Ahead of the Spending Review, an open letter to government from leaders across Cambridge, including the University’s Vice-Chancellor, sets out the clear case for renewed support for a region with a proven track record and which stands ready to deliver economic growth.

The letter highlights the role that the Greater Cambridge region – which generates over £50bn of turnover per year for the UK – can play in driving national economic growth. The signatories set out the ambitions and opportunities which the region offers, and a sense of unity of purpose.

Open New Year Letter 2025

If science were a country then Cambridge would likely be its capital, and if discovery were a global competition the city and region would regularly be winning for Britain. That’s because Greater Cambridge is where innovation makes history and where the future comes first.

The ‘can-do’ spirit and ingenuity is hardwired, running from Newton’s law of gravity, through the rules of football codified here 175 years ago, the discovery of the structure of DNA, the medical and technological breakthroughs of IVF and microprocessor design. All of them discoveries that have changed how we think and how we live. The number of Nobel Prizes awarded to members of the University of Cambridge for significant advances recently reached an extraordinary 125. We believe that innovation not only makes history – it also makes a better world.

So, we are rightly proud of our city, its region and its people – past and present. But as we enter a new year the question before us is how we can collectively do more for the country now and in the future. Our future success must seek to include everyone, be shareable and sustainable.

Britain is at a critical fork in the road. There are important choices for the summer Spending Review which will help chart the course we take as a country for years to come. The tough economic environment puts a premium on investing in growth sectors for the long term and prioritising delivery, working together as never before. 

We know that the Greater Cambridge region can be the beating heart of this national renewal. It is home to world-class clusters in strategically valuable emerging sectors including AI, Genomics, Life Sciences, Cybersecurity, Advanced Therapies and Semiconductor Design.  It is home to two Universities where world leading research sits at the heart of this innovation community. It is incubating the technologies and unicorns of the future with an economy that generates over £50bn of turnover per year and is a net contributor of around £1bn to the Treasury annually.

The success of the Cambridge economy has a direct positive impact across the country, creating jobs elsewhere in priority sectors and supporting the emergence of other innovation clusters. We know we need to move faster together to help support the UK economy even more which is why Innovate Cambridge has brought people together to accelerate the pace of innovation across sectors and the wider ecosystem, working with the NHS as a key partner to develop the life sciences strategy

But if we are to maximise the potential benefits of those future Cambridge innovations – the ‘software’ breakthroughs – it will mean investing in the ‘hardware’ of the city.  Lack of investment in housing, water and transport needs has meant we have not been able to maximise growth for Cambridge, the region and Britain.

We trust that the new Government recognises that any change cannot simply be done to the City and South Cambridgeshire but must be done with us in partnership, and we welcome the reappointment of Peter Freeman to the Cambridge Growth Company. The Government have renewed their commitment to Greater Cambridge which is why today we are renewing our commitment to Britain. As business and elected leaders across the city and region, we know that we must always balance long term strategic planning with delivery in the short term so we are facing into this important moment with a collective mindset – ‘Cambridge Can 2030’ – with three core priorities; purpose, partnership and pace. All united in endeavour by the power of possibility.

First, we are aligned on our collective purpose and what we believe Greater Cambridge can do for Britain, what it will require from all of us and what we need as a city and region to make it happen. To invest in homes with a new Development Corporation, to build new hospitals, to find creative ways to unlock lab and clinical space, to accelerate East West Rail and develop better transport links across the city and region and to build new reservoirs to fix the water crisis. And it must first and foremost be about people – their jobs, skills and community as well as their cultural, sport and leisure opportunities. New houses do not necessarily equate to good homes. What fits around them is equally important. Invest here and, in return, you will find an aligned and committed leadership group who will help drive delivery and make change happen.

We know progress depends on working with others right across the country. To that end we are excited by our developing partnerships with Manchester. City leaders have met at a senior level in recent months to map the future – with Mayors Andy Burnham and Dr Nik Johnson and the two Combined Authorities working closely together. We all believe there is a real opportunity to be seized through this regional first and are always looking to learn from others.

It is encouraging that increasing numbers of entrepreneurs and institutions are signing up to the Cambridge Pledge – committing a percentage of their future wealth to drive transformative change through social impact investment in the community. This is another example of how Cambridge does development differently and is an exemplar of inclusive change.

And finally pace. We have got to move at speed as there is not a moment to waste. Britain is in a global race for talent and ideas. The competition and the offer from international centres of innovation is growing, and it is increasingly being felt by firms in Cambridge.

Our past success has been hard earned and should give confidence that Greater Cambridge can be a beacon for Britain in the future. Backing Cambridge means backing regional job creation right across the country. and creating the path for the £10 billion life science and tech companies of the future. It is not a gamble. It can happen. Equally it can’t be taken for granted.

So it is time to embrace the possibility of now. Whilst no one is underestimating the challenges ahead of us we fervently believe we need to face into them with realism about what it will take to succeed but also with optimism and ambition about what we can deliver and the prize to be seized.

Britain’s best days can lie ahead. Our potential as a country is huge because the ingenuity, talents and spirit of its people are limitless. We have a shining past and the next chapter can be brighter still – and Cambridge can and will help write it.

Download the letter to see the full list of signatories

 Download the letter to see the full list of signatories (408.53 KB)

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Gravitational waves data held clues for high-mass black holes’ violent beginnings

The size and spin of black holes can reveal important information about how and where they formed, according to new research. The study tests the idea that many of the black holes observed by astronomers have merged multiple times within densely populated environments containing millions of stars.

The team, involving researchers from the University of Cambridge, examined the public catalogue of 69 gravitational wave events involving binary black holes detected by The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and Virgo Observatory for clues about these successive mergers, which they believe create black holes with distinctive spin patterns.

They discovered that a black hole’s spin changes when it reaches a certain mass, suggesting it may have been produced through a series of multiple previous mergers.

Their study, published in the journal Physical Review Letters, shows how spin measurements can reveal the formation history of a black hole and offers a step forward in understanding the diverse origins of these astrophysical phenomena.

“As we observe more black hole mergers with gravitational wave detectors like LIGO and Virgo, it becomes ever clearer that black holes exhibit diverse masses and spins, suggesting they may have formed in different ways,” said lead author Dr Fabio Antonini from Cardiff University. “However, identifying which of these formation scenarios is most common has been challenging.”

The team pinpointed a clear mass threshold in the gravitational waves data where black hole spins consistently change.

They say this pattern aligns with existing models which assume black holes are produced through repeat collisions in clusters, rather than other environments where spin distributions are different.

This result supports a robust and relatively model-independent signature for identifying these kinds of black holes, something that has been challenging to confirm until now, according to the team.

“Our study gives us a powerful, data-driven way to identify the origins of a black hole’s formation history, showing that the way it spins is a strong indicator of it belonging to a group of high-mass black holes, which form in densely populated star clusters where small black holes repeatedly collide and merge with one another,” said co-author Dr Isobel Romero-Shaw, from Cambridge’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics.

Their study will now help astrophysicists further refine computer models which simulate the formation of black holes, helping to shape how future gravitational wave detections are interpreted.

“Collaborating with other researchers and using advanced statistical methods will help to confirm and expand our findings, especially as we move toward next-generation detectors,” said co-author Dr Thomas Callister from the University of Chicago. “The Einstein Telescope, for example, could detect even more massive black holes and provide unprecedented insights into their origins.”

Reference:
Fabio Antonini, Isobel M. Romero-Shaw, and Thomas Callister. ‘Star Cluster Population of High Mass Black Hole Mergers in Gravitational Wave Data.’ Physical Review Letters (2025). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.134.011401

Adapted from a Cardiff University media release. 

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Sex differences in brain structure are present from birth, research from the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge has shown.

We know there are differences in the brains of older children and adults, but our findings show that they are already present in the earliest days of lifeYumnah Khan

While male brains tended to be greater in volume than female brains, when adjusted for total brain volume, female infants on average had significantly more grey matter, while male infants on average had significantly more white matter in their brains.

Grey matter is made up of neuron cell bodies and dendrites and is responsible for processing and interpreting information, such as sensation, perception, learning, speech, and cognition.  White matter is made up of axons, which are long nerve fibres that connect neurons together from different parts of the brain. 

Yumnah Khan, a PhD student at the Autism Research Centre, who led the study, said: “Our study settles an age-old question of whether male and female brains differ at birth. We know there are differences in the brains of older children and adults, but our findings show that they are already present in the earliest days of life.

“Because these sex differences are evident so soon after birth, they might in part reflect biological sex differences during prenatal brain development, which then interact with environmental experiences over time to shape further sex differences in the brain.”

One problem that has plagued past research in this area is sample size. The Cambridge team tackled this by analysing data from the Developing Human Connectome Project, where infants receive an MRI brain scan soon after birth. Having over 500 newborn babies in the study means that, statistically, the sample is ideal for detecting sex differences if they are present.

A second problem is whether any observed sex differences could be due to other factors, such as differences in body size.  The Cambridge team found that, on average, male infants had significantly larger brain volumes than did females, and this was true even after sex differences in birth weight were taken into account.

After taking this difference in total brain volume into account, at a regional level, females on average showed larger volumes in grey matter areas related to memory and emotional regulation, while males on average had larger volumes in grey matter areas involved in sensory processing and motor control.

The findings of the study, the largest to date to investigate this question, are published in the journal Biology of Sex Differences.

Dr Alex Tsompanidis who supervised the study, said: “This is the largest such study to date, and we took additional factors into account, such as birth weight, to ensure that these differences are specific to the brain and not due to general size differences between the sexes.

“To understand why males and females show differences in their relative grey and white matter volume, we are now studying the conditions of the prenatal environment, using population birth records, as well as in vitro cellular models of the developing brain. This will help us compare the progression of male and female pregnancies and determine if specific biological factors, such as hormones or the placenta, contribute to the differences we see in the brain.”

The researchers stress that the differences between males and females are average differences.

Dr Carrie Allison, Deputy Director of the Autism Research Centre, said: “The differences we see do not apply to all males or all females, but are only seen when you compare groups of males and females together. There is a lot a variation within, and a lot of overlap between, each group.”  

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, Director of the Autism Research Centre, added: “These differences do not imply the brains of males and females are better or worse. It’s just one example of neurodiversity. This research may be helpful in understanding other kinds of neurodiversity, such as the brain in children who are later diagnosed as autistic, since this is diagnosed more often in males.”

The research was funded by Cambridge University Development and Research, Trinity College, Cambridge, the Cambridge Trust, and the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative.

Reference
Khan, Y T, Tsompanidis, A, Radecki, M A, et al. Sex differences in human brain structure at birth. Biol Sex Differ; 17 Oct 2024; DOI: 10.1186/s13293-024-00657-5

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A team of astronomers has found that Venus has never been habitable, despite decades of speculation that our closest planetary neighbour was once much more like Earth than it is today.

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, studied the chemical composition of the Venusian atmosphere and inferred that its interior is too dry today for there ever to have been enough water for oceans to exist at its surface. Instead, the planet has likely been a scorching, inhospitable world for its entire history.

The results, reported in the journal Nature Astronomy, have implications for understanding Earth’s uniqueness, and for the search for life on planets outside our Solar System. While many exoplanets are Venus-like, the study suggests that astronomers should narrow their focus to exoplanets which are more like Earth.

From a distance, Venus and Earth look like siblings: it is almost identical in size and is a rocky planet like Earth. But up close, Venus is more like an evil twin: it is covered with thick clouds of sulfuric acid, and its surface has a mean temperature close to 500°C.

Despite these extreme conditions, for decades, astronomers have been investigating whether Venus once had liquid oceans capable of supporting life, or whether some mysterious form of ‘aerial’ life exists in its thick clouds now.

“We won’t know for sure whether Venus can or did support life until we send probes at the end of this decade,” said first author Tereza Constantinou, a PhD student at Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy. “But given it likely never had oceans, it is hard to imagine Venus ever having supported Earth-like life, which requires liquid water.”

When searching for life elsewhere in our galaxy, astronomers focus on planets orbiting their host stars in the habitable zone, where temperatures are such that liquid water can exist on the planet’s surface. Venus provides a powerful limit on where this habitable zone lies around a star.

“Even though it’s the closest planet to us, Venus is important for exoplanet science, because it gives us a unique opportunity to explore a planet that evolved very differently to ours, right at the edge of the habitable zone,” said Constantinou.

There are two primary theories on how conditions on Venus may have evolved since its formation 4.6 billion years ago. The first is that conditions on the surface of Venus were once temperate enough to support liquid water, but a runaway greenhouse effect caused by widespread volcanic activity caused the planet to get hotter and hotter. The second theory is that Venus was born hot, and liquid water has never been able to condense at the surface.

“Both of those theories are based on climate models, but we wanted to take a different approach based on observations of Venus’ current atmospheric chemistry,” said Constantinou. “To keep the Venusian atmosphere stable, then any chemicals being removed from the atmosphere should also be getting restored to it, since the planet’s interior and exterior are in constant chemical communication with one another.”

The researchers calculated the present destruction rate of water, carbon dioxide and carbonyl sulphide molecules in Venus’ atmosphere, which must be restored by volcanic gases to keep the atmosphere stable.

Volcanism, through its supply of gases to the atmosphere, provides a window into the interior of rocky planets like Venus. As magma rises from the mantle to the surface, it releases gases from the deeper portions of the planet.

On Earth, volcanic eruptions are mostly steam, due to our planet’s water-rich interior. But, based on the composition of the volcanic gases necessary to sustain the Venusian atmosphere, the researchers found that volcanic gases on Venus are at most six percent water. These dry eruptions suggest that Venus’s interior, the source of the magma that releases volcanic gases, is also dehydrated.

At the end of this decade, NASA’s DAVINCI mission will be able to test and confirm whether Venus has always been a dry, inhospitable planet, with a series of flybys and a probe sent to the surface. The results could help astronomers narrow their focus when searching for planets that can support life in orbit around other stars in the galaxy.

“If Venus was habitable in the past, it would mean other planets we have already found might also be habitable,” said Constantinou. “Instruments like the James Webb Space Telescope are best at studying the atmospheres of planets close to their host star, like Venus. But if Venus was never habitable, then it makes Venus-like planets elsewhere less likely candidates for habitable conditions or life.

“We would have loved to find that Venus was once a planet much closer to our own, so it’s kind of sad in a way to find out that it wasn’t, but ultimately it’s more useful to focus the search on planets that are mostly likely to be able to support life – at least life as we know it.”

The research was supported in part by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

Reference:
Tereza Constantinou, Oliver Shorttle, and Paul B. Rimmer. ‘A dry Venusian interior constrained by atmospheric chemistry.’ Nature Astronomy (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-024-02414-5

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A pivotal clinical trial of a ‘pill-on-a-thread’ test, which will decide if it becomes a new screening programme for oesophageal cancer, has welcomed its first participants.

The BEST4 Screening trial will find out if the capsule sponge test could be used to screen people with heartburn for Barrett’s oesophagus – a condition that can lead to oesophageal cancer.

The capsule sponge test takes ten minutes to do and can be done by a nurse – making it much faster and less expensive than endoscopy. The trial will find out if the capsule sponge test can reduce the need for cancer treatments and prevent deaths from oesophageal cancer. The trial showcases UK science and innovation and is the last step in a series of clinical trials to see if the capsule sponge test could be offered in the cancer screening programmes of the four UK nations.

Over the next three years, the trial will recruit 120,000 people who regularly take medication for heartburn – the most common symptom for Barrett’s oesophagus. Barrett’s oesophagus is a precursor condition to oesophageal cancer, where cells in the food pipe start to grow abnormally.

Invitations to join the trial will be sent by text message from NHSresearch to encourage as many eligible people as possible to take part in England. Participants will be asked to join Heartburn Health, a new platform to take part in clinical trials in heartburn-linked cancers like BEST4 Screening. Mobile screening vans will be rolled out across England to deliver the tests as part of the trial.

The trial follows decades of research by Professor Rebecca Fitzgerald and a team of scientists, clinicians and nurses at the Early Cancer Institute, University of Cambridge and Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre, who invented and refined the capsule sponge test.

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Professor Rebecca Fitzgerald, Director of the Early Cancer Institute and co-principal investigator of the BEST4 trials, said: “The capsule sponge is changing how we detect Barrett’s oesophagus and oesophageal cancer. Catching it earlier can save lives by reducing the need for chemotherapy and surgery to remove the oesophagus.

“The BEST4 Screening trial is the pinnacle of many years of painstaking research, which has demonstrated that the capsule sponge can reliably identify Barrett’s oesophagus. Thousands of people have already benefited in trials and pilot programmes, and now we’re taking the test to the next level to see if we could offer this to everyone with heartburn.

“The BEST4 Screening trial could fundamentally transform the lives of people affected by oesophageal cancer by providing the crucial evidence needed to make it a viable screening programme, rolled out to every part of the UK.”         

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There are around 9,300 new cases of oesophageal cancer in the UK every year, according to analysis from Cancer Research UK. Oesophageal cancer is the seventh most common cause of cancer death in the UK, with around 22 deaths a day from the disease.

The capsule sponge starts off as a small, coated pill attached to a thread. When a patient swallows the pill and it reaches the stomach, the coating dissolves and the sponge inside expands to the size of a 50p coin. The sponge collects cells from the oesophagus as it is gently pulled out from the stomach by a nurse or GP. The cells are sent for testing for two proteins called Trefoil Factor 3 (TFF3), which is only found in Barrett’s oesophagus, and altered p53 protein, which identifies cells which are starting to grow out of control and become oesophageal cancer.

The trial is backed by £6.4 million of funding from Cancer Research UK and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). It will be led from Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Cambridge, with the Cancer Research UK Cancer Prevention Trials Unit at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) designing the trial and analysing results from it.

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Professor Peter Sasieni, Director of the Cancer Research UK Cancer Prevention Trials Unit at QMUL and co-principal investigator of the BEST4 trials, said: “Most people with Barrett’s oesophagus have heartburn, but most people with heartburn don’t have Barrett’s oesophagus. We have already shown that the capsule sponge can reliably identify people with Barrett’s oesophagus. Now we need to show that using it in a targeted screening programme can help prevent oesophageal cancer and reduce deaths from this disease.”

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The test is faster, less invasive and far less expensive than endoscopy, which is currently used to diagnose Barrett’s oesophagus and oesophageal cancer. It has been piloted in health services in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland for patients who are currently on waiting lists for endoscopy, because they have long-term heartburn or have already been diagnosed with Barrett’s oesophagus. To date, over 24,000 capsule sponge tests have been performed in pilot programmes, helping to reduce diagnostic backlogs in endoscopy and NHS pathology.

A previous clinical trial, BEST3, showed that the capsule sponge test picks up 10 times more cases of Barrett’s oesophagus in people with chronic heartburn, compared to routine GP care.

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Paul Anderson (59), a stock controller from St Neots, is one of the first participants to join the BEST4 Screening trial in Cambridgeshire. He said: “I first experienced acid reflux 10 years ago and I was referred for endoscopy to get it checked out. I’ve been on medication for heartburn ever since to manage it.

“I’d never been on a clinical trial before, but when the invitation came for this one, I felt I had to sign up as the acid reflux had flared back up again. I’m hoping that it may give me some more insight into my chronic heartburn, as well as helping people who may have similar concerns about their health.

“I’m hopeful that playing my small part in this worthy cause will help others to get checked out earlier.”

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Chief Executive of Cancer Research UK, Michelle Mitchell: “Around 59% of all oesophageal cancer cases are preventable. Yet endoscopy, the gold standard for diagnosing and treating this cancer, is labour-intensive and not practical for a population screening programme.

“Backed by funding from Cancer Research UK, the capsule sponge has become one of the most exciting early detection tools to emerge in recent years. After many decades of research, we’re on the cusp of transforming oesophageal cancer diagnosis forever.”

Minister for Public Health and Prevention, Andrew Gwynne: “This trial is a shining example of how we can harness the power of technology to improve patient experience and speed up diagnosis.

“This innovation has the potential to allow us to perform lifesaving screenings quicker and cheaper, freeing up vital NHS resources.”

Scientific Director for NIHR Programmes, Professor Danny McAuley: “Thousands of people are needed to join this trial, and we encourage people to sign up as participants. This important research will help benefit patients, and inform those who plan and deliver NHS services of how best to test for the disease.”

The future Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital, planned for the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, will bring together clinical and research expertise, including Professor Fitzgerald’s work, under one roof. It will enable the development and discovery of more non-invasive devices like the capsule sponge, to detect cancer earlier, and save more lives.

More information about how to join the trial can be found at the BEST4 website or by emailing the BEST4 team. You can also sign up to the NIHR’s Be Part of Research service at bepartofresearch.uk to take part in clinical research. Simply answer a few questions about yourself and the conditions you’re interested in to be matched to studies happening in locations near you.

Adapted from a press release from Cancer Research UK

As the UN meets this week to finalise the Global Plastics Treaty, researchers warn that the agreement could fail to address one of the biggest threats to marine environments—microplastics.

Even if global production and pollution of new plastic is drastically reduced, scientists, writing in the journal Nature Communications, say that legacy plastics, the billions of tonnes of waste already in the environment, will continue to break down into tiny particles called microplastics for decades or centuries.

These fragments contaminate oceans, land, and the air we breathe, posing risks to marine life, food production and human health.

The researchers – from the University of Cambridge, GNS Science in New Zealand and The Ocean Cleanup in The Netherlands – say the problem lies in a gap between ambition and action, called the fragmentation gap.

At a meeting this week in Busan, South Korea, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution is meeting to finalise the Global Plastics Treaty, the first legally binding treaty to tackle plastic pollution.

While the treaty’s initial discussions highlight prevention of plastic pollution, the researchers say it largely overlooks the need to remove existing waste. This omission means microplastics will continue to accumulate, even if plastic pollution slows.

“The treaty is aiming to eliminate plastic pollution by 2040, but this goal is unlikely without stronger action,” said co-author Zhenna Azimrayat-Andrews, a PhD student at Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences. “Even with a sharp reduction in plastic entering the ocean, existing debris will split into smaller pieces and persist for centuries.”

These microplastics have already infiltrated marine ecosystems and are harming marine ecosystems, degrading commercial seafood quality, and disrupting critical ocean processes.

The researchers argue that plastic clean-up efforts must be prioritised alongside reduction targets. Strategies to remove plastics from terrestrial and marine environments, such as those targeting pollution in beaches and rivers, could help prevent microplastics from forming. In fact, a 3% annual removal of legacy plastic, combined with aggressive reduction measures, could significantly curb future contamination, they say.

Without action to address legacy plastic, the treaty risks leaving behind a long-lasting problem for marine life and future generations. Experts are calling for clean-up efforts to become an equal pillar of the treaty, alongside prevention and recycling.

As world leaders gather to negotiate the treaty this week, the spotlight is on their ability to craft a comprehensive plan that doesn’t just slow pollution but also begins to reverse the damage that has already been done.

Reference:
Karin Kvale, Zhenna Azimrayat Andrews & Matthias Egger. ‘Mind the fragmentation gap.’ Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-53962-3

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Camera traps and drones deployed by government authorities to monitor a forest in India are infringing on the privacy and rights of local women.

Nobody could have realised that camera traps put in the Indian forest to monitor mammals actually have a profoundly negative impact on the mental health of local women who use these spaces.Trishant Simlai

Remotely operated camera traps, sound recorders and drones are increasingly being used in conservation science to monitor wildlife and natural habitats, and to keep watch on protected natural areas.

But Cambridge researchers studying a forest in northern India have found that the technologies are being deliberately misused by local government and male villagers to keep watch on women without their consent.

Cambridge researcher Dr Trishant Simlai spent 14 months interviewing 270 locals living around the Corbett Tiger Reserve, a national park in northern India, including many women from nearby villages.

His report, published today in the journal Environment and Planning F, reveals how forest rangers in the national park deliberately fly drones over local women to frighten them out of the forest, and stop them collecting natural resources despite it being their legal right to do so.

The women, who previously found sanctuary in the forest away from their male-dominated villages, told Simlai they feel watched and inhibited by camera traps, so talk and sing much more quietly. This increases the chance of surprise encounters with potentially dangerous wildlife like elephants and tigers. One woman he interviewed has since been killed in a tiger attack.

The study reveals a worst-case scenario of deliberate human monitoring and intimidation. But the researchers say people are being unintentionally recorded by wildlife monitoring devices without their knowledge in many other places – even national parks in the UK. 

“Nobody could have realised that camera traps put in the Indian forest to monitor mammals actually have a profoundly negative impact on the mental health of local women who use these spaces,” said Dr Trishant Simlai, a researcher in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Sociology and lead author of the report.

“These findings have caused quite a stir amongst the conservation community. It’s very common for projects to use these technologies to monitor wildlife, but this highlights that we really need to be sure they’re not causing unintended harm,” said Professor Chris Sandbrook, Director of the University of Cambridge’s Masters in Conservation Leadership programme, who was also involved in the report.

He added: “Surveillance technologies that are supposed to be tracking animals can easily be used to watch people instead – invading their privacy and altering the way they behave.”

Many areas of conservation importance overlap with areas of human use. The researchers call for conservationists to think carefully about the social implications of using remote monitoring technologies – and whether less invasive methods like surveys could provide the information they need instead.

Intimidation and deliberate humiliation

The women living near India’s Corbett Tiger Reserve use the forest daily in ways that are central to their lives: from gathering firewood and herbs to sharing life’s difficulties through traditional songs.

Domestic violence and alcoholism are widespread problems in this rural region and many women spend long hours in forest spaces to escape difficult home situations.

The women told Simlai that new technologies, deployed under the guise of wildlife monitoring projects, are being used to intimidate and exert power over them – by monitoring them too. 

“A photograph of a woman going to the toilet in the forest – captured on a camera trap supposedly for wildlife monitoring – was circulated on local Facebook and WhatsApp groups as a means of deliberate harassment,” said Simlai. 

He added: “I discovered that local women form strong bonds while working together in the forest, and they sing while collecting firewood to deter attacks by elephants and tigers. When they see camera traps they feel inhibited because they don’t know who’s watching or listening to them – and as a result they behave differently – often being much quieter, which puts them in danger.”

In places like northern India, the identity of local women is closely linked to their daily activities and social roles within the forest. The researchers say that understanding the various ways local women use forests is vital for effective forest management strategies.

Reference: Simlai, T. et al: ‘The Gendered Forest: Digital Surveillance Technologies for Conservation and Gender-Environment relationships.’ November 2024. DOI:10.17863/CAM.111664
 

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What can exploding stars teach us about how blood flows through an artery? Or swimming bacteria about how the ocean’s layers mix? A collaboration of researchers, including from the University of Cambridge, has reached a milestone toward training artificial intelligence models to find and use transferable knowledge between fields to drive scientific discovery.

The initiative, called Polymathic AI, uses technology like that powering large language models such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini. But instead of ingesting text, the project’s models learn using scientific datasets from across astrophysics, biology, acoustics, chemistry, fluid dynamics and more, essentially giving the models cross-disciplinary scientific knowledge.

“These datasets are by far the most diverse large-scale collections of high-quality data for machine learning training ever assembled for these fields,” said team member Michael McCabe from the Flatiron Institute in New York City. “Curating these datasets is a critical step in creating multidisciplinary AI models that will enable new discoveries about our universe.”

Today (2 December), the Polymathic AI team has released two of its open-source training dataset collections to the public — a colossal 115 terabytes, from dozens of sources — for the scientific community to use to train AI models and enable new scientific discoveries. For comparison, GPT-3 used 45 terabytes of uncompressed, unformatted text for training, which ended up being around 0.5 terabytes after filtering.

The full datasets are available to download for free on HuggingFace, a platform hosting AI models and datasets. The Polymathic AI team provides further information about the datasets in two papers accepted for presentation at the NeurIPS machine learning conference, to be held later this month in Vancouver, Canada.

“Just as LLMs such as ChatGPT learn to use common grammatical structure across languages, these new scientific foundation models might reveal deep connections across disciplines that we’ve never noticed before,” said Cambridge team lead Dr Miles Cranmer from Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy. “We might uncover patterns that no human can see, simply because no one has ever had both this breadth of scientific knowledge and the ability to compress it into a single framework.”

AI tools such as machine learning are increasingly common in scientific research, and were recognised in two of this year’s Nobel Prizes. Still, such tools are typically purpose-built for a specific application and trained using data from that field. The Polymathic AI project instead aims to develop models that are truly polymathic, like people whose expert knowledge spans multiple areas. The project’s team reflects intellectual diversity, with physicists, astrophysicists, mathematicians, computer scientists and neuroscientists.

The first of the two new training dataset collections focuses on astrophysics. Dubbed the Multimodal Universe, the dataset contains hundreds of millions of astronomical observations and measurements, such as portraits of galaxies taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and measurements of our galaxy’s stars made by the European Space Agency’s Gaia spacecraft.

The other collection — called the Well — comprises over 15 terabytes of data from 16 diverse datasets. These datasets contain numerical simulations of biological systems, fluid dynamics, acoustic scattering, supernova explosions and other complicated processes. Cambridge researchers played a major role in developing both dataset collections, working alongside PolymathicAI and other international collaborators.

While these diverse datasets may seem disconnected at first, they all require the modelling of mathematical equations called partial differential equations. Such equations pop up in problems related to everything from quantum mechanics to embryo development and can be incredibly difficult to solve, even for supercomputers. One of the goals of the Well is to enable AI models to churn out approximate solutions to these equations quickly and accurately.

“By uniting these rich datasets, we can drive advancements in artificial intelligence not only for scientific discovery, but also for addressing similar problems in everyday life,” said Ben Boyd, PhD student in the Institute of Astronomy.

Gathering the data for those datasets posed a challenge, said team member Ruben Ohana from the Flatiron Institute. The team collaborated with scientists to gather and create data for the project. “The creators of numerical simulations are sometimes sceptical of machine learning because of all the hype, but they’re curious about it and how it can benefit their research and accelerate scientific discovery,” he said.

The Polymathic AI team is now using the datasets to train AI models. In the coming months, they will deploy these models on various tasks to see how successful these well-rounded, well-trained AIs are at tackling complex scientific problems.

“It will be exciting to see if the complexity of these datasets can push AI models to go beyond merely recognising patterns, encouraging them to reason and generalise across scientific domains,” said Dr Payel Mukhopadhyay from the Institute of Astronomy. “Such generalisation is essential if we ever want to build AI models that can truly assist in conducting meaningful science.”

“Until now, haven’t had a curated scientific-quality dataset cover such a wide variety of fields,” said Cranmer, who is also a member of Cambridge’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. “These datasets are opening the door to true generalist scientific foundation models for the first time. What new scientific principles might we discover? We’re about to find out, and that’s incredibly exciting.”

The Polymathic AI project is run by researchers from the Simons Foundation and its Flatiron Institute, New York University, the University of Cambridge, Princeton University, the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Members of the Polymathic AI team from the University of Cambridge include PhD students, postdoctoral researchers and faculty across four departments: the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, the Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics, the Institute of Astronomy and the Kavli Institute for Cosmology.

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Some of the first human beings to arrive in Tasmania, over 41,000 years ago, used fire to shape and manage the landscape, about 2,000 years earlier than previously thought.

A team of researchers from the UK and Australia analysed charcoal and pollen contained in ancient mud to determine how Aboriginal Tasmanians shaped their surroundings. This is the earliest record of humans using fire to shape the Tasmanian environment.

Early human migrations from Africa to the southern part of the globe were well underway during the early part of the last ice age – humans reached northern Australia by around 65,000 years ago. When the first Palawa/Pakana (Tasmanian Indigenous) communities eventually reached Tasmania (known to the Palawa people as Lutruwita), it was the furthest south humans had ever settled.

These early Aboriginal communities used fire to penetrate and modify dense, wet forest for their own use – as indicated by a sudden increase in charcoal accumulated in ancient mud 41,600 years ago.

The researchers say their results, reported in the journal Science Advances, could not only help us understand how humans have been shaping the Earth’s environment for tens of thousands of years, but also help understand the long-term Aboriginal-landscape connection, which is vital for landscape management in Australia today.

Tasmania currently lies about 240 kilometres off the southeast Australian coast, separated from the Australian mainland by the Bass Strait. However, during the last ice age, Australia and Tasmania were connected by a huge land bridge, allowing people to reach Tasmania on foot. The land bridge remained until about 8,000 years ago, after the end of the last ice age, when rising sea levels eventually cut Tasmania off from the Australian mainland.

“Australia is home to the world’s oldest Indigenous culture, which has endured for over 50,000 years,” said Dr Matthew Adeleye from Cambridge’s Department of Geography, the study’s lead author. “Earlier studies have shown that Aboriginal communities on the Australian mainland used fire to shape their habitats, but we haven’t had similarly detailed environmental records for Tasmania.”

The researchers studied ancient mud taken from islands in the Bass Strait, which is part of Tasmania today, but would have been part of the land bridge connecting Australia and Tasmania during the last ice age. Due to low sea levels at the time, Palawa/Pakana communities were able to migrate from the Australian mainland.

Analysis of the ancient mud showed a sudden increase in charcoal around 41,600 years ago, followed by a major change in vegetation about 40,000 years ago, as indicated by different types of pollen in the mud.

“This suggests these early inhabitants were clearing forests by burning them, in order to create open spaces for subsistence and perhaps cultural activities,” said Adeleye. “Fire is an important tool, and it would have been used to promote the type of vegetation or landscape that was important to them.”

The researchers say that humans likely learned to use fire to clear and manage forests during their migration across the glacial landscape of Sahul – a palaeocontinent that encompassed modern-day Australia, Tasmania, New Guinea and eastern Indonesia – as part of the extensive migration out of Africa.

“As natural habitats adapted to these controlled burnings, we see the expansion of fire-adapted species such as Eucalyptus, primarily on the wetter, eastern side of the Bass Strait islands,” said Adeleye.

Burning practices are still practiced today by Aboriginal communities in Australia, including for landscape management and cultural activities. However, using this type of burning, known as cultural burning, for managing severe wildfires in Australia remains contentious. The researchers say understanding this ancient land management practice could help define and restore pre-colonial landscapes.

“These early Tasmanian communities were the island’s first land managers,” said Adeleye. “If we’re going to protect Tasmanian and Australian landscapes for future generations, it’s important that we listen to and learn from Indigenous communities who are calling for a greater role in helping to manage Australian landscapes into the future.”

The research was supported in part by the Australian Research Council.

Reference:
Matthew A. Adeleye et al. ‘Landscape burning facilitated Aboriginal migration into Lutruwita/Tasmania 41,600 years ago.’ Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adp6579

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Suzano, one the world’s largest producers of bio-based raw materials, based in São Paulo, Brazil, establishes a long-term initiative with Jesus College and the University of Cambridge. 

This visionary initiative will help to build strong links between the University of Cambridge and BrazilProfessor Bhaskar Vira

An initial £10 million donation will be used to support education and research into areas including the conservation of biodiversity, enhancing business sustainability, and the restoration of natural habitats in Brazil and beyond. The agreement will establish the Suzano Scholars Fund, a perpetual endowment at Jesus College to fund Brazilian nationals studying for a postgraduate degree at the University of Cambridge connected to the environment, ecology and conservation, educating the next generation of sustainability experts and leaders. Funding will also be provided to academics based at the Conservation Research Institute to undertake research projects exploring the interaction between human and natural systems in areas such as biodiversity, climate change, water resource management, and ecosystem restoration. Read more about this new initiative here

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Climate governance is dominated by men, yet the health impacts of the climate crisis often affect women, girls, and gender-diverse people disproportionately, argue researchers ahead of the upcoming 29th United Nations Climate Summit (COP29) in Azerbaijan.

Given how disproportionately climate change affects women, girls and gender minorities, we need to ensure that their voices are heard and meaningfully included in discussions of how we respond to this urgent climate crisisKim van Daalen

In an article published today in Lancet Planetary Health, a team of researchers – including several from the University of Cambridge – argue that much more needs to be done to mitigate the impacts of climate change on women, girls and gender-diverse individuals.

Focusing specifically on the intersection between climate change, gender, and human health, the researchers call on countries to work harder to ensure there is gender equity within their delegations to climate conferences and to ensure climate strategies identify gender-specific risks and vulnerabilities and address their root causes.

As the world prepares for COP29, concerns about gender representation and equality have reignited following the initial appointment of 28 men and no women to the COP29 organising committee in January 2024.

The effects of climate change – from heavy rains, rising temperatures, storms and floods through to sea level rises and droughts – exacerbate systemic inequalities and disproportionately affect marginalised populations, particularly those living in low-income areas.

While the specific situation may be different depending on where people live or their social background (like their class, race, ability, sexuality, age, or location), women, girls, and gender minorities are often at greater risk from the impacts of climate change. For example, in many countries, women are less likely to own land and resources to protect them in post-disaster situations, and have less control over income and less access to information, resulting in increased vulnerability to acute and long-term climate change impacts.

They are also particularly at risk from climate-related threats to their health, say the researchers. For example, studies have linked high temperatures to adverse birth outcomes such as spontaneous preterm births, pre-eclampsia and birth defects. Extreme events, which are expected to become more likely and intense due to climate change, also take a severe toll on women’s social, physical, and mental well-being. Numerous studies highlight that gender-based violence is reported to increase during or after extreme events, often due to factors related to economic instability, food insecurity, disrupted infrastructure and mental stress.

Dr Kim Robin van Daalen, a former Gates Cambridge Scholar at the University of Cambridge, and researcher at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), said: “Given how disproportionately climate change affects women, girls and gender minorities – a situation that is only likely to get worse – we need to ensure that their voices are heard and meaningfully included in discussions of how we respond to this urgent climate crisis. This is not currently happening at anywhere near the level it needs to.”

The team summarised the inclusion of gender, health and their intersection in key decisions and initiatives under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and analysed gender representation among representatives of Party and Observer State delegations at COPs between 1995-2023. Progress has been slow, they say.

They highlight how previous scholars have consistently noted that emphasis remains mainly on achieving a gender ‘number-based balance’ in climate governance, over exploring gender-specific risks and vulnerabilities and addressing their root causes. They also discuss how there remains limited recognition of the role climate change has in worsening gendered impacts on health, including gender-based violence and the lack of safeguarding reproductive health in the face of climate change.

Although the situation is slowly improving, at COP28, almost three-quarters (73%) of Party delegations were still majority men, and only just over one in six (16%) showed gender parity (that is, 45-55% women). In fact, gender parity has only been achieved in the ‘Western European and Other’ UN grouping (which also includes North America, Australia and New Zealand). Based on current trends, several countries – particularly those in the Asia-Pacific and Africa regions – are expected to take at least a decade from COP28 before reaching gender parity in their delegations.

Dr Ramit Debnath, former Gates Cambridge Scholar and now an Assistant Professor at Cambridge, said: “The urgency of climate action, as well as the slow understanding of climate, gender, and health connections, is cause for concern. Institutions like the UNFCCC must recognize these disparities, design appropriate methods to improve gender parity in climate governance, and keep these representation gaps from growing into societal and health injustices.”

Beyond ensuring that their voices are heard, more equitable inclusion of women has consistently been suggested to transform policymaking across political and social systems, including the generation of policies that better represent women’s interests. Previous recent analyses of 49 European countries revealed that greater women’s political representation correlates with reduced inequalities in self-reported health, lower geographical inequalities in infant mortality and fewer disability-adjusted life-years lost across genders.

Similar positive findings have been reported related to environmental policies, with women’s representation in national parliaments being associated with increased ratification of environmental treaties and more stringent climate change policies. For example, women legislators in the European parliament and US House of Representatives have been found to be more inclined to support environmental legislation than men.

Dr Ronita Bardhan, Associate Professor at the University of Cambridge, said: “Achieving equitable gender representation in climate action is not just about fairness – it’s a strategic necessity with significant co-benefits. We can shape climate policies and infrastructure that address a broader spectrum of societal needs, leading to more inclusive solutions enhancing public health, social equity, and environmental resilience.”

While the researchers’ analyses focused on achieving gender balance, studies on women’s involvement in climate governance suggest that increased representation does not by itself always lead to meaningful policy changes. Even when formally included, women’s active participation in male-dominated institutions is often constrained by existing social and cultural norms, implicit biases and structural barriers.

Dr van Daalen added: “If we’re to meaningfully incorporate gender into climate policy and practice, we need to understand the risks and vulnerabilities that are gender-specific and look at how we can address them and their root causes at all phases of programme and policy development.

“But we also need to resist reducing women to a single, homogenous group, which risks deepening existing inequalities and overlooks opportunities to address the needs of all individuals. It is crucial to recognise the diversity of women and their embodiment of multiple, intersecting identities that shape their climate experiences as well as their mitigation and adaptation needs.”

The team also highlights that gender-diverse people face unique health and climate-related risks due to their increased vulnerability, stigma, and discrimination. For example, during and after extreme events, transgender people in the United States report being threatened or prohibited access to shelters. Similarly, in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Samoa, gender-diverse individuals often face discrimination, mockery, and exclusion from evacuation centres or access to food. Yet, say the researchers, there are major gaps in knowledge about the health implications of climate change for such groups.

Find out how Cambridge’s pioneering research in climate and nature is regenerating nature, rewiring energy, rethinking transport and redefining economics – forging a future for our planet.

Reference
Van Daalen, KR et al. Bridging the gender, climate, and health gap: the road to COP29. Lancet Planetary Health; 11 Nov 2024; DOI: 10.1016/S2542-5196(24)00270-5

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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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Read about our new campaign, Restoring Nature: Reimagining Growth

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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}

source: cam.ac.uk

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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source: cam.ac.uk

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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source: cam.ac.uk

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}

source: cam.ac.uk

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.

Join us in forging a future for our planet.

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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source: cam.ac.uk