and regimental records, O’Keeffe reveals that once demobilized, men and boys who honed their instrumental skills in uniform embarked on a variety of civilian musical careers, becoming instructors, wind performers, composers, and even opera singers.

Many performed in an array of militia and volunteer bands that remained active long after demobilization. Others instructed or participated in a growing assortment of amateur wind and all-brass bands, which often sported uniforms and consciously emulated their regimental equivalents.

O’Keeffe said: “It is widely assumed that brass bands were a new musical species, distinct from their military counterparts. They are primarily seen as a product of industrialization pioneered by a combination of working-class performers and middle-class sponsors.

“But all-brass bands first appeared in Britain and Ireland in a regimental guise. As well as producing a large cohort of band trainers, the military provided a familiar and attractive template for amateur musicians and audiences. This coincided with expanding commercial opportunities and a growing belief in the moralising power of music.”

O’Keeffe argues that these quasi-martial troupes enjoyed cross-class appeal, becoming fixtures of seaside resorts, pitheads, and political demonstrations in the decades after Waterloo, and were not confined to northern English industrial towns.

“Soldiers returned from the Napoleonic wars amidst a severe economic recession and many suffered a great deal,” O’Keeffe said. “But here we see musicians using the skills they developed in the military to survive and often thrive.”

Instruments

The Napoleonic wars created unprecedented demand for brass and other musical instruments. As well as tracking down individual musicians and bands, O’Keeffe investigated the circulation of regimental instruments after the Battle of Waterloo.

Government-issued drums and bugles were supposed to return to public stores on demobilization and band instruments generally belonged to regimental officers. But drummers and bandsmen were often unwilling to relinquish the tools of their trade.

Seven Herefordshire local militia musicians petitioned their colonel in 1816 ‘to make us a present’ of their regimental instruments, noting that performers in other disbanded units had been permitted to keep their instruments ‘as a perquisite’. The men promised to continue their weekly practices if the request was granted, pledging that ‘a band will be always ready in the town of Leominster for any occasion’.

Some officers auctioned off the instruments of their disbanded corps, making large volumes of affordable second-hand instruments available to amateur players and civilian bands in the post-war decades.

Early brass bands also embraced new instrument designs adopted by their military counterparts or introduced by regimental and ex-regimental performers. The keyed bugle, patented by an Irish militia bandmaster in 1810, was widely used by the first generation of all-brass ensembles.

The popularization of affordable and uncomplicated saxhorns by the Distin family further aided the spread of brass bands from the 1840s. The family’s patriarch, John Distin, had begun his musical career in the wartime militia.

Enduring tunes

O’Keeffe identifies a number of tunes originating in the military that remained popular with the broader public long after Waterloo.

Theatre critics in the 1820s decried the nation’s love of ‘Battle Sinfonias’ and the ‘modern mania for introducing military bands on the stage’. ‘The Downfall of Paris’, a favourite regimental quick march, became a mainstay of buskers in post-war London. A music critic writing in 1827 lamented the neglect of Bach and Mozart in favour of this tune, which he said every piano instructor ‘must be able to play, and moreover to teach’.

But recalling his youth in Richmond, North Yorkshire in the 1820s and 1830s, Matthew Bell described the expert militia band as a ‘very popular’ source of free entertainment for poorer townspeople and claimed it aroused ‘a slumbering talent for music in some of those who heard its martial and inspiring strains.’

Writing in 1827, the Newcastle historian Eneas Mackenzie was clear that ‘The bands attached to the numerous military corps embodied during the late war have tended greatly to extend the knowledge of music. At present, there is a band belonging to almost every extensive colliery upon the Tyne and the Wear’.

O’Keeffe said: “Brass bands enabled aspiring musicians of all ages to develop new skills and allowed people to make music as a community, learning from each other. That was the case in the nineteenth century and it’s still the case today.”

Dr O’Keeffe is writing a book about British military music during the Napoleonic Wars.

Reference

E. O’Keeffe, ‘British Military Music and the Legacy of the Napoleonic Wars’, The Historical Journal (2024). DOI:10.1017/S0018246X24000372

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Published 30th October 2024

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Image credits

_{National Army Museum: Life Guards leaving Windsor; Instrumentation of bands of 4th Dragoon Guards, c.1828
Weymouth Museum: Brass band in Weymouth
Brian Callingham: Dr Eamonn O’Keeffe
The British Library Board. With thanks to The British Newspaper Archive: Sanderson’s newspaper advert
© Crown Copyright Images reproduced courtesy of The National Archives, London, England: Sanderson’s discharge papers
Tim Green via Flikr (cc license): Haworth brass band
Rijksmuseum: Battle of Waterloo
Woolley and Wallis Salerooms Ltd: Drawing of musicians
Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg: A keyed bugle, c.1830}

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Researchers have developed a machine learning algorithm to accurately detect heart murmurs in dogs, one of the main indicators of cardiac disease, which affects a large proportion of some smaller breeds such as King Charles Spaniels.

The research team, led by the University of Cambridge, adapted an algorithm originally designed for humans and found it could automatically detect and grade heart murmurs in dogs, based on audio recordings from digital stethoscopes. In tests, the algorithm detected heart murmurs with a sensitivity of 90%, a similar accuracy to expert cardiologists.

Heart murmurs are a key indicator of mitral valve disease, the most common heart condition in adult dogs. Roughly one in 30 dogs seen by a veterinarian has a heart murmur, although the prevalence is higher in small breed dogs and older dogs.

Since mitral valve disease and other heart conditions are so common in dogs, early detection is crucial as timely medication can extend their lives. The technology developed by the Cambridge team could offer an affordable and effective screening tool for primary care veterinarians, and improve quality of life for dogs. The results are reported in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine.

“Heart disease in humans is a huge health issue, but in dogs it’s an even bigger problem,” said first author Dr Andrew McDonald from Cambridge’s Department of Engineering. “Most smaller dog breeds will have heart disease when they get older, but obviously dogs can’t communicate in the same way that humans can, so it’s up to primary care vets to detect heart disease early enough so it can be treated.”

Professor Anurag Agarwal, who led the research, is a specialist in acoustics and bioengineering. “As far as we’re aware, there are no existing databases of heart sounds in dogs, which is why we started out with a database of heart sounds in humans,” he said. “Mammalian hearts are fairly similar, and when things go wrong, they tend to go wrong in similar ways.”

The researchers started with a database of heart sounds from about 1000 human patients and developed a machine learning algorithm to replicate whether a heart murmur had been detected by a cardiologist. They then adapted the algorithm so it could be used with heart sounds from dogs.

The researchers gathered data from almost 800 dogs who were undergoing routine heart examination at four veterinary specialist centres in the UK. All dogs received a full physical examination and heart scan (echocardiogram) by a cardiologist to grade any heart murmurs and identify cardiac disease, and heart sounds were recorded using an electronic stethoscope. By an order of magnitude, this is the largest dataset of dog heart sounds ever created.

“Mitral valve disease mainly affects smaller dogs, but to test and improve our algorithm, we wanted to get data from dogs of all shapes, sizes and ages,” said co-author Professor Jose Novo Matos from Cambridge’s Department of Veterinary Medicine, a specialist in small animal cardiology. “The more data we have to train it, the more useful our algorithm will be, both for vets and for dog owners.”

The researchers fine-tuned the algorithm so it could both detect and grade heart murmurs based on the audio recordings, and differentiate between murmurs associated with mild disease and those reflecting advanced heart disease that required further treatment.  

“Grading a heart murmur and determining whether the heart disease needs treatment requires a lot of experience, referral to a veterinary cardiologist, and expensive specialised heart scans,” said Novo Matos. “We want to empower general practitioners to detect heart disease and assess its severity to help owners make the best decisions for their dogs.”

Analysis of the algorithm’s performance found it agreed with the cardiologist’s assessment in over half of cases, and in 90% of cases, it was within a single grade of the cardiologist’s assessment. The researchers say this is a promising result, as it is common for there to be significant variability in how different vets grade heart murmurs.

“The grade of heart murmur is a useful differentiator for determining next steps and treatments, and we’ve automated that process,” said McDonald. “For vets and nurses without as much stethoscope skill, and even those who are incredibly skilled with a stethoscope, we believe this algorithm could be a highly valuable tool.”

In humans with valve disease, the only treatment is surgery, but for dogs, effective medication is available. “Knowing when to medicate is so important, in order to give dogs the best quality of life possible for as long as possible,” said Agarwal. “We want to empower vets to help make those decisions.”

“So many people talk about AI as a threat to jobs, but for me, I see it as a tool that will make me a better cardiologist,” said Novo Matos. “We can’t perform heart scans on every dog in this country  – we just don’t have enough time or specialists to screen every dog with a murmur. But tools like these could help vets and owners, so we can quickly identify those dogs who are most in need of treatment.”

The research was supported in part by the Kennel Club Charitable Trust, the Medical Research Council, and Emmanuel College Cambridge.

Reference:
Andrew McDonald et al. ‘A machine learning algorithm to grade canine heart murmurs and stage preclinical myxomatous mitral valve disease.’ Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine (2024). DOI: 10.1111/jvim.17224

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The transition from water to land is one of the most significant events in the history of life on Earth. Now, a team of roboticists, palaeontologists and biologists is using robots to study how the ancestors of modern land animals transitioned from swimming to walking, about 390 million years ago.

Writing in the journal Science Robotics, the research team, led by the University of Cambridge, outline how ‘palaeo-inspired robotics’ could provide a valuable experimental approach to studying how the pectoral and pelvic fins of ancient fish evolved to support weight on land.

“Since fossil evidence is limited, we have an incomplete picture of how ancient life made the transition to land,” said lead author Dr Michael Ishida from Cambridge’s Department of Engineering. “Palaeontologists examine ancient fossils for clues about the structure of hip and pelvic joints, but there are limits to what we can learn from fossils alone. That’s where robots can come in, helping us fill gaps in the research, particularly when studying major shifts in how vertebrates moved.”

Ishida is a member of Cambridge’s Bio-Inspired Robotics Laboratory, led by Professor Fumiya Iida. The team is developing energy-efficient robots for a variety of applications, which take their inspiration from the efficient ways that animals and humans move.

With funding from the Human Frontier Science Program, the team is developing palaeo-inspired robots, in part by taking their inspiration from modern-day ‘walking fish’ such as mudskippers, and from fossils of extinct fish. “In the lab, we can’t make a living fish walk differently, and we certainly can’t get a fossil to move, so we’re using robots to simulate their anatomy and behaviour,” said Ishida.

The team is creating robotic analogues of ancient fish skeletons, complete with mechanical joints that mimic muscles and ligaments. Once complete, the team will perform experiments on these robots to determine how these ancient creatures might have moved.

“We want to know things like how much energy different walking patterns would have required, or which movements were most efficient,” said Ishida. “This data can help confirm or challenge existing theories about how these early animals evolved.”

One of the biggest challenges in this field is the lack of comprehensive fossil records. Many of the ancient species from this period in Earth’s history are known only from partial skeletons, making it difficult to reconstruct their full range of movement.

“In some cases, we’re just guessing how certain bones connected or functioned,” said Ishida. “That’s why robots are so useful—they help us confirm these guesses and provide new evidence to support or rebut them.”

While robots are commonly used to study movement in living animals, very few research groups are using them to study extinct species. “There are only a few groups doing this kind of work,” said Ishida. “But we think it’s a natural fit – robots can provide insights into ancient animals that we simply can’t get from fossils or modern species alone.”

The team hopes that their work will encourage other researchers to explore the potential of robotics to study the biomechanics of long-extinct animals. “We’re trying to close the loop between fossil evidence and real-world mechanics,” said Ishida. “Computer models are obviously incredibly important in this area of research, but since robots are interacting with the real world, they can help us test theories about how these creatures moved, and maybe even why they moved the way they did.”

The team is currently in the early stages of building their palaeo-robots, but they hope to have some results within the next year. The researchers say they hope their robot models will not only deepen understanding of evolutionary biology, but could also open up new avenues of collaboration between engineers and researchers in other fields.

The research was supported by the Human Frontier Science Program. Fumiya Iida is a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Michael Ishida a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.

Reference:
Michael Ishida et al. ‘Paleo-inspired robotics as an experimental approach to the history of life.’ Science Robotics (2024). DOI: 10.1126/scirobotics.adn1125

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Not too late to ditch shackles on green innovation, new report says

UK’s green future…or China’s?

A new report by researchers from the University of Cambridge and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) argues the UK government should invest in green infrastructure now or watch productivity lag behind China, the United States and other countries already running away with the benefits.

Is reaching net zero a growth and prosperity plan? by the UK Treasury’s former Head of Economic Forecasting, Dimitri Zenghelis, says it’s not too late for the UK to lean into its innate scientific advantages and reap the benefits of investing in the infrastructure needed to be a leader in a global economic revolution that is already under way.

“This is in fact, the growth engine of the 21^st century.”Dimitri Zenghelis

Economic revolution is under way

Captive economy

The report argues that the Treasury should not be captive to an inaccurate UK narrative which assumes that investing in green infrastructure costs too much and that borrowing to finance the transition to a net zero economy will worsen UK public finances in the long-term.

“Fiscal responsibility requires investing in assets that generate sustainable private and public returns, while encouraging national savings,” Zenghelis says.

The report takes aim at the UK’s fiscal rules, combined with the Treasury’s rigid application of “cost benefit analysis” for green investments.

These factors combine to make boosting economic growth virtually impossible and have trapped the UK in a “doom loop of austerity.”

“Public investment is prone to feast or famine cycles, becoming the soft target that is cut to meet the rules every time there is bad economic news,” says Zenghelis, who is currently Special Advisor to the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at Cambridge and a Senior Visiting Fellow at the LSE’s Grantham Research Institute.

“A new model of growth and development is in our hands…”Professor Emily Shuckburgh, Cambridge Zero and Professor Lord Nicholas Stern, Grantham/LSE

In the report’s foreword, Cambridge Zero Director Professor Emily Shuckburgh and Grantham Institute Chair Professor Lord Stern, say a new model of growth and development is in our hands.

“…the UK has the science and innovation base to lead, but action must be clear, swift and strong,” they say.

Wrong tool

Cost benefit analysis is a narrow accounting approach used to assess the advantages (benefits) and disadvantages (costs) associated with a particular decision, project, or policy, assuming the rest of the system stays the same.

“We are already in a large-scale, transformative technology revolution, where the whole system is changing,” Zenghelis says. “Marginal cost benefit analysis is the wrong tool.”

Project-by-project return on investment is not the right measure for decision-makers in the midst of a massive transformational economic revolution propelled by AI, automation and climate-related innovation, the report says. 

Investments must complement each other when building a new network that changes the system and creates a cascade of effects across the economy impacting jobs, productivity and costs.

Driving Sustainable Energy Growth

The report from the Cambridge Zero Policy Forum and the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at LSE shows how China and the United States have leapt out ahead of the UK and other major economies by setting clear strategic industrial targets and spending hundreds of billions on climate change-related investments and tax credits.

Their investments have already driven massive growth in renewable energy sources, electric vehicles, batteries, heat pumps and other climate sectors.

“China and the United States have made strategic and political decisions to use climate mitigation as a tool for growth rather than fixating on cost benefit analysis models that are not appropriate,” Zenghelis says.

The report argues that the multiplying effects of green infrastructure investment are so large that analysts have also systematically under-predicted the scope for raising productivity with clean innovation.

A net zero transition strategy cannot be dealt with as separate from the rest of the economy. Tough policy decisions are also needed on public spending, taxes, debt accumulation and national saving, the report says.

“If the Treasury is serious about dealing with the challenges of growth and productivity and climate mitigation, then it must be willing to reassess its decision-making process,” Zenghelis says.

The report recommends a wider range of complementary approaches and says it is not too late for the UK to tap into the ground-breaking research and innovation of its world-leading Universities to reap the opportunities available.

UK can lead

A strong position

The UK is in a strong position to embrace technological change by leaning on a solid base in scientific innovation, strategic risk management and fluid financial and capital markets.

The country leads or has the potential to lead in offshore wind, environmental monitoring equipment, natural risk management, turbines, advanced semiconductors and water management treatment, biotech and life sciences, clean aviation, green hydrogen, finance and services.

Zenghelis also proposes a Growth and Transition Team at the heart of government, which could integrate strategies on net zero, digitalisation, and AI to boost productivity and growth.

“Choices have to be made. Inaction or delay is the more risky choice.”Dimitri Zenghelis

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Published: October 2024
Story by: Paul Casciato
All images via Unsplash

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

source: cam.ac.uk

Rising numbers of houses and flats listed as short-term lets on Airbnb are associated with higher rates of crimes such as burglaries and street robberies right across London, according to the most detailed study of its kind.

There may be social consequences to turning large swathes of city neighbourhoods into hotels with little regulationCharles Lanfear

Latest research has revealed a ‘positive association’ between the number of properties listed as Airbnb rentals and police-reported robberies and violent crimes in thousands of London neighbourhoods between 2015 and 2018.

In fact, the study led by the University of Cambridge suggests that a 10% increase in active Airbnb rentals in the city would correspond to an additional 1,000 robberies per year across London.*

Urban sociologists say the rapid pace at which crime rises in conjunction with new rentals suggests that the link is related more to opportunities for crime, rather than loss of cohesion within communities – although both are likely contributing factors.  

“We tested for the most plausible alternative explanations, from changes in police patrols to tourist hotspots and even football matches,” said Dr Charles Lanfear from Cambridge’s Institute of Criminology, co-author of the study published today in the journal Criminology.

“Nothing changed the core finding that Airbnb rentals are related to higher crime rates in London neighbourhoods.”

“While Airbnb offers benefits to tourists and hosts in terms of ease and financial reward, there may be social consequences to turning large swathes of city neighbourhoods into hotels with little regulation,” Lanfear said.

Founded in 2008, Airbnb is a giant of the digital economy, with more than 5 million property hosts now active on the platform in some 100,000 cities worldwide.

However, concerns that Airbnb is contributing to unaffordable housing costs has led to a backlash among residents of cities such as Barcelona, and calls for greater regulation.

London is one of the most popular Airbnb markets in the world. An estimated 4.5 million guests stayed in a London Airbnb during the period covered by the study.

Lanfear and his University of Pennsylvania co-author Professor David Kirk used masses of data from AirDNA: a site that scrapes Airbnb to provide figures, trends and approximate geolocations for the short-term letting market.

They mapped AirDNA data from 13 calendar quarters (January 2015 to March 2018) onto ‘Lower Layer Super Output Areas’, or LSOAs.

These are designated areas of a few streets containing around two thousand residents, used primarily for UK census purposes. There are 4,835 LSOAs in London, and all were included in the study.

Crime statistics from the UK Home Office and Greater London Authority for 6 categories – robbery, burglary, theft, anti-social behaviour, any violence, and bodily harm – were then mapped onto LSOAs populated with AirDNA data. 

The researchers analysed all forms of Airbnb lets, but found the link between active Airbnbs and crime is primarily down to entire properties for rent, rather than spare or shared rooms.

The association between active Airbnb rentals and crime was most significant for robbery and burglary, followed by theft and any violence. No link was found for anti-social behaviour and bodily harm.

On average across London, an additional Airbnb property was associated with a 2% increase in the robbery rate within an LSOA. This association was 1% for thefts, 0.9% for burglaries, and 0.5% for violence.

“While the potential criminogenic effect for each Airbnb rental is small, the accumulative effect of dozens in a neighbourhood, or tens of thousands across the city, is potentially huge,” Lanfear said.

He points out that London had an average of 53,000 active lettings in each calendar-quarter of the study period, and an average of 11 lettings per LSOA.

At its most extreme, one neighbourhood in Soho, an area famed for nightlife, had a high of 318 dedicated Airbnbs – some 30% of all households in the LSOA.  

The data models suggest that a 3.2% increase in all types of Airbnb rentals per LSOA would correspond to a 1% increase in robberies city-wide: 325 additional robberies based on the figure of 32,500 recorded robberies in London in 2018.

Lanfear and Kirk extensively stress-tested the association between Airbnb listings and London crime rates.

This included factoring in ‘criminogenic variables’ such as property prices, police stops, the regularity of police patrols, and even English Premier League football games (by both incorporating attendance into data modelling, and removing all LSOAs within a kilometre of major games).

The duo re-ran their data models excluding all the 259 LSOAs in central London’s Zone One, to see if the association was limited to high tourism areas with lots of Airbnb listings. The data models even incorporated the seasonal ‘ebb and flow’ of London tourism. Nothing changed the overall trends. 

Prior to crunching the numbers, the researchers speculated that any link might be down to Airbnbs affecting ‘collective efficacy’: the social cohesion within a community, combined with a willingness to intervene for the public good.

The study measured levels of collective efficacy across the city using data from both the Metropolitan Police and the Mayor of London’s Office, who conduct surveys on public perceptions of criminal activity and the likely responses of their community.    

Collective efficacy across London is not only consistently high, but did not explain the association between Airbnbs and crime in the data models.

Moreover, when Airbnb listings rise, the effect on crime is more immediate than one caused by a slow erosion of collective efficacy. “Crime seems to go up as soon as Airbnbs appear, and stays elevated for as long as they are active,” said Lanfear.

The researchers conclude it is likely driven by criminal opportunity. “A single Airbnb rental can create different types of criminal opportunity,” said Lanfear.

“An Airbnb rental can provide an easy potential victim such as a tourist unfamiliar with the area, or a property that is regularly vacant and so easier to burgle. A very temporary occupant may be more likely to cause criminal damage.”

“Offenders may learn to return to areas with more Airbnbs to find unguarded targets,” said Lanfear. “More dedicated Airbnb properties may mean fewer long-term residents with a personal stake in the area who are willing to report potential criminal activity.”

Airbnb has taken steps to prevent crime, including some background checks as well as requirements for extended bookings on occasions popular for one-night parties, such as New Year’s Eve. “The fact that we still find an increase in crime despite Airbnb’s efforts to curtail it reveals the severity of the predicament,” said Kirk.

Added Lanfear: “Short-term letting sites such as Airbnb create incentives for landlords that lead to property speculation, and we can see the effect on urban housing markets. We can now see that the expansion of Airbnb may contribute to city crime rates.”

“It is not the company or even the property owners who experience the criminogenic side effects of Airbnb, it is the local residents building their lives in the neighbourhood.”   

Notes:

*Above 2018 levels, which is when the study data ends. 

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Azim Surani has followed his curiosity for over half a century, rewriting science in the process.

By Jacqueline Garget

Failed experiments as a student didn’t deter him – Azim Surani has spent his entire career trying to understand early mammalian development.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of his discovery of genomic imprinting – the process in which specific genes are tagged, turning them on or off at the very earliest stage of life.  

Surani has transformed scientific understanding of the different contributions of maternal and paternal genes to development in mammals, and how these genes are regulated.

The resulting field of epigenetics has now exploded – and his discovery holds wide-ranging potential, from treating human disease to saving endangered species.  

Professor Azim Surani, Director of Germline and Epigenetics Research at the Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge tells us about his journey of discovery.

I was a student of Bob Edwards, who later won the Nobel Prize for developing in vitro fertilisation. Bob asked me to work on embryo implantation but at the same time, allowed me the freedom to work on anything else too. I chose parthenogenesis, or ‘virgin birth’; the process in which an egg develops into an embryo without fertilisation by sperm – a male isn’t needed. It happens in many vertebrates, like frogs and fish, and I wanted to know whether mammals could do it too.

I was convinced that I was going to get a mouse to have a virgin birth on Christmas Day. Another scientist at Cambridge had managed to switch on the development of mouse eggs in the lab as if they’d been fertilised. It was like magic. I wondered if I could get them to develop to term. It never happened! I was so obsessed with the idea that my assistant and I did lots of experiments I’m quite embarrassed by now.

Hundreds of experiments later, I discovered that mammals need genes from both parents to make offspring. This was completely unexpected. Even though the maternal and paternal genes are virtually identical, they’re functionally different. It turns out that the maternal genome is more important for development of the embryo, and the paternal genome for the placenta.

Something was affecting gene expression during development. We later discovered there’s a kind of imprint, a memory of their parental origin, marked on the genomes at the germ line (egg and sperm) stage. The imprint is heritable after fertilisation and persists into adulthood. I called it genomic imprinting, and found it was caused by a process called DNA methylation as the heritable tag. Then, the field started to explode in many different directions.

We started looking for specific imprinted genes and underlying mechanisms. We found an imprinted gene expressed only from the paternal copy. A mutation of this copy led to abnormal maternal behaviour in mice. The mothers completely ignored their newborn pups and didn’t build a nest as they normally would. Around 200 imprinted genes have been discovered, with a range of functions.

Fourteen human diseases are now known to be linked to problems with genomic imprinting – the most common are Prader-Willi syndrome, Angelman syndrome and Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome. Since identifying the genes involved, scientists have a better understanding of how they can be diagnosed. Because patients also carry an inactive copy of the imprinted gene, the goal is to reactivate this as a therapeutic option.

I later shifted my attention to the basic biology of germ line development. The germ cells are the precursors to eggs and sperm and are where these imprints, which we now call epigenetic marks, are erased and reestablished. We have discovered mechanisms that erase these marks, and mechanisms that put on new marks. This erasure resets the germ cells for the next generation and also ensures that any abnormal epigenetic marks don’t get transmitted across generations.

Understanding the erasure process has important potential for addressing age-related diseases. Huge amounts of money are being spent trying to reprogram adult body cells, which also removes disease-causing abnormal epigenetic marks and restores the original state. If there are aberrant marks in body cells or germ cells, they’ll just be erased, and the cells will be rejuvenated.

There’s also excitement about the possibility of making egg and sperm cells from reprogrammed adult skin cells. That’s quite an amazing thought. It means that all our body cells are potential sources of new life. It sounds like science fiction, but it’s already been done in mice, so in principle, it’s possible.

This also raises the possibility of saving endangered mammals from extinction, like the northern white rhino in Kenya, where I’m from. Some zoos are already collecting skin cells from different species and freezing them in the hope this becomes possible in future.

I’m very curious about how genomic imprinting might be linked to the evolution of mammals. After the dinosaurs were wiped out around 65 million years ago, mammals evolved to live in so many different environments across the world – air, sea, desert and so on. I wonder if imprinting gave mammals the developmental flexibility to take these very diverse forms. I’m working on that idea at the moment.

This is what happens when you follow curiosity-driven research. It has taken a long time, and each step has been very challenging and slow. But that’s the exciting thing about science – I started with a single question, and now there’s a whole field spreading out in so many different directions.

THE SCIENCE IN BRIEF

What did Azim Surani discover? Through embryo manipulation experiments, Surani found that both female and male genes – from egg and sperm – are essential for normal development of the embryo in mammals. Even though the genes look identical, they’re not: offspring will not develop successfully from two sets of male genes, or two sets of female genes.

How did he discover it?  It began with his student obsession with virgin birth – parthenogenesis – which can happen in non-mammals like fish and lizards but had never been seen in mammals. Others had tried to achieve it: mouse eggs had been activated and developed for several days but not into viable offspring.

What’s different about male and female genes in the embryo?  Surani found that despite being virtually identical, the male and female genomes have different functions in mammalian development. Female genes are more important in forming the embryo, and male genes for forming the placenta that supports it.

What’s going on? He discovered that genomes are ‘tagged’ with chemicals – these epigenetic marks do not alter the genetic code. The tags are inherited from eggs and sperm at fertilisation and act like an on/off switch for specific genes depending on whether they come from the mother or the father. He called this genomic imprinting, and later worked out that the process happens in the precursor cells to eggs and sperm, called germ cells.

Why is this important? Termed ‘epigenetic inheritance’, this is an entirely new understanding of how some genes affecting mammalian development are regulated based entirely on their parental origin. The observation was unexpected as it challenges the long-standing laws of genetic inheritance, proposed by Gregor Mendel in 1865 and taught to generations of school children. It’s also important in understanding human diseases that involve mutations of these genomic imprints, which result in disturbances of growth and neuronal functions. Epigenetics is now an active and exciting area of research regarding development and disease.

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Emerging precursors of sperm and egg in a human stem cell model generated in Surani’s lab, mimicking early development of human reproductive cells. Credit Theresa Gross-Thebin.

Surani with one of the many researchers he oversees at the Gurdon Laboratory, Cambridge

Male (left) and female (right) mouse embryonic gonads in the early stages of sex determination, with gamete precursors in green and white and membranes in warm colours, showing distinct architectural organisations of the future ovary and testes. Credit: Geraldine Jowett.

Azim Surani at King’s College Cambridge, where he is Emeritus Fellow.

Published 25 October 2024, with thanks to Azim Surani.

Media contact: Jacqueline Garget

_{Photographs by Jacqueline Garget, unless otherwise noted. The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License}

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A type of therapy that involves applying a magnetic field to both sides of the brain has been shown to be effective at rapidly treating depression in patients for whom standard treatments have been ineffective.

Our accelerated approach means we can do all of the sessions in just five days, rapidly reducing an individual’s symptoms of depressionValerie Voon

The treatment – known as repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) – involves placing an electromagnetic coil against the scalp to relay a high-frequency magnetic field to the brain.

Around one in 20 adults is estimated to suffer from depression. Although treatments exist, such as anti-depressant medication and cognitive behavioural therapy (‘talking therapy’), they are ineffective for just under one in three patients.

One of the key characteristics of depression is under-activity of some regions (such as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) and over-activity of others (such as the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC)).

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation applied to the left side of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (an area at the upper front area of the brain) is approved for treatment of depression in the UK by NICE and in the US by the FDA. It has previously been shown to lead to considerable improvements among patients after a course of 20 sessions, but because the sessions usually take place over 20-30 days, the treatment is not ideal for everyone, particularly in acute cases or where a person is suicidal.

In research published in Psychological Medicine, scientists from Cambridge, UK, and Guiyang, China, tested how effective an accelerated form of TMS is. In this approach, the treatment is given over 20 sessions, but with four sessions per day over a period of five consecutive days.

The researchers also tested a ‘dual’ approach, whereby a magnetic field was additionally applied to the right-hand side of the OFC (which sits below the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex).

Seventy-five patients were recruited to the trial from the Second People’s Hospital of Guizhou Province in China. The severity of their depression was measured on a scale known as the Hamilton Rating Scale of Depression.

Participants were split randomly into three groups: a ‘dual’ group receiving TMS applied first to the right- and then to the left-hand sides of the brain; a ‘single’ group receiving sham TMS to the right-side followed by active TMS applied to the left-side; and a control group receiving a sham treatment to both sides. Each session lasted in total 22 minutes.

There was a significant improvement in scores assessed immediately after the final treatment in the dual treatment group compared to the other two groups. When the researchers looked for clinically-relevant responses – that is, where an individual’s score fell by at least 50% – they found that almost half (48%) of the patients in the dual treatment group saw such a reduction, compared to just under one in five (18%) in the single treatment group and fewer than one in 20 (4%) in the control group.

Four weeks later, around six in 10 participants in both the dual and single treatment groups (61% and 59% respectively) showed clinically relevant responses, compared to just over one in five (22%) in the control group.

Professor Valerie Voon from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, who led the UK side of the study, said: “Our accelerated approach means we can do all of the sessions in just five days, rapidly reducing an individual’s symptoms of depression. This means it could be particularly useful in severe cases of depression, including when someone is experiencing suicidal thoughts. It may also help people be discharged from hospital more rapidly or even avoid admission in the first place.

“The treatment works faster because, by targeting two areas of the brain implicated in depression, we’re effectively correcting imbalances in two import processes, getting brain regions ‘talking’ to each other correctly.”

The treatment was most effective in those patients who at the start of the trial showed greater connectivity between the OFC and the thalamus (an area in the middle of the brain responsible for, among other things, regulation of consciousness, sleep, and alertness). The OFC is important for helping us make decisions, particularly in choosing rewards and avoiding punishment. Its over-activity in depression, particularly in relation to its role in anti-reward or punishment, might help explain why people with depression show a bias towards negative expectations and ruminations.

Dr Yanping Shu from the Guizhou Mental Health Centre, Guiyang, China, said: “This new treatment has demonstrated a more pronounced – and faster – improvement in response rates for patients with major depressive disorder. It represents a significant step forward in improving outcomes, enabling rapid discharge from hospitals for individuals with treatment-resistant depression, and we are hopeful it will lead to new possibilities in mental health care.”

Dr Hailun Cui from Fudan University, a PhD student in Professor Voon’s lab at the time of the study, added: “The management of treatment-resistant depression remains one of the most challenging areas in mental health care. These patients often fail to respond to standard treatments, including medication and psychotherapy, leaving them in a prolonged state of severe distress, functional impairment, and increased risk of suicide.

“This new TMS approach offers a beacon of hope in this difficult landscape. Patients frequently reported experiencing ‘lighter and brighter’ feelings as early as the second day of treatment. The rapid improvements, coupled with a higher response rate that could benefit a broader depressed population, mark a significant breakthrough in the field.”

Just under a half (48%) of participants in the dual treatment group reported local pain where the dual treatment was applied, compared to just under one in 10 (9%) of participants in the single treatment group. However, despite this, there were no dropouts.

For some individuals, this treatment may be sufficient, but for others ‘maintenance therapy’ may be necessary, with an additional day session if their symptoms appear to be worsening over time. It may also be possible to re-administer standard therapy as patients can then become more able to engage in psychotherapy. Other options include using transcranial direct current stimulation, a non-invasive form of stimulation using weak electrical impulses that can be delivered at home.

The researchers are now exploring exactly which part of the orbitofrontal cortex is most effective to target and for which types of depression.

The research was supported by in the UK by the Medical Research Council and by the National Institute for Health and Care Research Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.*

Reference
Cui, H, Ding, H & Hu, L et al. A novel dual-site OFC-dlPFC accelerated repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation for depression: a pilot randomized controlled study. Psychological Medicine; 23 Oct 2024; DOI: 10.1017/S0033291724002289

*A full list of funders is available in the journal paper.

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source: cam.ac.uk

New survey highlights public expectations for fixing the
climate crisis

• New poll shows nearly two-thirds of adults (61%) expect global research universities, such as the University of Cambridge, to come up with new innovations that will help to reduce the effects of climate change. 
• Alternative fuels for cars and planes, improved batteries and capturing more carbon will have the greatest impact on climate change, the UK public believe. 
• Respondents want the government to listen to universities when making climate policy, ahead of all other interest groups tested. 

Nearly two-thirds (61%) of adults say they expect global research universities, such as the University of Cambridge, to come up with new technologies and innovations that will help to reduce the effects of climate change, according to new polling released today.  

This is ahead of the government (47%) and private sector businesses (46%). 

Findings demonstrate just how important the public believe research universities are in the fight against climate change, developing innovations to head off the looming climate and nature crises. 

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Respondents said that over the next 50 years the most important steps to take were investments into new low-carbon energy infrastructure (59%), action by businesses to reduce their impact on the environment (52%) and government funding to support research into new technologies (50%). 

The poll results showed that the public thinks the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (38%), alongside the development of alternative fuels for cars and aircraft (37%) and better batteries (30%) that store larger amounts of energy are the most pressing problems.  

“Cambridge has hundreds of projects addressing the climate and nature crises from fundamental scientific and technological research to policy and public engagement. Nurturing an ecosystem which allows our colleagues to work on these urgent issues is a key part of our mission to contribute to society.”  

– Bhaskar Vira, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education and Environmental Sustainability

One of the major challenges facing the world in the fight against climate change is the lack of progress in developing alternative fuels for cars and aircraft. Electric alternatives to petrol and diesel vehicles are often more expensive than their fossil-fuelled counterparts and are experiencing a slower than necessary rollout.  

The University of Cambridge, through the Aviation Impact Accelerator (AIA) is engaged in research to support industry in the development of a more sustainable aviation sector. The global aviation industry now contributes 2-3% of annual CO2 emissions with the true climate impact being up to 4% when non-CO2 emissions such as contrails are considered. 

The AIA develops evidence-based tools that provide decision-makers in Government, industry and civil society with the insight necessary to map, understand, and embark on the pathways towards sustainable aviation. 

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“Aviation stands at a pivotal moment, much like the automotive industry in the late 2000s. Back then, discussions centered around biofuels as the replacement for petrol and diesel – until Tesla revolutionised the future with electric vehicles. Our five-year plan is designed to accelerate this decision point in aviation, setting it on a path to achieve net-zero by 2050”

– Professor Rob Miller, Director, Whittle Lab and one of the authors of the report, “Five Years to Chart a New Future for Aviation,”

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Cambridge is also working to solve one of the biggest technological puzzles to creating a new low-carbon energy infrastructure: how to build next-generation batteries that could power a green revolution.  

Professor Dame Clare Grey’s research group in the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry at Cambridge is conducting research on materials that could be used in a range of different next-generation batteries, fuel cells and supercapacitors that will provide the backbone for our energy infrastructure. 

One innovation that has spun out of Professor Grey’s lab includes Nyobolt, a fast-charging battery for cars that is smaller, lighter, charges fasters and holds a substantially larger charge than what is currently available on the market.  

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“Universities need to be coming up with answers for ten to 15 years from now – we’re the ones who are best placed to innovate, think creatively and generate radical, new solutions”

– Professor Dame Clare Grey, Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry and co-founder of Nyobolt

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Respondents also believe that carbon removal from the atmosphere is a key priority. Cambridge is working on innovative technology for carbon drawdown, but research shows the planet’s most effective carbon removal agent is still nature.

Cambridge initiatives such as Cambridge Conservation Initiative, the Conservation Research Institute and the Centre for Landscape Regeneration are addressing biodiversity loss, boosting the power of nature to sequester carbon and cut global greenhouse gas emissions in projects across the planet. 

Support climate & nature research at Cambridge

Cambridge is the global epicentre for innovative climate and nature initiatives, driving solutions with significant impacts on society and the environment. With experts at COP and beyond, we inform policy as a trusted resource for leaders seeking clarity and new ideas.

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source: cam.ac.uk

The ambition of the partnership is to treat immune-related diseases more precisely with existing therapies and to rapidly develop new ones.

The UK’s life sciences industry is thriving, driving innovation and improving lives. This collaboration between GSK and the University of Cambridge demonstrates our country’s leading research and development capabilities.Peter Kyle, Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology

• The Cambridge-GSK Translational Immunology Collaboration (CG-TIC) combines University and GSK expertise in the science of the immune system, AI and clinical development with access to patients and their data provided by Cambridge University Hospitals.
• GSK is investing more than £50 million in CG-TIC, further strengthening Cambridge’s position as Europe’s leading life sciences cluster.

GSK plc is making this investment to establish the Cambridge-GSK Translational Immunology Collaboration (CG-TIC), a five-year collaboration with the University of Cambridge and Cambridge University Hospitals. The collaboration is focused on understanding the onset of a disease, its progression, how patients respond to therapies and on developing biomarkers for rapid diagnosis. Ultimately, the goal is to trial more effective, personalised medicines.

The collaboration will focus on kidney and respiratory diseases, both of which affect large numbers of people worldwide. Kidney disease is estimated to affect 850 million people (roughly 10% of the world’s population) (International Society of Nephrology) and chronic respiratory diseases around 545 million (The Lancet).

Many types of kidney disease remain poorly understood and treatments, where they exist, tend to have limited efficacy. Chronic kidney disease is particularly unpleasant and debilitating for patients, often leading to end-stage disease. Treatments such as transplant and dialysis involve complex medical regimes and frequent hospital visits, making effective prevention and treatment the aim.

To make progress in treating these challenging disease areas, CG-TIC will apply an array of new techniques, including the use of cutting-edge single cell technologies to characterise how genes are expressed in individual cells. AI and machine learning have a critical role to play in transforming how data is combined and interrogated.

Using these techniques, the ambition is to be able to initiate new studies and early phase trials of new therapies for a number of hard-to-treat diseases which affect the kidneys. The same techniques will be applied to respiratory diseases and findings will be shared across the disease areas potentially to help identify and share better treatments across these different targets.

Peter Kyle, Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, welcomed the collaboration: “The UK’s life sciences industry is thriving, driving innovation and improving lives. This collaboration between GSK and the University of Cambridge demonstrates our country’s leading research and development capabilities.

“By focusing on cutting-edge research and harnessing the power of AI, this has the potential to advance the treatment of immune-related diseases, which could benefit patients both here in the UK and internationally. It’s a clear example of how collaboration between industry, academia, and healthcare can deliver tangible results and strengthen the UK’s position in healthcare innovation.”

Tony Wood, Chief Scientific Officer, GSK, added: “Collaboration is at the heart of scientific progress and is fundamental to how we do R&D at GSK. We’re excited to build on our existing work with the University of Cambridge to further this world-leading scientific and technological capability in the UK. By bringing together Cambridge’s expertise and our own internal capabilities, including understanding of the immune system and the use of AI to accelerate drug development, we have an opportunity to help patients struggling with complex disease.”

The aim of CG-TIC is to improve outcomes for patients and Cambridge provides a unique environment in which to involve them, with Cambridge University Hospitals playing a pivotal role in the collaboration and Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, the UK’s leading heart and lung hospital, a likely future partner.

Home to the hospitals and to much of the collaboration’s research activity, the Cambridge Biomedical Campus provides a unique environment where academia, industry and healthcare can come together and where human translational research is supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.

Professor Deborah Prentice, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, said: “The University sits at the heart of Europe’s leading life sciences cluster, where excellent research and the NHS’s clinical resources combine with the talent generated by the many innovative bioscience companies that call Cambridge home. Through this very important collaboration with GSK, Cambridge will be able to drive economic growth for the UK while improving the health of people in this country and around the world.”

Roland Sinker, CEO of Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, also welcomed the collaboration, saying: “We are very excited to be part of this important partnership, which is another example of Cambridge experts working together to develop transformational new therapies, and use existing ones more precisely, to improve outcomes for patients with chronic and debilitating conditions.”

The Cambridge-GSK Translational Immunology Collaboration will be co-led by Nicolas Wisniacki, VP, Clinical Research Head, GSK (above left) and David Thomas, Professor of Renal Medicine, University of Cambridge and principal investigator at the Cambridge Institute for Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Diseases.

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The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

source: cam.ac.uk

Enterprising Minds

WHO? Kathryn Chapman, Executive Director, Innovate Cambridge. After completing a PhD in molecular biology, Kathryn has had a hugely successful career in life sciences and innovation.

WHAT? Innovate Cambridge is working with business, government, academia and the local community to deliver an ambitious innovation strategy for Cambridge.

WHY? To realise Cambridge’s potential as a driver for UK growth and ensure that the economic and social benefits reach everyone, particularly people who live and work in and around the region.

Were you always going to do something scientific? My parents were both teachers so education was definitely important in the family but my interest in science came out of the blue.

Growing up, I was a musician, hoping to go to the Manchester School of Music, in spite of my parents’ warning that a career in music can be tough.

Then in the sixth form, I fell in love with genetics. I found it fascinating and wanted to understand more about the underlying causes of disease.

I ended up doing a degree at Manchester University in life sciences and the history of medicine. The history aspect was important to me: I wanted to explore how society affects science and vice versa. But after two years, I realised I wanted to be a scientist and to do that, I would need to focus on a specific scientific discipline to gain PhD.

At that stage, did you think you would have an academic career? Absolutely. I loved carrying out experiments in the lab. My PhD was in osteoarthritis – which had affected my family directly – and we found a couple of genes which were linked to the disease. I wanted to carry on and went to Harvard Medical School to learn about a new gene editing technique, a precursor of CRISPR.

What would you say the differences were between the UK and the US research environments at the time? In those days, it was noticeable that my peers in the US had unlimited ambition and belief. Walking around Boston, there was a feeling you could do anything, that the world was your oyster.

On the other hand, there was an expectation that you needed to work long hours, seven days a week. In the UK we have a bit more time to think, to be innovative.

What next? I came back to the UK as a postdoctoral researcher but began to realise that I could have more direct impact on tackling disease if I was working in industry. I moved to GSK where there was a clearer link between your research and getting drugs to patients.

What were the main differences between being an academic and an industry researcher? One thing I really liked about working in industry, is that you knew what you wanted to achieve and if you weren’t meeting your milestones you would drop projects. In academia, the tendency is to carry on trying to make it work. I think the ‘fail fast’ approach is really important for innovation.

You then moved briefly to the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and then to NC3Rs – which promotes alternatives to the use of animals in science – as Head of Innovation and Translation. What prompted those moves? I’m someone who is always looking to make change and have an impact. That’s not always easy in a large organisation.

At the Sanger Institute we were looking at every gene in the genome to figure out what they were all doing. At the time, we were using animals to do this and I thought that was a very inefficient way of working.

When the role came up at NC3Rs, I saw it as an amazing opportunity to work across industry, academia and government to make research more efficient and effective by using human rather than animal models.

Then you came to Cambridge and joined the fledgeling Milner Therapeutics Institute? It was such an exciting prospect. We created a new model in which industry and academia could collaborate very early on in the process of looking at disease pathways, with a view to speeding up the drug discovery process.

In just four years, we went from three people in the Institute to 70, working with 15 pharmaceutical companies.

Collaborations aren’t easy. How do you build trust and confidence between people? I spend a lot of time trying to understand what it is that drives people. Everyone comes to the table with different backgrounds and experience which means they all have different perceptions of the advantages and potential risks of a particular scenario.

It’s trying to understand where they are all coming from and to show how for example, by sharing financial inputs, or pre-competitive data, you can work collaboratively to de-risk a project much more quickly for everyone.

When you play a musical instrument in an orchestra, you rely on everyone to get their parts right. It’s the same with innovation.

You need people who have ideas, people who de-risk those ideas and people who put those ideas into practice. It doesn’t work unless you have people with different attitudes and perspectives playing their part.

When an innovation fails, it’s not always to do with how good or bad the idea is. It’s whether you’ve got the right team, the right conditions and the right connections.

Can you tell us what Innovate Cambridge is and why we need it? As an innovation ecosystem, Cambridge is competing on an international stage and we have to keep up. We are also delivering innovation driven economic growth to benefit the whole of the UK.

There’s no doubt that a lot of our success to date has been a result of our amazing ‘bottom-up’ approach to innovation. But the flip-side of ‘bottom-up’ can sometimes mean ‘fragmented’.

If we don’t work together to achieve critical mass, we won’t attract the investment we need to realise our potential for economic growth and societal impact.

Innovate Cambridge is about orchestrating a strategy that the whole city and region can get behind. And that strategy is not just about driving growth and increasing the number of unicorns but it’s how we go about that in a way that doesn’t entrench inequality.

We want to see innovation benefit us all. Could we, for example, be just as well-known for our vocational and technical training as we are for our academic expertise?

We’ll only be successful if people living in and around Cambridge feel that all this activity has had a positive effect on their lives.

Tell us about Innovate Cambridge’s connection with Manchester? In the UK, the system for allocating public funding forces cities and regions to compete with each other. We are trying to break that down.

Manchester has a phenomenal amount of talent in areas such as computer science and manufacturing and it has the space for companies to grow. Combine its capabilities with ours and you have something which is greater than the sum of their parts.

If we can make it work with Manchester, it will be a blueprint for how we can work with other cities and regions to grow the UK’s innovation capabilities and create more jobs and opportunities across the country. That’s the ambition.

What are you most proud of in your career to date? I think it has to be setting up the Milner Therapeutics Institute, where we had a stellar team of people creating a new way of doing research in partnership.

What about setbacks? Accepting that setbacks are part of innovation is the first step. You have to reframe them. It’s a mindset. I see very few things as real setbacks, just as new challenges to deal with.

What would your colleagues say is your greatest strength? I think they would say that I can get people to buy into a vision. So perhaps it’s the ability to influence and lead.

What does an enterprising mind look like? Resilience is key but also how they respond to challenges. It’s not always the person with the most ideas who succeeds.

You need to be able to prioritise those ideas, decide which are most likely to succeed and concentrate on those. Ideas are coming at us all all the time and that kind of bombardment can be an innovation killer, if you let it. Enterprising people have relentless focus combined with the ability to know when to stop and move on.

Do you have a piece of advice for someone starting a new venture? Start with complete belief that you will succeed but remain open-minded about what success looks like.

Finally, what do you do in your spare time? I stay sane by running 10 kilometres a day, generally very early in the morning. Without that I would struggle.

Enterprising Minds has been developed with the help of Bruno Cotta, Visiting Fellow & Honorary Ambassador at the Cambridge Judge Business School.

Published 21 October 2024

_{The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.} 

source: cam.ac.uk

A brilliant idea for helping cancer patients is just that – an idea – until it is put into practice.

But turning research into something that can improve patient outcomes and benefit healthcare systems around the world is not easy.

Being in Cambridge helps. University spinouts are supported through their commercialisation journey by the University’s innovation arm, Cambridge Enterprise.

And becoming part of the UK’s leading life sciences cluster in Cambridge and the surrounding area provides plenty of inspiration plus access to investors and talent and the guidance of others who have gone before.

Meet 10 of our spinouts, all committed to changing the story of cancer.

Astex
Pharmaceuticals

Pioneering fragment-based drug discovery 

The use of fragment-based drug discovery (FBDD), pioneered by a team of Cambridge chemists and biochemists, led to the foundation of Astex and transformed the way in which pharmaceutical companies can identify new lead compounds for drug discovery.

To date, more than 40 compounds discovered using FBDD have reached clinical trials. 

The approach allows for the efficient exploration of chemical space by using small fragments to identify hotspots on protein targets, which are then elaborated into larger drug-like molecules.  

Astex’s FBDD approach has led to the approval of three drugs in 75 countries, positively impacting patients with breast and urothelial cancer and leukaemia. 

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Academic founders: Professor Sir Tom Blundell, Department of Biochemistry and Professor Chris Abell, Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry 

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Find out more

biomodal 

Getting more information from DNA 

A new method of studying DNA is offering ground-breaking insights into health and disease. 

Fundamental research into understanding genetic and epigenetic information in DNA led to the creation of spinout, biomodal (formerly Cambridge Epigenetix). 

Current technologies have difficulty accurately reading epigenetic and genetic information from small samples of DNA, causing crucial information to be missed.

By contrast, biomodal’s innovative technology combines genetic and epigenetic analysis in a single sequencing run, capturing the most important data from DNA samples. 

This approach is being used in various fields, including cancer research as well as neurodegenerative diseases, liquid biopsy for early detection of cancer, precision medicine, and non-invasive prenatal testing. 

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Academic founder: Professor Sir Shankar Balasubramanian, Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry 

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Find out more

Concr

Using astrophysics to revolutionise cancer treatment 

Developing successful cancer treatments remains challenging, with high failure rates. Cosmology may hold the answer.  

Founded by a biomedical engineer, a computational physicist and a medical oncologist, Concr uses established computational frameworks from astrophysics to enable learning between disparate and messy oncology data to accurately model cancer biology. 

This allows scientists to predict therapeutic response for individual patients, simulate clinical trials and generate biomarker hypotheses, thereby de-risking drug development and improving patient outcomes. 

In July 2024, the first patients were recruited into Concr’s observational trial of their FarrSight®-Twin technology for outcome prediction in breast cancer. 

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Academic founder: Dr Matthew Griffiths, Cavendish Laboratory 

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Find out more

PharmEnable

Creating revolutionary new medicines with an AI-enabled platform 

PharmEnable Therapeutics is breaking down the barriers of inaccessibility: for the patient, the target and the drug. 

A pioneering drug discovery company, PharmEnable leverages artificial intelligence to reimagine small molecules.

Working on targets that require the exquisite specificity of biologics, it is creating much-needed treatments particularly for cancer and neurological conditions.

The team is developing a pipeline of life-changing small molecule drugs with antibody-like selectivity targeting hard-to-reach areas.

It is also working with partners across disease areas, where achieving drug selectivity and optimal properties poses a significant challenge. 

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Academic founder: Dr Hannah Sore, Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry 

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Find out more

PhoreMost

Drugging the undruggable 

PhoreMost is pioneering new technologies to help create treatments for diseases which were previously considered ‘undruggable’. 

Through its next-generation screening platforms such as SITESEEKER® and GlueSEEKER, PhoreMost is able to identify the best new targets for future therapies, particularly in oncology and in Targeted Protein Degradation, a technique for dealing with proteins that are causing diseases.

Through this innovative approach PhoreMost aims to expand the number of diseases that can respond to treatment, enabling the discovery of next-generation therapies.  

By doing so, it is creating more effective and targeted medicines for patients, increasing treatment options for cancer and other diseases with limited therapies. 

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Academic founders: Professor Ashok Venkitaraman and Dr Grahame Mckenzie, MRC Cancer Unit 

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Find out more

Spirea

Better treatment options for hard-to-treat cancers 

This biotech company, started by a Cambridge nanoscientist, is working on better treatment options for patients with difficult-to-treat cancers. 

Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) are designed to target and kill cancer cells while sparing healthy ones. These therapies combine powerful drugs with antibodies that specifically target cancer cells. 

Spirea is focusing its innovative ADCs on treating certain solid tumours, where current treatment options are few. 

While ADCs aim to improve upon existing treatments, many have faced challenges in clinical development such as toxicity, limited effectiveness, and the range of cancers they can treat. 

Spirea’s technology aims to improve this by attaching more drug to each antibody, enhancing the ability to kill cancer cells. 

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Academic founder: Dr Myriam Ouberai, Nanoscience Centre 

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Find out more

STORM Therapeutics

Paving the way for new treatments by modifying RNA

STORM Therapeutics was founded in 2015 by two Cambridge researchers, following their ground-breaking work in RNA epigenetics. 

They identified the importance of RNA modifications during the development of cancer, creating the pathway for STORM to develop pioneering cancer drugs targeting this new mechanism. 

 STORM’s leadership team is dedicated to advancing its first-in-class pipeline into other areas as well as cancer, including inflammation and neurodegenerative and infectious diseases. 

Its lead product, STC-15, is the first RNA modifying enzyme inhibitor to enter human clinical trials, currently being evaluated in a Phase 1 study in patients with advanced solid tumours. 

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Academic founders: Professor Tony Kouzarides and Professor Eric Miska, Gurdon Institute 

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Find out more

T-Therapeutics

Harnessing the power of natural T cells to transform cancer care 

Cancer treatment has advanced over the past decade thanks to breakthroughs in immuno-oncology, which trains the body’s own T cells to target cancer cells.

However, current approaches, although promising, have not yet realised their full potential. T-Therapeutics has developed a new platform, OpTiMus®, based on more than 10 years of medical research at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the University of Cambridge.

By creating a near-unlimited database of T cell receptors (TCRs), the platform enables the development of new therapies which are specific to each patient, unleashing the potential of their own immune system.

T-Therapeutics also aims to harness this approach to target various autoimmune disorders. 

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Academic founder: Professor Allan Bradley, Department of Medicine

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Find out more

Verinnogen

Cutting-edge tools for cancer researchers worldwide to bring critical new treatments to patients faster 

Verinnogen has created a device to enhance the accuracy and efficiency of pre-clinical studies, ultimately leading to faster breakthroughs in cancer treatments. 

Its innovative hand-held device accurately measures 3D objects, such as subcutaneous tumours, reducing operator error.

This profiling tool enables researchers to measure the true biological responses to treatment. It also enables more ethical research by potentially reducing animal usage and improving animal welfare. 

Verinnogen is reducing the cost of evaluating cancer therapies and bringing the next-generation of critical cancer treatments to patients faster.  

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Academic founders: Dr Isaac Johnson and Dr Mike Irvine, Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute 

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Find out more

52North

Bringing healthcare closer to patients with advanced medical devices 

52North develops cutting-edge medical devices to enhance patient care, particularly for those living with cancer.  

One such device is Neutrocheck®, a low-cost, finger-prick test which gives quick, reliable results at home, enabling cancer patients to check their risk of neutropenic sepsis – a dangerous side effect of chemotherapy – without going to hospital. 

52North’s technology integrates seamlessly with digital platforms, enabling decentralised clinical decision-making and improving health equity.

52North’s devices can both improve patient outcomes by getting treatment to those at risk sooner, and have the potential to streamline NHS operations, reducing costs and waitlists through more efficient, personalised care. 

Academic founder: Dr Saif Ahmad and Dr Mireia Crispin, Department of Oncology, Dr. Nikki Weckman, Department of Engineering 

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Find out more

source: cam.ac.uk

Specimens in a Cambridge museum will be brought to life through the power of Artificial Intelligence, by a team aiming to strengthen our connection with the natural world and reverse apathy towards biodiversity loss.

This is an amazing opportunity for people to test out an emerging technology in our inspiring Museum setting.Jack Ashby

From Tuesday 15 October the University of Cambridge’s Museum of Zoology is offering visitors a unique experience: the chance to chat with the animals on display – whether skeletal, taxidermy, or extinct.

In a collaboration with the company Nature Perspectives, the Museum’s Assistant Director Jack Ashby has chosen a range of animal specimens to bring back to life using generative Artificial Intelligence.

Visitors can pose their questions to thirteen specimens – including dodo and whale skeletons, a taxidermied red panda, and a preserved cockroach – by scanning QR codes that open a chat-box on their mobile phone. In two-way conversations, which can be voice- or text-based, the specimens will answer as if they are still alive.

This is believed to be the first time a museum has used generative Artificial Intelligence to enable visitors to chat with objects on display in this way.

By analysing data from the conversations, the team hopes that the month-long experiment will help them learn more about how AI can help the public to better engage with nature, and about the potential for AI in museums. It will also provide the museum with new insights into what visitors really want to know about the specimens on display.

Nature Perspectives uses AI to enable cultural institutions like the Museum of Zoology to engage the public through these unique conversational experiences. The company aims to reverse a growing apathy towards biodiversity loss by enabling new ways to engage with the natural world.

“This is an amazing opportunity for people to test out an emerging technology in our inspiring Museum setting, and we also hope to learn something about how our visitors see the animals on display,” said Jack Ashby, Assistant Director of the University of Cambridge’s Museum of Zoology.

He added: “Our whole purpose is to get people engaged with the natural world. So we’re curious to see whether this will work, and whether chatting to the animals will change people’s attitudes towards them – will the cockroach be better liked, for example, as a result of having its voice heard?”

“By using AI to simulate non-human perspectives, our technology offers a novel way for audiences to connect with the natural world,” said Gal Zanir, co-founder of the company Nature Perspectives, which developed the AI technology for the experience.

He added: “One of the most magical aspects of the simulations is that they’re age-adaptive. For the first time, visitors of all ages will be able to ask the specimens anything they like.”

The technology brings together all available information on each animal involved – including details particular to the individual specimens such as where they came from and how they were prepared for display in the museum. This is all repackaged from a first-person perspective, so that visitors can experience realistic, meaningful conversations.

The animals will adjust their tone and language to suit the age of the person they’re talking to. And they’re multi-lingual – speaking over 20 languages including Spanish and Japanese so that visitors can chat in their native languages.

The team has chosen a range of specimens that include skeletons, taxidermy, models, and whole preserved animals. The specimens are: dodo skeleton, narwhal skeleton, brain coral, red admiral butterfly, fin whale skeleton, American cockroach, huia taxidermy (a recently extinct bird from New Zealand), red panda taxidermy, freeze-dried platypus, giant sloth fossil skeleton, giant deer skull and antlers, mallard taxidermy, and Ichthyostega model (an extinct ancestor of all animals with four legs).

Nature Perspectives was created by a team of graduates from the University of Cambridge’s Masters in Conservation Leadership programme, who noticed that people seem to feel more connected to machines when they can talk to them. This inspired the team to apply the same principle to nature – giving nature a voice to promote its agency and foster deeper, more personal connections between people and the natural world.

“Artificial Intelligence is opening up exciting new opportunities to connect people with non-human life, but the impacts need to be carefully studied. I’m delighted to be involved in exploring how the Nature Perspectives pilot affects the way people feel about and understand the species they ‘meet’ in the Museum of Zoology,” said Professor Chris Sandbrook, Director of the University of Cambridge’s Masters in Conservation Leadership programme.

“Enabling museums to engage visitors with the simulated perspectives of exhibits is only the first step for Nature Perspectives. We aim to apply this transformative approach widely, from public engagement and education to scientific research, to representing nature in legal processes, policy-making and beyond,” said Zanir.

The Nature Perspectives AI experiment runs for one month, from 15th October to 15th of November 2024. For visiting times see www.museum.zoo.cam.ac.uk/visit-us 

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The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

source: cam.ac.uk

Researchers have used the chemical fingerprints of zinc contained in meteorites to determine the origin of volatile elements on Earth. The results suggest that without ‘unmelted’ asteroids, there may not have been enough of these compounds on Earth for life to emerge.

Volatiles are elements or compounds that change into vapour at relatively low temperatures. They include the six most common elements found in living organisms, as well as water. The zinc found in meteorites has a unique composition, which can be used to identify the sources of Earth’s volatiles.

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London, have previously found that Earth’s zinc came from different parts of our Solar System: about half came from beyond Jupiter and half originated closer to Earth.

“One of the most fundamental questions on the origin of life is where the materials we need for life to evolve came from,” said Dr Rayssa Martins from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences. “If we can understand how these materials came to be on Earth, it might give us clues to how life originated here, and how it might emerge elsewhere.”

Planetesimals are the main building blocks of rocky planets, such as Earth. These small bodies are formed through a process called accretion, where particles around a young star start to stick together, and form progressively larger bodies.

But not all planetesimals are made equal. The earliest planetesimals that formed in the Solar System were exposed to high levels of radioactivity, which caused them to melt and lose their volatiles. But some planetesimals formed after these sources of radioactivity were mostly extinct, which helped them survive the melting process and preserved more of their volatiles.

In a study published in the journal Science Advances, Martins and her colleagues looked at the different forms of zinc that arrived on Earth from these planetesimals. The researchers measured the zinc from a large sample of meteorites originating from different planetesimals and used this data to model how Earth got its zinc, by tracing the entire period of the Earth’s accretion, which took tens of millions of years.

Their results show that while these ‘melted’ planetesimals contributed about 70% of Earth’s overall mass, they only provided around 10% of its zinc.

According to the model, the rest of Earth’s zinc came from materials that didn’t melt and lose their volatile elements. Their findings suggest that unmelted, or ‘primitive’ materials were an essential source of volatiles for Earth.

“We know that the distance between a planet and its star is a determining factor in establishing the necessary conditions for that planet to sustain liquid water on its surface,” said Martins, the study’s lead author. “But our results show there’s no guarantee that planets incorporate the right materials to have enough water and other volatiles in the first place – regardless of their physical state.”

The ability to trace elements through millions or even billions of years of evolution could be a vital tool in the search for life elsewhere, such as on Mars, or on planets outside our Solar System.

“Similar conditions and processes are also likely in other young planetary systems,” said Martins. “The roles these different materials play in supplying volatiles is something we should keep in mind when looking for habitable planets elsewhere.”

The research was supported in part by Imperial College London, the European Research Council, and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

Reference:
Rayssa Martins et al. ‘Primitive asteroids as a major source of terrestrial volatiles.’ Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.ado4121

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The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

source: cam.ac.uk

Nyobolt, a University of Cambridge spin-out company, has demonstrated its ultra-fast charging batteries in an electric sportscar prototype, going from 10% to 80% charge in under five minutes, twice the speed of the fastest-charging vehicles currently on the road.

In addition to ultra-fast charging times, the batteries developed by Nyobolt – which was spun out of Professor Dame Clare Grey’s lab in the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry in 2019 – do not suffer from the degradation issues associated with lithium-ion batteries.

Tests of the first running Nyobolt EV prototype will be used to validate the company’s battery performance in a high-performance environment.

Cambridge-based Nyobolt has used its patented carbon and metal oxide anode materials, low-impedance cell design, integrated power electronics and software controls to create power-dense battery and charging systems. These support the electrification of applications such as heavy-duty off-highway trucks, EVs, robotics and consumer devices that demand high power and quick recharge cycles.

Initial in-vehicle testing using 350kW (800V) DC fast chargers confirmed that the Nyobolt EV’s battery can be charged from 10 per cent to 80 per cent in 4 minutes 37 seconds – with a full charge enabling the prototype to achieve a range of 155 miles. That is twice the speed of most of the fastest-charging vehicles today.

Independent testing of the technology confirmed that Nyobolt’s longer-lasting and more sustainable batteries can achieve over 4,000 fast charge cycles, or 600,000 miles, maintaining over 80 per cent battery capacity retention. This is many multiples higher than the warranties of much larger EV batteries on the road today.

“Nyobolt’s low impedance cells ensure we can offer sustainability, stretching out the battery’s usable life for up to 600,000 miles in the case of our technology demonstrator,”- Company co-founder and CEO, Dr Sai Shivareddy.

The battery pack in the Nyobolt EV prototype not only adds miles faster but the compact battery pack size enables energy-efficient electric vehicles that are cheaper to buy and run, and crucially use fewer resources to manufacture.

“Nyobolt is removing the obstacle of slow and inconvenient charging, making electrification appealing and accessible to those who don’t have the time for lengthy charging times or space for a home charger,” said Shane Davies, Nyobolt’s director of vehicle battery systems.

Nyobolt’s battery assembly plans could be in production at low volume within a year, ramping to 1,000 packs in 2025. Nyobolt’s flexible manufacturing model enables volumes of up to 2 million cells per year.

Nyobolt’s technology builds on a decade of battery research led by Grey and Shivareddy, who invented cutting-edge supercapacitors. Key to the company’s ability to offer ultra-fast charging without impacting battery life is its low-impedance cells that generate less heat, making it easier to manage such high-power levels during charging. Its anode materials in lithium-ion battery cells allow for a faster transfer of electrons between the anode and cathode.

Nyobolt is in conversation with a further eight vehicle manufacturers about adopting its technology. Alongside automotive applications, Nyobolt’s fast-charging technology is set to be used this year in robotics.

“Our extensive research here in the UK and in the US has unlocked a new battery technology that is ready and scalable right now,” said Shivareddy. “We are enabling the electrification of new products and services currently considered inviable or impossible. Creating real-world demonstrators, such as the Nyobolt EV, underlines both our readiness and commitment to making the industries see change is possible.”

Published: October 2024
Story: Sarah Collins and Nybolt. Design: Jessica Keating
Photography credits: Nyobolt

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

source: cam.ac.uk

Astronomers have used the NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to observe the ‘inside-out’ growth of a galaxy in the early universe, only 700 million years after the Big Bang.

This galaxy is one hundred times smaller than the Milky Way, but is surprisingly mature for so early in the universe. Like a large city, this galaxy has a dense collection of stars at its core but becomes less dense in the galactic ‘suburbs’. And like a large city, this galaxy is starting to sprawl, with star formation accelerating in the outskirts.

This is the earliest-ever detection of inside-out galactic growth. Until Webb, it had not been possible to study galaxy growth so early in the universe’s history. Although the images obtained with Webb represent a snapshot in time, the researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, say that studying similar galaxies could help us understand how they transform from clouds of gas into the complex structures we observe today. The results are reported in the journal Nature Astronomy.

“The question of how galaxies evolve over cosmic time is an important one in astrophysics,” said co-lead author Dr Sandro Tacchella from Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory. “We’ve had lots of excellent data for the last ten million years and for galaxies in our corner of the universe, but now with Webb, we can get observational data from billions of years back in time, probing the first billion years of cosmic history, which opens up all kinds of new questions.”

The galaxies we observe today grow via two main mechanisms: either they pull in, or accrete, gas to form new stars, or they grow by merging with smaller galaxies. Whether different mechanisms were at work in the early universe is an open question which astronomers are hoping to address with Webb.

“You expect galaxies to start small as gas clouds collapse under their own gravity, forming very dense cores of stars and possibly black holes,” said Tacchella. “As the galaxy grows and star formation increases, it’s sort of like a spinning figure skater: as the skater pulls in their arms, they gather momentum, and they spin faster and faster. Galaxies are somewhat similar, with gas accreting later from larger and larger distances spinning the galaxy up, which is why they often form spiral or disc shapes.”

This galaxy, observed as part of the JADES (JWST Advanced Extragalactic Survey) collaboration, is actively forming stars in the early universe. It has a highly dense core, which despite its relatively young age, is of a similar density to present-day massive elliptical galaxies, which have 1000 times more stars. Most of the star formation is happening further away from the core, with a star-forming ‘clump’ even further out.

The star formation activity is strongly rising toward the outskirts, as the star formation spreads out and the galaxy grows. This type of growth had been predicted with theoretical models, but with Webb, it is now possible to observe it.

“One of the many reasons that Webb is so transformational to us as astronomers is that we’re now able to observe what had previously been predicted through modelling,” said co-author William Baker, a PhD student at the Cavendish. “It’s like being able to check your homework.”

Using Webb, the researchers extracted information from the light emitted by the galaxy at different wavelengths, which they then used to estimate the number of younger stars versus older stars, which is converted into an estimate of the stellar mass and star formation rate.

Because the galaxy is so compact, the individual images of the galaxy were ‘forward modelled’ to take into account instrumental effects. Using stellar population modelling that includes prescriptions for gas emission and dust absorption, the researchers found older stars in the core, while the surrounding disc component is undergoing very active star formation. This galaxy doubles its stellar mass in the outskirts roughly every 10 million years, which is very rapid: the Milky Way galaxy doubles its mass only every 10 billion years.

The density of the galactic core, as well as the high star formation rate, suggest that this young galaxy is rich with the gas it needs to form new stars, which may reflect different conditions in the early universe.

“Of course, this is only one galaxy, so we need to know what other galaxies at the time were doing,” said Tacchella. “Were all galaxies like this one? We’re now analysing similar data from other galaxies. By looking at different galaxies across cosmic time, we may be able to reconstruct the growth cycle and demonstrate how galaxies grow to their eventual size today.”

Reference:
William M. Baker, Sandro Tacchella, et al. ‘A core in a star-forming disc as evidence of inside-out growth in the early Universe.’ Nature Astronomy (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-024-02384-8

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Colleagues from across the University were recognised for their contributions to research culture at the inaugural Research Culture Celebration event on 30 September.

Cambridge aspires to create a positive research culture where all staff working in research, whether in academic, technical or support roles, feel welcomed, supported and able to give of their best. The Research Culture Celebration event aims to recognise and celebrate the good practice that is already happening, and to inspire further efforts across the University.

The original idea for the nominations and event (where those honoured are put forward by their colleagues) was part of the Action Research on Research Culture (ARRC) project’s study on researcher development. The ARRC project is one of several initiatives to nurture and promote positive research culture at Cambridge. 

See the full list of nominees

The event coincides with the launch of a wider programme of work being led by the University’s Research Culture Team. Four priority areas have been identified. These are: 

– Precarity: how do we address the issues created by fixed-term contracts in early research careers? 

– Access & Participation: who gets to do research? Can everyone fully participate as is expected of them? 

– Challenging interpersonal and group dynamics: how do we support researchers who are struggling with difficult research dynamics? How do we support leaders to change? 

– Time & space: how do we ensure people have the time and space to embody and enact good research culture? 

This year the Research Steering Committee, which oversees the work, is expecting to allocate between £600,000 and £700,000 to facilitate research culture activities around the University. It will also contact individual departments to better understand the concerns they have around research culture. If you would like to be involved, please contact the research culture team. 

For more about the event, including a gallery of images, see the Staff Hub (Cambridge users only; University login required).

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The first wiring diagram of every neuron in an adult brain and the 50 million connections between them has been produced for a fruit fly.

Brain wiring diagrams are a first step towards understanding everything we’re interested in – how we control our movement, answer the telephone, or recognise a friend.Gregory Jefferis

This landmark achievement has been conducted by the FlyWire Consortium, a large international collaboration including researchers from the University of Cambridge, the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, Princeton University, and the University of Vermont. It is published today in two papers in the journal Nature.

The diagram of all 139,255 neurons in the adult fly brain is the first of an entire brain for an animal that can walk and see. Previous efforts have completed the whole brain diagrams for much smaller brains, for example a fruit fly larva which has 3,016 neurons, and a nematode worm which has 302 neurons.

The researchers say the whole fly brain map is a key first step to completing larger brains. Since the fruit fly is a common tool in research, its brain map can be used to advance our understanding of how neural circuits work.

Dr Gregory Jefferis, from the University of Cambridge and the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, one of the co-leaders of the research, said: “If we want to understand how the brain works, we need a mechanistic understanding of how all the neurons fit together and let you think. For most brains we have no idea how these networks function. 

“Flies can do all kinds of complicated things like walk, fly, navigate, and the males sing to the females. Brain wiring diagrams are a first step towards understanding everything we’re interested in – how we control our movement, answer the telephone, or recognise a friend.”

Dr Mala Murthy from Princeton University, one of the co-leaders of the research, said: “We have made the entire database open and freely available to all researchers. We hope this will be transformative for neuroscientists trying to better understand how a healthy brain works. In the future we hope that it will be possible to compare what happens when things go wrong in our brains, for example in mental health conditions.” 

Dr Marta Costa from the University of Cambridge, who was also involved in the research, said “This brain map, the biggest so far, has only been possible thanks to technical advances that didn’t seem possible ten years ago. It is a true testament to the way that innovation can drive research forward. The next steps will be to generate even bigger maps, such as a mouse brain, and ultimately, a human one.”

The scientists found that there were substantial similarities between the wiring in this map and previous smaller-scale efforts to map out parts of the fly brain. This led the researchers to conclude that there are many similarities in wiring between individual brains – that each brain isn’t a unique structure.

When comparing their brain diagram to previous diagrams of small areas of the brain, the researchers also found that about 0.5% of neurons have developmental variations that could cause connections between neurons to be mis-wired. The researchers say it will be important to understand, through future research, if these changes are linked to individuality or brain disorders. 

Making the map

3D rendering of all 140,000 neurons in the fruit fly brain.

3D rendering of all ~140k neurons in the fruit fly brain. Credit: Data source FlyWire.ai; Rendering by Philipp Schlegel (University of Cambridge/MRC LMB).

A whole fly brain is less than one millimetre wide. The researchers started with one female brain cut into seven thousand slices, each only 40 nanometres thick, that were previously scanned using high resolution electron microscopy in the laboratory of project co-leader Davi Bock at Janelia Research Campus in the US.

Analysing over 100 terabytes of image data (equivalent to the storage in 100 typical laptops) to extract the shapes of about 140,000 neurons and 50 million connections between them is too big a challenge for humans to complete manually. The researchers built on AI developed at Princeton University to identify and map neurons and their connections to each other.

However, the AI still makes many errors in datasets of this size. The Princeton University researchers established the FlyWire Consortium – made up of teams in more than 76 laboratories and 287 researchers around the world, as well as volunteers from the general public – which spent an estimated 33 person-years painstakingly proofreading all the data.

Dr Sebastian Seung, from Princeton University, who was one of the co-leaders of the research, said: “Mapping the whole brain has been made possible by advances in AI computing – it would have not been possible to reconstruct the entire wiring diagram manually. This is a display of how AI can move neuroscience forward. The fly brain is a milestone on our way to reconstructing a wiring diagram of a whole mouse brain.”

The researchers also annotated many details on the wiring diagram, such as classifying more than 8,000 cell types across the brain. This allows researchers to select particular systems within the brain for further study, such as the neurons involved in sight or movement. 

Dr Philipp Schlegel, the first author of one of the studies, from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, said: “This dataset is a bit like Google Maps but for brains: the raw wiring diagram between neurons is like knowing which structures on satellite images of the Earth correspond to streets and buildings. Annotating neurons is like adding the names for streets and towns, business opening times, phone numbers and reviews to the map – you need both for it to be really useful.”

Simulating brain function

This is also the first whole brain wiring map – often called a connectome – to predict the function of all the connections between neurons. 

Neurons use electrical signals to send messages. Each neuron can have hundreds of branches that connect it to other neurons. The points where these branches meet and transmit signals between neurons are called synapses. There are two main ways that neurons communicate across synapses: excitatory (which promotes the continuation of the electrical signal in the receiving neuron), or inhibitory (which reduces the likelihood that the next neuron will transmit signals).

Researchers from the team used AI image scanning technology to predict whether each synapse was inhibitory or excitatory.

Dr Gregory Jefferis added: “To begin to simulate the brain digitally, we need to know not only the structure of the brain, but also how the neurons function to turn each other on and off.”

“Using our data, which has been shared online as we worked, other scientists have already started trying to simulate how the fly brain responds to the outside world. This is an important start, but we will need to collect many different kinds of data to produce reliable simulations of how a brain functions.”

Associate Professor Davi Bock, one of the co-leaders of the research from the University of Vermont, said: “The hyper-detail of electron microscopy data creates its own challenges, especially at scale. This team wrote sophisticated software algorithms to identify patterns of cell structure and connectivity within all that detail. 

“We now can make precise synaptic level maps and use these to better understand cell types and circuit structure at whole-brain scale. This will inevitably lead to a deeper understanding of how nervous systems process, store and recall information. I think this approach points the way forward for the analysis of future whole-brain connectomes, in the fly as well as in other species.”

This research was conducted using a female fly brain. Since there are differences in neuronal structure between male and female fly brains, the researchers also plan to characterise a male brain in the future. 

The principal funders were the National Institutes of Health BRAIN Initiative, Wellcome, Medical Research Council, Princeton University and National Science Foundation.

References

Schlegel, P. et al: Whole-brain annotation and multi-connectome cell typing of Drosophila. Nature, Oct 2024. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07686-5

Dorkenwald, S. et al: Neuronal wiring diagram of an adult brain. Nature, Oct 2024. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07558-y

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Every other person will experience a mental health difficulty at some point in their life. The causes are complex, but treatment options are not – and in half of patients they just don’t work.

A new network of researchers at Cambridge aims to revolutionise mental healthcare by probing the processes underlying the symptoms.

Nobody needs reminding that just a few years ago we were all plunged into a state of maximal uncertainty.

We didn’t know what was going on, we couldn’t predict what would happen next, and the lockdowns were completely disruptive to normal life.

“Difficulty in responding to uncertainty lies at the core of many mental health difficulties, and it’s very telling that since the pandemic there’s been a twenty-five percent global increase in people diagnosed with depression and anxiety,” says Rebecca Lawson, Professor of Neuroscience and Computational Psychiatry in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Psychology.

Drug treatments and therapies for depression and anxiety do exist – but they’re only effective in 50% of people so it’s a ‘try and see’ approach, often with side-effects along the way. The problem, says Lawson, is that mental health conditions are diagnosed by the symptoms people experience, because there’s no other way.

“We don’t have blood tests or brain scans that will give us an indication of whether you have a mental health condition or not”

says Lawson, adding: “We just have a reference manual listing behavioural symptoms which if you have enough of, you get your diagnosis and a plan of action.”

This approach to mental health considers the symptoms to be the condition – low mood as part of depression, for example. This is very different from physical health conditions where a symptom like a cough could be caused by many things, from a common cold, to asthma, to cancer – each needing a very different treatment.

“We’re lacking that mechanistic understanding of the different routes to causing the symptoms of mental health conditions,” says Lawson, adding: “That means we can’t predict who treatments will be effective for – and for the most part we don’t actually know how the treatments work.”

Personalising the approach

Fingerprint. Credit Andriy Onufriyenko/ Getty

Mental health problems are complex, and idea of a ‘one size fits all’ treatment is outdated. Lawson compares the current state of understanding to cancer research twenty years ago: “We had a very poor understanding of the different mechanisms that could cause breast cancer, for example,” she says.

With greater understanding, cancer treatment has moved to a precision medicine approach where treatment is often tailored to the individual. Lawson wants to achieve the same for mental health.

She’s creating computational models of the behaviour of people with mental health conditions – breaking it down into its constituent parts.

The aim is to be able to assess someone to produce their unique ‘computational fingerprint’ – resulting in a personalised approach to treatment based on the underlying cause of their symptoms.

“People with depression have a tendency to put negative interpretations on things, and there are lots of reasons why this might be happening,” she says.

“Maybe at the visual end you see things differently, or maybe you have difficulty perceiving positive events in the world, or maybe you’re not updating your beliefs in response to your experiences. The idea is that by trying to get closer to the mechanisms that drive the behaviour, we might be able to actually understand how the treatments work, and who they work for.”

A large, competitively-won Wellcome Mental Health Award is now allowing Lawson and her team to investigate the mechanisms underlying depression and anxiety – in particular, how people process uncertainty.

She wants to see how two different treatment approaches – antidepressant medication and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy – change a person’s computational fingerprint, and change their intolerance of uncertainty.

“We’ll do a head-to-head trial of these two different treatments to understand how they’re different mechanistically – the hope being that we could then use knowledge of the underlying mechanism to guide the most effective treatment approach on a personalised basis.”

Targeting memories

Brainwaves. Credit Sean Gladwell Getty

We tend to talk about anxiety and depression much more openly since the pandemic, but this openness doesn’t yet to extend to all mental health conditions – and that can mean many people still don’t seek the support they need.

“There’s much less stigmatisation now around saying that you have an anxiety disorder or depression than there used to be,” says Amy Milton, Professor of Behavioural Neuroscience in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Psychology, “but there’s still a strong stigma attached to drug addiction, which is my opinion is unfair, because it’s also largely driven by biological mechanisms.”

Milton is studying disorders including drug addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and obsessive-compulsive disorder, all of which seem to be driven, at least in part, by malfunctions in emotional memories – those where our brain links an emotional response to an experience.

We’re more likely to remember emotionally charged images, like someone shouting at us, than neutral ones. But when they’re formed under very traumatic circumstances this can leave lasting damage – even years later when there’s no longer any danger, particular stimuli can trigger the memories and cause the same strong emotional response. This is what happens in PTSD; Milton is trying to work out what’s going on in a bid to stop it. She says:

“Our memories aren’t fixed – we know they drift and change, and under the right conditions they can be updated. If emotional memories contribute to the persistence of PTSD, can we target them in some way?”

Memories are very stable when they’re in an inactive state not being used, and they switch to an active state as we do something that uses them. As they move between the two, they destabilise.

“Our idea is that if we give a person with PTSD a reminder of their trigger stimulus to activate the associated emotional memory, together with a drug that blocks that memory from restabilising, then the memory will disappear,” says Milton. “We already know it works in rats. If we could get rid of a person’s distressing emotional reaction without them forgetting the event, that’s really exciting.”

Milton has found that problems with emotional memory are also involved, in different ways, in drug addiction and obsessive-compulsive disorder. While they are just one component of all three disorders, she says that targeting the mechanism of the emotional memories could become an important part of wider treatment packages.

“It may be that the same mechanisms are affected in different mental health disorders,” she says. “Our ideal approach would be to try and work out which symptoms are causing problems for any individual patient, and treat the processes that give rise to those symptoms. Similar to Rebecca’s approach this is more flexible and personalised, and should have much better outcomes.”

Strength in numbers

Credit Yuichiro Chino/ Getty

With mental health issues projected to be one of the world’s biggest causes of ill health by 2030, there’s no time to lose. Lawson and Milton are co-leads of a new mental health research network at the University, bringing together experts across disciplines to address the challenge from all angles.

Animal models are vital to this, because using them allows complex processes to be modelled in much simpler ways – then translated into humans.

The network will bring in people with experience of the mental health conditions being studied, so that their perspectives can inform research as ideas are being developed.

This ‘lived experience’ is considered so vital to making progress that Lawson worked with the University’s Bioscience Impact Team to develop new practical guidelines, and set up a funding scheme, to enable researchers across the network to incorporate the approach.

The aim is to turbocharge basic biomedical research like theirs, to drive a vastly improved approach to tackling mental health.

“I genuinely believe that we need a paradigm shift to make progress in mental health, and it feels like a tractable problem,” says Lawson, adding: “By taking a step back to focus on the basic science from this mechanistic angle, I think we can do this.” Milton agrees:

“With our whole network focused on the challenge from a huge diversity of perspectives, I genuinely think we can move towards a future of precision psychiatry and vastly improved treatment options.”

Read more about the University’s research on Mental Health and Illness

Article published: 4 October 2024

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A rare collection of 17th-century petitions gives voice to England’s early foster carers as they fought for their rights

Today, the UK faces a major retention and recruitment crisis in foster care, and carers in different parts of the country continue to campaign for higher funding.

In September 2024, Northumberland County Council confirmed that it was reviewing payments to foster carers, which have been frozen for over ten years, following calls from campaigners.

Having studied the experiences of foster carers in the 17^th century, Cambridge historian Emily Rhodes argues that these struggles have a long history and that England’s early foster carers had more authority than we might expect.

Rhodes, a researcher at Christ’s College, Cambridge, studied a rare collection of surviving petitions submitted to the Lancashire quarter sessions courts between 1660 and 1720.

In a study published in The History of the Family journal, Rhodes reveals the experiences of thirty-eight women who cared for non-kin children for their parish. Traditionally, this work has been called ‘boarding’ or ‘tabling’ but Rhodes says:

“There are very clear similarities between then and now and we should view these women as early foster carers. People in authority looked at family situations and judged whether it was appropriate for a child. When they decided it wasn’t, they sought to place them in a new home, ideally with somebody from their local community, and they compensated this person to look after the child.”

“These women provided such a vital role that when they weren’t paid enough or at all, they had enough authority to approach their county justices, powerful men, and successfully argue their case.”

“Today’s foster carers and the rest of society should know that even 350 years ago this role was essential and respected in society, and that women had power in the system. Every social safety net relies on determined individuals, we all need to remember that.”

Most of the women Rhodes encountered in the petitions would have been entitled to poor relief in their own right. In the 17^th century, the Old Poor Laws supported a system of relief in England which saw parishioners contributing to a local pot of funds which churchwardens and overseers of the poor allocated to the needy in the parish.

Some needy or orphaned children were made apprentices but others were placed with a woman in the community, typically a widow or a mother, but sometimes unmarried women. For this work, women expected to receive payment from the parish. As a result, they were both recipients of poor relief and administrators of the poor laws.

Emily Rhodes said: “These petitions give voice to some of the most inaccessible women in history. They’ve left a very small footprint but they played a crucial role in society.”

17th-century parish orphans

Emily Rhodes

Taking on authority

In their petitions, women often accused their local authorities of mismanagement and dishonesty. Three quarters petitioned because they were not receiving the promised rate and nearly one third requested an increase in pay. None of the petitions were rejected but Rhodes cautions that fewer failed petitions may have survived.

Rhodes said: “The state needed to keep these carers satisfied so the justices, the higher authority, overwhelmingly sided with them and opposed mistreatment by local authorities.”

In 1690s Preston, Alice Brewer of Lea battled her parish for years as they cut and withheld payments to care for Anne Helme, ‘a poor distressed child’ who had lived with her for 14 years. Alice complained that ‘the town was pleased to differ & wrangle with your poor petitioner and to lessen and altogether deny the payment’.

In one petition she argued that the overseers’ refusal ‘to provide clothes or other necessaries’ for Anne had caused her to become lame. By 1700, the parish owed Alice for three years of care, leaving her ‘very poor’.

The justices repeatedly ordered the overseers to pay their debts but they repeatedly failed to do so. How the battle ended we do not know.

More authority than biological mothers

Rhodes, who has just completed a PhD on petitioning by mothers in England and Wales from 1660–1720, found that foster mothers had significant advantages over biological mothers when dealing with the authorities.

“When birth mothers petitioned they had to prove, in a grovelling and pitiful tone, that they were among the deserving poor,” Rhodes said.

“They had to describe the impact of being a widow, of having a disabled husband or having a very sick child. But for foster mothers, it was enough to say ‘I’m supposed to be paid for this and you’re not fulfilling your part of the deal’.”

A poor woman surrounded by her children, engraving after Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre (1746)

Paul Sandby, An old woman (18th century)

For love or money?

Fostering in the 17^th century provided poor women and their own families with vital income. The standard rate of payment for one child was around 40 shillings a year, but sums ranged from 12 to 78 shillings. This far exceeded average poor relief payments at the time.

Caring for these children was work and some women may have viewed the role in mostly or purely financial terms. In many petitions, however, female carers did express a strong sense of benevolence and compassion towards the children they were caring for.

In 1671, Anne Beesley told the justices that she had taken in three destitute children from Barton out of pity, fearing ‘they should be starved to death’. Anne claimed that she had expected the authorities to ‘provide for them’ within three weeks but this turned into eight weeks and Anne was only reimbursed after petitioning.

Petitioners often pointed out that they had continued to care for children despite not being paid for months. In the 1670s, Elizabeth Drinkwater reported that the overseers of Great Bolton had failed to pay her for 9 months to care for Ann Reade, but that she had ‘kept the said child with all things necessary’ and had spent 6 shillings on clothes so she was ‘much impoverished’.

“It’s hard to imagine that some women didn’t feel some regard for these children,” said Rhodes. “Many would have known them before they took them in. But petitions were carefully crafted arguments and might not necessarily record true feelings.”

In some petitions, carers threatened to end care and withdraw their services if they did not obtain their desired outcome.

One of the most distressing cases concerns Ellen Fell. In 1665, Ellen told the justices they needed to ‘confirm the said yearly annuity or otherwise the child is very like to be famished & starved’. She told them she had children of her own and had submitted several other petitions about her own family’s neediness. Ellen presented herself as a selfless maternal provider but by the time the court considered her petition, the child had been ‘already turned out of doors and lays in the streets’.

“It is very easy to see disorder in the past,” Rhodes said. “The records show us when things weren’t functioning properly. When a carer was being paid properly, we’re unlikely to find her.”

“Look at the news in 2024 and you will see stories of foster carers not receiving enough support and leaving the system. We still face issues with bureaucracy and people in authority not doing their jobs properly.”

These and other Lancastrian petitions are cared for by Lancashire Archives. They have been digitised and can be viewed on Ancestry.

References

Emily Rhodes, ‘Women as Child Carers: Arranging and Compensating Mothering in Early Modern Lancashire’, The History of the Family (2024). DOI: 10.1080/1081602X.2024.2403346

Stefano della Bella, Women and children (1649)

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Published 3rd October 2024

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Image credits

_{York Museums Trust: Jan Steen, Woman feeding a child (17th century painting).
Yale Center for British Art, Yale Art Gallery Collection: William Baillie after Mathieu Le Nain, Parish Orphans (1770); Paul Sandby, An old market woman (undated watercolour)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: Stefano della Bella, Women and children (1649)
Wellcome Collection: N. de Larmessin III, after Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre, A poor Savoyard woman surrounded by her children (1746)
Emily Rhodes: Emily Rhodes}

source: cam.ac.uk

Cambridge has once again been named as the most intensive science and technological cluster in the world, according to a new report ranking innovation around the globe.  

It’s great to see this continued recognition of Cambridge as the world’s most intensive science and technological cluster. With its exceptional research and science, people and partners, companies and commitment, Cambridge drives innovation that fuels local, national, and global growth, tackling global challenges and delivering life-changing impact.Diarmuid O’Brien

The Global Innovation Index (GII) 2024 – which captures the innovation ecosystem performance of 133 economies and tracks the global innovation trends – has ranked Cambridge as the world’s leading science and technological (S&T) cluster by intensity, in relation to its size, for the third consecutive year. San Jose, San Franciso (USA) was named second, unchanged from the 2023 Index, with Eindhoven, (Kingdom of the Netherlands) third.

S&T clusters are established by analysing patent-filing activity and scientific article publication relative to population, and documenting the geographical areas around the world with the highest density of inventors and scientific authors.

According to the Index, the Cambridge cluster filed 6,379 Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) patent applications and published 35,000 scientific articles, both per 1 million inhabitants, over the past 5 years.

The University of Cambridge sits at the heart of this cluster, powering world-leading research, driving a vibrant innovation ecosystem, and cultivating a thriving environment for collaboration, services and investment. The University contributes nearly £30 billion to the UK economy annually, including over £23 billion from commercialisation and innovation activities.

According to the Global Innovation Index 2024: “S&T clusters – which can be entire regions or cities – serve as the backbone of a robust national innovation ecosystem. Situated in areas such as San Francisco’s Silicon Valley, Cambridge, Munich and Paris in Europe, or Bengaluru, Seoul, Shenzhen and Tokyo in Asia, these S&T clusters are home to renowned universities, brilliant scientists, R&D-intensive companies, and prolific inventors. It is the collaboration among these entities that results in the groundbreaking scientific advancements.”

Earlier this year, a report by Dealroom revealed that the Cambridge tech ecosystem has a combined value of $191 billion, representing 18% of the entire UK’s tech ecosystem and reinforcing Cambridge’s reputation as Europe’s deep tech leader.

Dr Diarmuid O’Brien, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Innovation, University of Cambridge, commented:

“It’s great to see this continued recognition of Cambridge as the world’s most intensive science and technological cluster. With its exceptional research and science, people and partners, companies and commitment, Cambridge drives innovation that fuels local, national, and global growth, tackling global challenges and delivering life-changing impact.”

Release first published by Cambridge Enterprise

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Sir David Attenborough spoke of how he feels during visits to the Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI) when he stopped by the CCI conservation campus at the University of Cambridge this week.

Sir David said of visiting CCI that he felt “an undercurrent of joy” whenever he came to the conservation campus, which is housed in the building bearing his own name.

The campus was opened in 2016 and is the first of its kind, with over 500 conservation professionals and researchers, from 10 different organisations and the University of Cambridge, all collaborating to stop the biodiversity crisis and build more hopeful futures for people and nature.

Read the full story: ‘An Undercurrent of Joy’

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Multi-disciplinary archaeological survey at the site of Oued Beht, Morocco, reveals a previously unknown 3400–2900 BC farming society, shedding new light on North Africa’s role in Mediterranean prehistory. 

For over thirty years I have been convinced that Mediterranean archaeology has been missing something fundamentalProf Cyprian Broodbank

Archaeological fieldwork in Morocco has discovered the earliest, previously unknown 3400–2900 BC farming society from a poorly understood period of north-west African prehistory. This is the earliest and largest agricultural complex yet found in Africa beyond the Nile.

This study, published in the journal Antiquity, reveals for the first time the importance of the Maghreb (north-west Africa) in the emergence of complex societies in the wider Mediterranean during the fourth and third millennia BC.

With a Mediterranean environment, a border with the Sahara desert and the shortest maritime crossing between Africa and Europe, the Maghreb is perfectly located as a hub for major cultural developments and intercontinental connections in the past.

Whilst the region’s importance during the Palaeolithic, Iron Age and Islamic periods is well known, there is a significant gap in knowledge of the archaeology of the Maghreb between c. 4000 and 1000 BC, a period of dynamic change across much of the Mediterranean.

To tackle this, a team of archaeologists led by Prof Cyprian Broodbank from the University of Cambridge, Prof Youssef Bokbot from INSAP, and Prof Giulio Lucarini from CNR-ISPC and ISMEO, have carried out collaborative, multidisciplinary archaeological fieldwork at Oued Beht, Morocco.

“For over thirty years I have been convinced that Mediterranean archaeology has been missing something fundamental in later prehistoric north Africa,” said Broodbank. “Now, at last, we know that was right, and we can begin to think in new ways that acknowledge the dynamic contribution of Africans to the emergence and interactions of early Mediterranean societies.”

“For more than a century the last great unknown of later Mediterranean prehistory has been the role played by the societies of Mediterranean’s southern, Africa shores west of Egypt,” say the authors of the new study. “Our discoveries prove that this gap has been due not to any lack of major prehistoric activity, but to the relative lack of investigation, and publishing. Oued Beht now affirms the central role of the Maghreb in the emergence of both Mediterranean and wider African societies.”

These results reveal that the site was the largest agricultural complex from this period in Africa outside of the Nile region. All of the evidence points to the presence of a large-scale farming settlement—similar in size to Early Bronze Age Troy.

The team recovered unprecedented domesticated plant and animal remains, pottery and lithics, all dating to the Final Neolithic period. Excavation also revealed extensive evidence for deep storage pits.

Importantly, contemporaneous sites with similar pits have been found on the other side of the Strait of Gibraltar in Iberia, where finds of ivory and ostrich egg have long pointed to African connections. This suggests that the Maghreb was instrumental in wider western Mediterranean developments during the fourth millennium BC.

Oued Beht and the north-west Maghreb were clearly integral parts of the wider Mediterranean region. As such, these discoveries significantly change our understanding of the later prehistory of the Mediterranean and Africa.

As the authors of the Antiquity article state: “It is crucial to consider Oued Beht within a wider co-evolving and connective framework embracing peoples both sides of the Mediterranean-Atlantic gateway during the later fourth and third millennia BC – and, for all the likelihood of movement in both directions, to recognise it as a distinctively African-based community that contributed substantially to the shaping of that social world.”

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source: cam.ac.uk