News from the University of Cambridge

Researchers from the University of Cambridge, the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research (FMI), Switzerland, EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), and collaborators, have created an in-depth picture of how the placenta develops and communicates with the uterus.

The study, published today in the journal Nature, is part of the Human Cell Atlas initiative to map every cell type in the human body. It informs and enables the development of experimental models of the human placenta.

"For the first time, we have been able to draw the full picture of how the placenta develops and describe in detail the cells involved in each of the crucial steps. This new level of insight can help us improve laboratory models to continue investigating pregnancy disorders, which cause illness and death worldwide,” said Anna Arutyunyan, co-first author at the University of Cambridge and Wellcome Sanger Institute.

The placenta is a temporary organ built by the foetus that facilitates vital functions such as foetal nutrition, oxygen and gas exchange, and protects against infections.The formation and embedding of the placenta into the uterus, known as placentation, is crucial for a successful pregnancy.

Understanding normal and disordered placentation at a molecular level can help answer questions about poorly understood disorders including miscarriage, stillbirth, and pre-eclampsia. In the UK, mild pre-eclampsia affects up to six per cent of pregnancies. Severe cases are rarer, developing in about one to two per cent of pregnancies.

Many of the processes in pregnancy are not fully understood, despite pregnancy disorders causing illness and death worldwide. This is partly due to the process of placentation being difficult to study in humans, and while animal studies are useful, they have limitations due to physiological differences.

During its development, the placenta forms tree-like structures that attach to the uterus, and the outer layer of cells, called trophoblast, migrate through the uterine wall, transforming the maternal blood vessels to establish a supply line for oxygen and nutrients.  

In the new study, scientists built on previous work investigating the early stages of pregnancy, to capture the process of placental development in unprecedented detail. Cutting-edge genomic techniques allowed them to see all of the cell types involved and how trophoblast cells communicate with the maternal uterine environment around them.

The team uncovered the full trajectory of trophoblast development, suggesting what could go wrong in disease and describing the involvement of multiple populations of cells, such as maternal immune and vascular cells.

"This research is unique as it was possible to use rare historical samples that encompassed all the stages of placentation occurring deep inside the uterus. We are glad to have created this open-access cell atlas to ensure that the scientific community can use our research to inform future studies,” said Professor Ashley Moffett, co-senior author at the University of Cambridge's Department of Pathology.

They also compared these results to placental trophoblast organoids, sometimes called ‘mini-placentas’, that are grown in the lab. They found that most of the cells identified in the tissue samples can be seen in these organoid models. Some later populations of trophoblast are not seen and are likely to form in the uterus only after receiving signals from maternal cells.   

The team focussed on the role of one understudied population of maternal immune cells known as macrophages. They also discovered that other maternal uterine cells release communication signals that regulate placental growth.

The insights from this research can start to piece together the unknowns about this stage of pregnancy. The new understanding will help in the development of effective lab models to study placental development and facilitate new ways to diagnose, prevent, and treat pregnancy disorders.

This research was funded by Wellcome, The Royal Society, and the European Research Council.

Reference

Arutyunyan, A. et al: 'Spatial multiomics map of trophoblast development in early pregnancy.' March 2023, Nature. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-05869-0

Adapted from a press release by the Wellcome Sanger Institute.

Researchers have mapped the complete trajectory of placental development, helping shed new light on why pregnancy disorders happen.

This can help us improve laboratory models to continue investigating pregnancy disorders, which cause illness and death worldwide.Anna ArutyunyanKenny Roberts, Wellcome Sanger InstituteCells of the placenta

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YesLicence type: Attribution

It was an exceptional weekend of sport between Cambridge and Oxford University which saw Cambridge win five out of six sporting fixtures. The Light Blues won the 141st men’s Varsity Rugby Match on Saturday, followed by The Boat Race on Sunday where Cambridge won the 77th Women’s Race, the 168th Men’s Race and both Reserve races.

Cambridge University RUFC men’s team dug deep at Twickenham on Saturday 25th March to deny Oxford a hat-trick of victories. The Cambridge Light Blues, led by Jamie Benson, took the match 15-10 to extend the winning head-to-head record in the fixture to 65-62.

The following day, The Boat Race was dominated by Cambridge University who comprehensively won all four races along The Championship Course on the River Thames, London.

The Cambridge Women’s crew took victory by four-and-a-quarter lengths, making it a sixth straight win for the women's team.

The men’s crew held off a late charge from Oxford to win by just over a length for their fourth victory in the past five races.

Cambridge lead the rivalry 47-30 in the women's event, while Cambridge men have won 86 times to Oxford's 81.

Cambridge University RUFC women’s were defeated in the Varsity Rugby Match for the first time since 2016 with a 31-12 loss against their Oxford counterparts at Twickenham. They had racked up wins in 2017, 2018 and 2019 before last year’s meeting between the rivals ended in a first ever draw, meaning Cambridge successfully defended the title.
 

Light Blue victories at both the Varsity Rugby Match and The Boat Race

Benedict Tufnell / Row360Cambridge University Men and Women's Boat Race Crews celebrate their wins

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YesLicence type: Attribution

Funded by The Brain Tumour Charity, this research aims to develop new ways to diagnose medulloblastoma using minimally invasive methods, protecting the quality of life of children with this diagnosis.

Medulloblastoma is the most common cancerous childhood brain tumours, accounting for 15-20% of all childhood brain tumour diagnoses. Around 52 children are diagnosed with a medulloblastoma each year in the UK. These tumours are fast growing and develop at the back of the brain in the cerebellum.

Dr Jessica Taylor, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge working in Professor Richard Gilbertson’s lab at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, will focus on one of the four subtypes of medulloblastoma - wingless (WNT) medulloblastoma. WNT-medulloblastoma is typically difficult to operate on, but is highly curable with chemotherapy and radiation.

The research will use antibodies that have been designed to bind to the WNT-medulloblastoma cells. Once bound to the cells, they will be visible on a PET scan and can be used to diagnose this subtype of medulloblastoma. This method avoids the use of invasive surgery and so will protect children from the potential long-term, damaging effects of surgery such as memory problems and speech issues.

Dr Taylor, the recipient of a Future Leaders Award from The Brain Tumour Charity, said: “With one in four children with this tumour type suffering long-term memory loss and speech issues after surgery, it is important that we work towards improving diagnostic methods which avoid surgery.

“I hope my research will change the way medulloblastoma is clinically diagnosed and that it will improve the treatment and quality of life for children diagnosed with this disease.”

The antibodies will be designed to bind to drugs that could treat WNT-medulloblastoma. This innovative approach would deliver treatments directly to the tumour, potentially replacing the need for more traditional chemotherapy. This could have several benefits including giving patients an additional treatment option and offering a more targeted therapy, potentially reducing the side effects from treatment.

Dr David Jenkinson, Chief Scientific Officer at The Brain Tumour Charity, said: “This innovative project exploits the features of WNT-medulloblastoma to create specific antibodies that will help diagnose and even treat this type of tumour, avoiding unnecessary surgery for the children diagnosed. Focusing research on non-invasive diagnostics and treatments helps to prevent long-term damage that can result from surgery.”

Adapted from a press release from The Brain Tumour Charity

Cambridge researchers are using new techniques to distinguish different types of medulloblastoma, a type of brain tumour in children.

With one in four children with this tumour type suffering long-term memory loss and speech issues after surgery, it is important that we work towards improving diagnostic methods which avoid surgeryJessica TaylorCRUK Cambridge InstituteDr Jessica TaylorSophie Harper's story

John Huggins’ granddaughter Sophie Harper was diagnosed with medulloblastoma in 2006. 

John said: “Until the age of nineteen months Sophie seemed to be a normally developing little girl, she walked at eleven months and her speech was well ahead of her age. From nineteen months she started to vomit regularly and when her mother took her to the doctors on day four, he diagnosed a virus. After ten days my daughter returned to the doctor, but again he said it was a virus. Sophie was taken to the doctor a number of times over the next two and a half months and there was no change with the doctor’s diagnosis. Sophie then started to lose her ability to walk, no longer was she the happy child she was, complaining of head pain, started falling over regularly and wanting to be carried around. It was only then the doctor agreed for Sophie to have a scan.”

Sophie’s scan took place at Norwich University Hospital and revealed a mass on her cerebellum.  She was transferred to Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, for further tests and a medulloblastoma tumour was confirmed. 

John said:  “None of us had any knowledge of brain tumours and it became a huge learning curve.  At that point Mum and Dad had to decide whether to take the option of curative or palliative care. Sophie always had a big personality and was such a fighter with any illness, so Mum and Dad decided they had to give her the tools to fight with and take the curative option”.

The following week, Sophie underwent an operation to try and remove the tumour and the family waited anxiously in the garden of Addenbrooke’s Hospital for news. The operation was expected to last around three to four hours but Sophie was in surgery for seven and a half. 

John said: “Sophie didn’t regain consciousness for thirty two days, due to the insult to her brain. She spent three months in intensive care and was now needing an oxygen supplement and having to be fed through a gastrostomy tube. Both of these would stay for the next six years of her life.

“It also became clear that there were other side effects from the operation: her speech was significantly impacted and she was unable to hold our gaze and her movements were uncoordinated and clumsy. During the time of her treatment she received more than a hundred transfusions of blood products due to low blood cell counts, but none of us can remember a single day, when she didn’t make us laugh or brighten our day. She had an amazing ability to do that. 

“It is true to say, surgery had a dramatic effect on Sophie, she was no longer the child we knew before the operation.”

Just before Sophie’s eighth birthday, her family were devastated when a scan revealed another growth on her brain.  She was given three months to live, but survived almost a year and sadly died shortly before her ninth birthday in 2013.

After her death, Sophie’s family set up The Sophie Elin Harper Fund with The Brain Tumour Charity to raise funds and awareness of brain tumours. Their fundraising to date totals a remarkable £38,000. 

John said: “The side effects Sophie had following surgery, with the insult to her brain, were huge and totally life changing.

“Sophie lived a very cruel life, in and out of hospital. Even the shunt fitted in her brain had to be replaced on three occasions. She never regained the ability to walk, and was always fed through a gastrostomy tube, together with an oxygen supplement, but she never complained.

“The possibility of avoiding side effects and unnecessary surgery would be a real turning point in the treatment of medulloblastoma.”

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Yes

The discovery is a step towards harnessing the protective effects of cooling the brain to treat patients with acute brain injury and even to prevent dementias, such as Alzheimer’s.

When the body cools down significantly, it increases its levels of RBM3, a molecule known as the cold shock protein – a phenomenon first observed in hibernating animals. It is thought that during hibernation, the protein helps protect the brain from damage and allows it to continue to form new connections.

In 2015, Professor Giovanna Mallucci and colleagues showed in mice that RBM3 can protect the brain against damage associated with build-up of misfolded proteins, which can lead to various forms of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, and from prion diseases such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD).

Induced hypothermia is used to treat patients in intensive care units – including newborn babies and traumatic brain injury patients – with the patients placed into a coma and their brains cooled to protect against damage. But this comes with associated risks, such as blood clotting and pneumonia. Could the cold shock protein be harnessed to treat patients without having to cool the body, offering a safer treatment for acute brain injury or a way of protecting the brain against dementia?

In research published in EMBO Molecular Medicine, scientists at the UK Dementia Research Institute, University of Cambridge, and the Institute of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Freie Universität Berlin, studied whether a form of gene therapy known as antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) could increase levels of the cold shock protein in the brains of mice – and hence protect them.

The team examined the gene that codes for production of the cold shock protein and found that it contains a key element which under normal conditions prevents its expression.  Removing, or ‘dialling down’ this element using an ASO, results in a long-lasting boost to production of RBM3.

To test whether this approach could protect the brain, the researchers used mice infected with prions.  Some of these mice were injected with a single dose of the ASO three weeks later, while the others were given a control treatment.

Twelve weeks after being administered the prions, those mice that had received the control treatment succumbed to prion disease and showed extensive loss of neurons in the hippocampus, an area of the brain important for memory.

The story was very different for the mice that had received the ASO. At the same time as the other mice were succumbing to prion disease, the ASO-treated mice had levels of RBM3 twice as high as in the other mice. Seven of the eight ASO-treated mice showed extensive preservation of neurons in the hippocampus.

Professor Giovanna Mallucci, who led the work while at the UK Dementia Research Institute at the University of Cambridge, said: “Essentially, the cold shock protein enables the brain to protect itself – in this case, against the damage to nerve cells in the brain during prion disease. Remarkably, we showed that just a single injection with the ASO was sufficient to provide long-lasting protection for these mice, preventing the inevitable progression of neurodegeneration.”

Professor Florian Heyd from Freie Universität Berlin added: “This approach offers the prospect of being able to protect against diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, for which we have no reliable preventative treatments.

“We are still a long way off this stage as our work was in mice, but if we can safely use ASOs to boost production of the cold shock protein in humans, it might be possible to prevent dementia. We are already seeing ASOs being used to successfully treat spinal muscular atrophy and they have recently been licenced to treat motor neurone disease.”

If the findings can be replicated in humans, this approach could have major implications for the treatment of patients beyond neurodegeneration.  These include acute brain injury from newborn babies with hypoxia through protecting the brain in heart surgery, stroke and head injury in adults who would otherwise be treated by therapeutic hypothermia.

Professor Mallucci is now based at the Alto Labs, Cambridge Institute of Science.

The research was supported by core funding from the Freie Universität Berlin and by the UK Dementia Research Institute, which in turn is funded by the Medical Research Council, Alzheimer’s Society and Alzheimer’s Research UK.

Reference
Preußner, M et al. ASO targeting temperature-controlled RBM3 poison exon splicing prevents neurodegeneration in vivo. EMBO Molecular Medicine; 22 March 2023; DOI: 10.15252/emmm.202217157

Scientists in Cambridge and Berlin have used a form of gene therapy to increase levels of the so-called ‘cold shock protein’ in the brains of mice, protecting them against the potentially devastating impact of prion disease.

Essentially, the cold shock protein enables the brain to protect itself – in this case, against the damage nerve cells in the brain during prion diseaseGiovanna MallucciMika Ruusunen (Unsplash)Cold water swimming

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YesLicence type: Public Domain

The UK Innovation Report 2023, compiled by Cambridge Industrial Innovation Policy - based at the University's Institute for Manufacturing - brings together innovation and value-added indicators in a single resource.

Among other analyses, the report looks at whether the UK is producing enough scientists and engineers, and how innovation translates into internationally competitive industries and well-paid jobs.

It also provides deep dives into the food and drinks, and aerospace sectors, offering insights into the structure and performance of these UK industries.

Last year's edition reported a new Innovation Strategy, a new Office for Science and Technology Strategy and a new National Science and Technology Council. This year, the major institutional change has been the ministerial restructure in February 2023. A new Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) was created with the mandate to ensure the UK is “the most innovative economy in the world” and a “science and technology superpower”. 

Co-author Dr Carlos López-Gómez, from Cambridge Industrial Innovation Policy, said: "What the report does differently is to bring together multiple different sources of data on innovation – which are often only accessible to specialised audiences and challenging to navigate – in one centralised place.

"By curating these insights, the report provides an honest assessment of UK performance compared with key competitors. It’s designed to provide policymakers with the evidence needed to best promote innovation in industry.

"The report tries to bring attention to the interplay between these innovation inputs and the outcomes from an industrial perspective. This is because the value of our investment in science and technology can only be fully captured if it sustains a competitive and sustainable industry – one that provides well-paid jobs and helps address regional imbalances."

 

A new Cambridge report highlights key trends across UK industry, explores the country's productivity and global industrial performance, and asks whether enough is being invested in R&D.

By curating these insights, the report provides an honest assessment of UK performance compared with key competitors.Dr Carlos López-Gómez, Cambridge Industrial Innovation Policy

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Yes

The Lundbeck Foundation has announced today the recipients of The Brain Prize 2023, the world’s largest award for outstanding contributions to neuroscience.

Professor Christine Holt shares the award with two other neuroscientists, Professor Erin Schuman at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, and Professor Michael Greenberg at Harvard Medical School.

A profound aspect of our nervous system is that during development and adulthood our brains are subject to extensive change, known as neural plasticity. Collectively, the scientists have made significant advances in unveiling the cellular and molecular mechanisms that enable the brain to develop, and to restructure itself in response to external stimuli as it adapts, learns, and even recovers from injury.

“Receiving the Brain Prize is an honour beyond my wildest dreams, and I’m absolutely delighted. It’s an incredible recognition of the work that we have been doing over the last forty years,” said Christine Holt, Professor of Developmental Neuroscience in the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge.

The Brain Prize, which is considered the world’s most significant prize for brain research, includes approximately €1.3 million to be shared by the three recipients. The prize is awarded annually by the Danish Lundbeck Foundation to researchers who have made highly original and influential discoveries in brain research.

“Our work has revealed the surprisingly fast and precise mechanism by which brains ‘wire-up’ during development, and actively maintain their wiring throughout life,” said Holt.

She added: “This provides key insights into the causes of neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases. Fundamental knowledge of this sort is essential for developing clinical therapies in nerve repair.”

The brain is an extraordinarily complex organ made up of billions of individual cells - called neurons - that are wired together in very precise ways. This organisation underlies our ability to sense and interact with the outside world.

If the brain wiring connections fail to form, or form incorrectly, then serious neurological deficits may result - such as blindness. Similarly, if the connections fail to be maintained, as occurs in many neurodegenerative diseases - such as dementia - then important neurological function may be lost.

Holt’s work on the developing brain revealed that each neuron sends out a long ‘wire’ - called an axon - that navigates a remarkable journey to its own specific target in the brain. When an axon first grows out from a neuron it is tipped with a specialised growth cone, which finds its way using guidance cues - much like reading signposts along a road.

Holt found that an important aspect of this navigation system is the autonomy of growth cones in reading and responding to guidance cues. The growth cone contains all the machinery necessary to make the new proteins the axons need to steer along the right pathway. She also found that proteins are continuously made in our axons every day – an important process enabling the developing and adult brain to be shaped by experience.

Other laboratories around the world are now looking at how mutations in these proteins affect the growth and survival of axons. The hope is that new therapies can be developed for treating neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases.

“It is such a great honour to share the prize with Erin Schuman and Mike Greenberg. Their beautiful work has been an inspiration to me over the years. It’s been an exciting journey of discovery that may eventually lead to advances in therapies for neurodegenerative disease and neural repair. Thank you most sincerely to the Lundbeck Foundation,’’ said Holt.

‘‘In order to establish appropriate neural connections during development or to adapt to new challenges in adulthood through learning and memory, brain circuits must be remodeled, and the new patterns of connectivity maintained; processes that require the synthesis of new proteins for those connections,” said Professor Richard Morris, Chair of The Brain Prize Selection Committee.

He added: “The Brain Prize winners of 2023, Michael Greenberg, Christine Holt, and Erin Schuman have revealed the fundamental principles of how this enigmatic feature of brain function is mediated at the molecular level. Together, they have made ground-breaking discoveries by showing how the synthesis of new proteins is triggered in different neuronal compartments, thereby guiding brain development and plasticity in ways that impact our behavior for a lifetime.’’

The Brain Prize is the world’s largest neuroscience research prize, awarded each year by the Lundbeck Foundation. The Brain Prize recognises highly original and influential advances in any area of brain research, from basic neuroscience to applied clinical research. Recipients of The Brain Prize may be of any nationality and work in any country in the world. Since it was first awarded in 2011 The Brain Prize has been awarded to 44 scientists from 9 different countries.

Brain Prize recipients are presented with their award by His Royal Highness, The Crown Prince of Denmark, at a ceremony in the Danish capital, Copenhagen.

The Brain Prize 2023 is awarded for critical insights into the molecular mechanisms of brain development and plasticity.

Receiving the Brain Prize is an honour beyond my wildest dreams...It’s an incredible recognition of the work that we have been doing over the last forty years.Christine HoltProfessor Christine Holt

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Yes

The Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Heart and Lung Research Institute (HLRI) is home to the largest concentration of scientists and clinicians in heart and lung medicine in Europe. It opened in July 2022 with the ambitious goal of identifying ten new potential treatments or diagnostic tests for heart and lung diseases within five years.

The HLRI is located on Cambridge’s rapidly expanding Biomedical Campus, immediately adjacent to Royal Papworth Hospital. The institute brings together population health, laboratory and clinical scientists, with NHS clinicians and patients, with the aim of improving outcomes for people with cardiovascular and lung diseases such as heart attacks, pulmonary hypertension, lung cancers, cystic fibrosis and acute respiratory distress syndrome.

Dr Dahdaleh said: “Cambridge is one of the greatest Universities in the history of civilisation and, 800 years on, it is at the cutting edge of scientific progress. Over the years in which I have been supporting education and medical research around the world, I have realised the UK is a global leader in the prevention, identification and treatment of heart and lung diseases.

“I’m supporting this new Institute because, through collaboration with Royal Papworth Hospital and other leading institutions, it will enable a concentration of expertise that will make medical advances in these fields that are of international importance.”

Dr Dahdaleh has previously supported research at the University of Cambridge looking into COVID-19 and national research on mesothelioma, a type of lung cancer linked to asbestos exposure. Cardiovascular and lung diseases kill more than 26 million people a year and have a major impact on the quality of life of many more. Alongside the immense human cost, the economic burden of these diseases – an estimated annual global cost of £840 billion – is already overwhelming and unsustainable. Yet declining air quality and increasing rates of obesity are set to compound the scale of the challenge faced worldwide.

Dr Anthony Freeling, Acting Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, said: “We are truly grateful to Victor for his generous donation. There has never been a more pressing need to develop new approaches and treatments to help us tackle the heart and lung diseases that affect many millions of people worldwide. The Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Heart and Lung Research Institute is in a strong position to make a major difference to people’s lives.”

Professor John Wallwork, Chair of Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, said: “When we moved our hospital to the Cambridge Biomedical Campus in 2019, one of our ambitions was to collaborate with partners to create a research and education institute on this scale. Victor’s kind donation will support all the teams working in HLRI to develop new treatments in cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, improving the lives of people in the UK and around the globe.”

The HLRI includes state-of-the-art research facilities, space for collaboration between academia, healthcare providers and industry, conference and education facilities. It also includes a special 10-bed clinical research facility where the first-in-patient studies of new treatments are being conducted.

Professor Charlotte Summers, Interim Director of the HLRI, said: “We have set ourselves ambitious goals because of the urgent need to improve cardiovascular and lung health across the world. Victor’s generous gift will help us realise our ambitions. Collaboration is at the heart of our approach, with our researchers and clinicians working with patient, academic, charity and industry partners within the Cambridge Cluster, nationally and internationally.”

Dr Dahdaleh is also a significant supporter of the Duke of Edinburgh awards, York and McGill universities in his homeland of Canada, and the British Lung Foundation. Dr Dahdaleh and his wife Mona, via the Victor Dahdaleh Foundation, have a commitment to supporting scholarships for disadvantaged students pursuing higher education in addition to their extensive philanthropic support for research into cancer, lung and heart disease.

The HLRI has already raised £30 million from the UK Research Partnership Investment Fund and £10 million from the British Heart Foundation, with additional funding from the Wolfson Foundation, Royal Papworth Hospital Charity and the University of Cambridge. Additional support has been provided by the Cystic Fibrosis Trust for a Cystic Fibrosis Trust Innovation Hub within the institute.

 

A Cambridge institute dedicated to improving cardiovascular and lung health has received a £16 million gift from Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist Dr Victor Dahdaleh.

Over the years in which I have been supporting education and medical research around the world, I have realized the UK is a global leader in the prevention, identification and treatment of heart and lung diseasesVictor DahdalehChris LoadesLeft to right: Professor Charlotte Summers, Dr Nik Johnson (Mayor, Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority), Dr Victor Dahdaleh, Professor Patrick Maxwell, Dr Anthony Freeling

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Yes

A study has found that infrastructure worldwide is widespread in sites that have been identified as internationally important for biodiversity, and its prevalence is likely to increase.

This is the first ever assessment of the presence of infrastructure in Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs): a global network of thousands of sites recognised internationally as being the world’s most critical areas for wildlife.

Infrastructure is one of the greatest drivers of threats to biodiversity according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. It can cause natural habitat destruction and fragmentation, pollution, increased disturbance or hunting by humans, the spread of invasive species, direct mortality, and can have wider impacts beyond the development site.

Now, researchers from BirdLife International, WWF and the RSPB, in association with the University of Cambridge, have conducted an assessment of infrastructure in KBAs, finding that it is widespread and likely to increase. The results are published today in Biological Conservation.

“It’s concerning that human developments exist in the vast majority of sites that have been identified as being critical for nature,” said Ash Simkins, a Zoology PhD student at the University of Cambridge who led the study.

KBAs are sites that contribute significantly to the global persistence of biodiversity. For example, they may contain species that are under a high risk of extinction or are home to species or ecosystems that are found in only a small area worldwide.

Researchers assessed 15,150 KBAs on land and found that 80% contained infrastructure. Multiple combinations of infrastructure types occurred in KBAs with the most common being roads (75%), power lines (37%) and urban areas (37%).

They found that potential future planned infrastructure developments could lead to an additional 2,201 KBAs containing mines (from 754 to 2,955; 292% increase), an additional 1,508 KBAs containing oil and gas infrastructure (from 2,081 to 3,589; 72% increase) and an additional 1,372 KBAs containing power plants (from 233 to 1,605; 589% increase).

Maps of KBAs were intersected with spatial datasets of different types of infrastructure that researchers categorised as transport, dams and reservoirs, extractives (relating to natural resources), energy (power lines and power plants) and urban areas.

Energy and extractives were the only categories for which some global data on potential future planned developments was available.

“We recognise that infrastructure is essential to human development but it’s about building smartly. This means ideally avoiding or otherwise minimising infrastructure in the most important locations for biodiversity. If the infrastructure must be there, then it should be designed to cause as little damage as possible, and the impacts more than compensated for elsewhere,” said Simkins.

Researchers found that countries in South America, (for example 82% of KBAs in Brazil), Sub-Saharan, Central and Southern Africa, and parts of South-east Asia are amongst the areas with the highest proportion of extractive claims, concessions or planned development in their KBA networks. All of the KBAs identified to date in Bangladesh, Kuwait, the Republic of the Congo and Serbia have potential extractive claims, concessions or planned development.

“It’s also concerning to see that in the future, extensive mining and oil and gas related infrastructure is planned to be built in many of the world’s most important sites for biodiversity,” said Simkins.

Some of the technology to tackle the climate crisis, like solar panels and wind turbines, is also dependent on mining for precious metals. “We need smart solutions to the climate crisis whilst avoiding or minimising negative impacts on biodiversity,” said Simkins.

“At the UN biodiversity COP15 meetings in Montreal last year, governments committed to halting human-induced extinctions,” said co-author Dr Stuart Butchart, Chief Scientist at BirdLife International and Honorary Research Fellow at Cambridge’s Department of Zoology. “Widespread destruction or degradation of the natural habitats within KBAs could lead to wholesale extinctions, so existing infrastructure in KBAs must be managed to minimise impacts, and further development in these sites has to be avoided as far as possible.”

“Infrastructure underpins our societies, delivering the water we drink, the roads we travel on, and the electricity that powers livelihoods,” said Wendy Elliott, Deputy Leader for Wildlife at WWF. “This study illustrates the crucial importance of ensuring smart infrastructure development that provides social and economic value for all, whilst ensuring positive outcomes for nature. Making this happen will be the challenge of our time, but with the right planning, design and commitment it is well within the realms of possibility.”

Researchers say that infrastructure within a KBA varies in the degree to which it may drive a loss of biodiversity. More research is required to find out the extent to which infrastructure in a particular KBA affects wildlife within the site and what measures are needed to mitigate this.

Reference: A.T Simkins et al, A global assessment of the prevalence of current and potential future infrastructure in Key Biodiversity Areas, Biological Conservation, DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2023.109953

At least 80% of sites identified as being internationally important for biodiversity on land currently contain infrastructure − of which more than 75% contain roads. In the future, more sites that are important for biodiversity could contain powerplants, mines and oil and gas infrastructure

It’s concerning that human developments exist in the vast majority of sites that have been identified as being critical for nature.Ash SimkinsEduLeite / E+ via Getty Images

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Yes

This means that animal welfare can now, for the first time, be properly considered alongside other impacts of farming to help identify which farming systems are best.

This is vital for improving animal welfare in livestock production, at a time when demand for meat is rising globally and the way animals are farmed is changing - with concerns about the welfare of intensive and indoor systems.

Animal welfare assessments could also enable consumers to be better informed when choosing what to eat.

Britain has various labelling schemes for meat products to assure consumers that certain standards have been met. The team used their new system to test how the different labels compare in terms of animal welfare.

Farms producing ‘woodland’ labelled pork products scored best for pig welfare, followed by ‘organic’, then free-range, RSPCA assured, Red Tractor, and finally those with no certification.

“We have shown that it’s possible to reliably assess animal welfare on farms. This means decisions about which types of farm are better or worse for animal welfare can be based on proper calculations, rather than assumptions – as is currently the case,” said Dr Harriet Bartlett, first author of the study, who carried out this work while a researcher at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Veterinary Medicine. She is now a Research Associate in Sustainable Food Solutions at the University of Oxford.

Bartlett added: “Now animal welfare can be included in overall assessments of farm sustainability alongside other measures like carbon emissions and biodiversity impacts, so we can make better informed decisions about how we choose to farm and what we choose to eat.”

Coming up with an overall measurement of animal welfare has previously been difficult because of disagreement on which factors are most important. For example, is a health problem more important than a behaviour problem? What level of welfare is good enough?

The new system assesses the quality of an animal’s life through a wide-ranging set of welfare measurements, reflecting a range of concerns about welfare. The results can be integrated into a single score to enable comparison across farms.

This will enable exploration of trade-offs between animal welfare and other issues of concern to consumers, such as the impact of farming on the environment.

The results are published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Assessment of the pigs looked at everything from health problems like coughing, sneezing, and lameness, to the way they interacted: biting each other’s ears or tails, or engaging with their environment, for example.

Various scoring methods were tested - giving more or less weight to the different aspects of animal welfare - on 74 pig farming systems in the UK. The team were surprised to find that each method gave broadly the same overall result in terms of which farms, and types of farms, performed best and worst.

“Despite ongoing debate about how to measure animal welfare, we found we can identify which types of farms we might want to encourage and which we shouldn’t with reasonable consistency,” said Professor Andrew Balmford in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology, who was involved in the study.

The new welfare measurements combine quality of life with length of life, and scores can be produced ‘per unit’ of production. The welfare scores can also allow several farms to be grouped together – for example when animals are kept on different farms at different growth stages.

“This work opens up possibilities for greater rolling out of welfare assessment scores in food labelling, including in other species as well as pigs. Until now, the methods available have made this impractical,” said Professor James Wood at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Veterinary Medicine, who was involved in the study.

The technique of ‘Life Cycle Assessment’ is widely used to quantify environmental impacts, such as greenhouse gas emissions and land use, across all stages of farm animal production. But until now there hasn’t been a way of measuring animal welfare that enables valid comparisons across different farming systems, so Life Cycle Assessments do not include it and as a result, welfare concerns have sometimes been overlooked.

Food production accounts for over a quarter of all global greenhouse gas emissions. Making farming systems more sustainable, in the face of growing global demand for meat, is a major challenge for farmers and the government.

‘Woodland’ labelled pork is from farms that provide at least partial tree cover for the pigs, and ‘Organic’ provides outdoor access for the animals. The ‘RSPCA assured’ label is welfare focused, while ‘Free range’ is not a formal assurance, but typically refers to fully outdoor farming systems. Most UK pig farms produce ‘Red Tractor’ labelled pork, which has lower production costs – translating to a lower price for consumers.

This research was funded by the BBSRC, the Royal Society, MRC, and The Alborada Trust.

Reference

Bartlett, H. et al: ‘Advancing the quantitative characterisation of farm animal welfare.’ Proc Roy Soc B. March 2023. DOI 10.1098/rspb.2023.0120

Cambridge University scientists have come up with a system of measuring animal welfare that enables reliable comparison across different types of pig farming.

Harriet BartlettPigs on a farm

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YesLicence type: Attribution

The event was an opportunity to showcase this impressive contribution to the UK economy to Parliamentarians and policy makers. It was also a chance to discuss how elements of Cambridge's strategic success may be implemented in new and emerging clusters across the UK.

A highlight of the evening was George Freeman MP, the current Minister of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, delivering a very well received speech on the importance of Cambridge as the "golden corner of the golden triangle". The Minister expressed his delight at receiving such a short, focused summary report and spoke of the importance of the continued success of Cambridge for both the East of England and wider UK economy. 

The Member of Parliament for Cambridge, Daniel Zeichner MP, offered thoughts on infrastructure issues in the city that, if solved, would unlock further potential for economic growth, including tackling congestion, seeing progress on East West Rail, and finding solutions to the lack of lab space. He also described how centres of excellence, like Cambridge, need to be nurtured and supported by government policy, including targeted funding to incentivise innovation. The report had immediate impact when Daniel mentioned the results of the analysis in the House of Commons budget debate that he returned to immediately after the event.

Baroness Sally Morgan of Huyton, Master at Fitzwilliam, and who kindly sponsored the event, highlighted the finding, that for every £1 the University spends, it creates £11.70 of economic impact.

Professor Andy Neely closed the speeches, restating the headline findings and highlighting the ways in which government policy could support the ecosystem’s continued success and help Cambridge attract the best global talent.  

We were delighted to host local stakeholders, including representatives from Nyobolt, Abcam and Cambridge Enterprise, who were on hand to answer questions on how and why the University was crucial to their success. 

Attendees from Parliament included former Universities Minister and Chair of Innovate Cambridge, Lord David Willetts and former Chancellor, Lord Norman Lamont. From the Commons, Chi Onwurah MP (Shadow Science Minister) and Seema Malhotra MP, also joined us for the event.

On Monday 20 March, the University of Cambridge hosted a reception in the Houses of Parliament to launch a new report that shows it is a research powerhouse driving the most successful economic cluster in the UK. The analysis by respected consultancy London Economics shows that the University adds nearly £30 billion to the economy every year and supports more than 86,000 jobs across the UK

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Yes

The first Innovate UK award, received in 2021, allowed SMi to partner with the Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease, the Medicines Discovery Catapult and the National Physical Laboratory to develop its technology for testing for respiratory diseases. The second award, made in early 2023, is helping SMi and its partners apply the same technology to detecting cancer.

Co-founded in 2018 by former University of Cambridge researcher Dr Andrew Thompson, SMi is developing a new technology that analyses samples using super-resolution imaging. The technology can detect, quantify and characterise single molecules that are of interest, including DNA, RNA and protein molecules associated with specific diseases. It can visualise what other technologies cannot see and very rapidly batch analyse hundreds of samples with extremely high accuracy.

The first round of £1.9m funding enabled SMi to develop its platform, used for the simultaneous screening of common respiratory diseases. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the need for rapid and cost-effective diagnostic testing on a massive scale. Test accuracy and the ability to identify new variants were critical.

The second Innovate UK award has funded the application of SMi’s platform to cancer diagnosis by enabling work with another team of specialists at the Medicines Discovery Catapult. Here the same single molecule visualisation approach is being used to detect and quantify cancer biomarkers in patient blood samples. This will help clinicians to make more accurate assessments, and combined with the flexibility, accuracy, speed and high throughput of SMi’s technology, could reduce diagnostic backlogs and provide patients with their results much sooner.

SMi’s aim has always been to create a user-friendly, automated benchtop instrument that can be used in both research and healthcare settings. Initial instrument designs were guided by consultation with NHS trusts and the NIHR Medical Devices Testing and Evaluation Centre (MD-TEC), while prototypes have been tested in labs at the University of Cambridge, the Medicines Discovery Catapult and the National Physical Laboratory. Commercial production will be outsourced to a medical device manufacturer in the East of England.

SMi’s CEO Dr Andrew Thompson said: “SMi is creating a highly accurate and user-friendly platform that is based upon single molecule imaging, meaning that we can detect individual molecules that are invisible to other technologies. With an approach that allows them to reliably monitor single molecules, SMi provides scientists and clinicians with a quality of data that is unprecedented. Such capabilities are likely to have far-reaching benefits for diagnosis and the discovery of new medicines. Our Innovate UK funding is allowing us to work with very highly qualified research and clinical partners, providing a means to accelerate our product development and realise these opportunities sooner.”

The Cambridge Institute for Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Diseases has been leading the University of Cambridge’s collaboration with SMi. Ravindra Gupta, Professor of Clinical Microbiology, and named as one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people of the year in 2020 for his work on HIV, said: “SMi’s platform is incredibly exciting and could revolutionise testing for a range of diseases. We have been fortunate to partner with SMi on SARS-CoV-2 detection, and application could extend to identification of specific genetic variants of pathogens as well as cancers.”

Dr Tammy Dougan, Life Science and Healthcare Partnership Lead in the University’s Strategic Partnerships Office, said: “This is a great example of a Cambridge start-up winning Innovate UK funding and using it to build effective collaborations between research partners to take a new technology out of the lab and into clinical practice.”

Since 2018, SMi has grown into a team of sixteen, including scientists, mechanical engineers, software engineers and medical device specialists based in two locations: the outskirts of Cambridge and the West Coast of the USA.

Cambridge start-up SMi and its research partners have received two Innovate UK awards to progress their work on testing for infectious diseases and detecting biomarkers for cancer.

Andrew Brookes, Getty Images: Pipetting sample into a tray

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Yes

Scientists at the Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease (CITIID) and Wellcome Sanger Institute showed that following SARS-CoV-2 infection, cells in the lining of the lungs, nasal cells, and immune cells in the blood show a blunted inflammatory response in obese patients, producing suboptimal levels of molecules needed to fight the infection.

Since the start of the pandemic, there have been almost 760 million confirmed cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection, with almost 6.9 million deaths. While some people have very mild – or even no – symptoms, others have much more severe symptoms, including acute respiratory distress syndrome requiring ventilator support.

One of the major risk factors for severe COVID-19 is obesity, which is defined as a body mass index (BMI) of over 30. More than 40% of US adults and 28% of adults in England are classed as obese.

While this link has been shown in numerous epidemiological studies, until now, it has not been clear why obesity should increase an individual’s risk of severe COVID-19. One possible explanation was thought to be that obesity is linked to inflammation: studies have shown that people who are obese already have higher levels of key molecules associated with inflammation in their blood. Could an overactive inflammatory response explain the connection?

Professor Menna Clatworthy is a clinician scientist at the University of Cambridge, studying tissue immune cells at CITIID alongside caring for patients at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, part of Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. She said: “During the pandemic, the majority of younger patients I saw on the COVID wards were obese. Given what we know about obesity, if you’d asked me why this was the case, I would have said that it was most likely due to excessive inflammation. What we found was the absolute opposite.”

Clatworthy and her team analysed blood and lung samples taken from 13 obese patients with severe COVID-19 requiring mechanical ventilation and intensive care treatment, and 20 controls (non-obese COVID-19 patients and ventilated non-COVID-19 patients). These included patients admitted to the Intensive Care Unit at Addenbrooke’s Hospital.

Her team used a technique known as transcriptomics, which looks at RNA molecules produced by our DNA, to study activity of cells in these key tissues. Their results are published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Contrary to expectations, the researchers found that the obese patients had underactive immune and inflammatory responses in their lungs.  In particular, when compared to non-obese patients, cells in the lining of their lungs and some of their immune cells had lower levels of activity among genes responsible for the production of two molecules known as interferons (INF) – interferon-alpha and interferon-gamma – which help control the response of the immune system, and of tumour necrosis factor (TNF), which causes inflammation.

When they looked at immune cells in the blood of 42 adults from an independent cohort, they found a similar, but less marked, reduction in the activity of interferon-producing genes as well as lower levels of IFN-alpha in the blood.

Professor Clatworthy said: “This was really surprising and unexpected. Across every cell type we looked at, we found that that the genes responsible for the classical antiviral response were less active. They were completely muted.”

The team was able to replicate its findings in nasal immune cells taken from obese children with COVID-19, where they again found lower levels of activity among the genes that produce IFN-alpha and IFN-gamma. This is important because the nose is one of the entry points for the virus – a robust immune response there could prevent the infection spreading further into the body, while a poorer response would be less effective.

One possible explanation for the finding involves leptin, a hormone produced in fat cells that controls appetite. Leptin also plays a role in the immune response: in individuals who are normal weight, levels of the hormone increase in response to infection and it directly stimulates immune cells. But obese people already have chronically higher levels of leptin, and Clatworthy says it is possible that they no longer produce sufficient additional leptin in response to infection, or are insensitive to it, leading to inadequate stimulation of their immune cells.

The findings could have important implications both for the treatment of COVID-19 and in the design of clinical trials to test new treatments.

Because an overactive immune and inflammatory response can be associated with severe COVID-19 in some patients, doctors have turned to anti-inflammatory drugs to dampen this response. But anti-inflammatory drugs may not be appropriate for obese patients.

Co-author Dr Andrew Conway Morris from the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge and Honorary Consultant on the intensive care unit at Addenbrooke’s Hospital said: “What we’ve shown is that not all patients are the same, so we might need to tailor treatments. Obese subjects might need less anti-inflammatory treatments and potentially more help for their immune system.”

Clinical trials for potential new treatments would need to involve stratifying patients rather than including both severe and normal weight patients, whose immune responses differ.

The research was largely supported by Wellcome, the Medical Research Council and the National Institute of Health and Care Research, including via the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.

Reference
Guo, SA, Bowyer, GS, Ferdinand, JR, Maes, M & Tuong, ZK et al. Obesity associated with attenuated tissue immune cell responses in COVID-19. Am J Resp Critical Care Med; 1 Mar 2023; DOI: 10.1164/rccm.202204-0751OC 

Individuals who are obese may be more susceptible to severe COVID-19 because of a poorer inflammatory immune response, say Cambridge scientists.

During the pandemic, the majority of younger patients I saw on the COVID wards were obese... I would have said that it was most likely due to excessive inflammation. What we found was the absolute oppositeMenna ClatworthyCambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation TrustIntensive care unit at Addenbrooke's Hospital

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Yes

An international team of researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, and the University of California San Diego, quantified the effect of these waves and other forms of underwater turbulence in the Atlantic Ocean and found that their importance is not being accurately reflected in the climate models that inform government policy.

Most of the heat and carbon emitted by human activity is absorbed by the ocean, but how much it can absorb is dependent on turbulence in the ocean’s interior, as heat and carbon are either pushed deep into the ocean or pulled toward the surface.

While these underwater waves are already well-known, their importance in heat and carbon transport is not fully understood.

The results, reported in the journal AGU Advances, show that turbulence in the interior of oceans is more important for the transport of carbon and heat on a global scale than had been previously imagined.

Ocean circulation carries warm waters from the tropics to the North Atlantic, where they cool, sink, and return southwards in the deep ocean, like a giant conveyer belt. The Atlantic branch of this circulation pattern, called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), plays a key role in regulating global heat and carbon budgets. Ocean circulation redistributes heat to the polar regions, where it melts ice, and carbon to the deep ocean, where it can be stored for thousands of years.

“If you were to take a picture of the ocean interior, you would see a lot of complex dynamics at work,” said first author Dr Laura Cimoli from Cambridge’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. “Beneath the surface of the water, there are jets, currents, and waves – in the deep ocean, these waves can be up to 500 metres high, but they break just like a wave on a beach.”

“The Atlantic Ocean is special in how it affects the global climate,” said co-author Dr Ali Mashayek from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences. “It has a strong pole-to-pole circulation from its upper reaches to the deep ocean. The water also moves faster at the surface than it does in the deep ocean.”

Over the past several decades, researchers have been investigating whether the AMOC may be a factor in why the Arctic has lost so much ice cover, while some Antarctic ice sheets are growing. One possible explanation for this phenomenon is that heat absorbed by the ocean in the North Atlantic takes several hundred years to reach the Antarctic.

Now, using a combination of remote sensing, ship-based measurements and data from autonomous floats, the Cambridge-led researchers have found that heat from the North Atlantic can reach the Antarctic much faster than previously thought. In addition, turbulence within the ocean – in particular large underwater waves – plays an important role in the climate.

Like a giant cake, the ocean is made up of different layers, with colder, denser water at the bottom, and warmer, lighter water at the top. Most heat and carbon transport within the ocean happens within a particular layer, but heat and carbon can also move between density layers, bringing deep waters back to the surface.

The researchers found that the movement of heat and carbon between layers is facilitated by small-scale turbulence, a phenomenon not fully represented in climate models.

Estimates of mixing from different observational platforms showed evidence of small-scale turbulence in the upper branch of circulation, in agreement with theoretical predictions of oceanic internal waves. The different estimates showed that turbulence mostly affects the class of density layers associated with the core of the deep waters moving southward from the North Atlantic to the Southern Ocean. This means that the heat and carbon carried by these water masses have a high chance of being moved across different density levels.

“Climate models do account for turbulence, but mostly in how it affects ocean circulation,” said Cimoli. “But we’ve found that turbulence is vital in its own right, and plays a key role in how much carbon and heat gets absorbed by the ocean, and where it gets stored.”

“Many climate models have an overly simplistic representation of the role of micro-scale turbulence, but we’ve shown it’s significant and should be treated with more care,” said Mashayek. “For example, turbulence and its role in ocean circulation exerts a control over how much anthropogenic heat reaches the Antarctic Ice Sheet, and the timescale on which that happens.”

The research suggests an urgent need for the instalment of turbulence sensors on global observational arrays and a more accurate representation of small-scale turbulence in climate models, to enable scientists to make more accurate projections of the future effects of climate change.

The research was supported in part by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

 

Reference:
Laura Cimoli et al. ‘Significance of Diapycnal Mixing Within the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation.’ AGU Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1029/2022AV000800

Underwater waves deep below the ocean’s surface – some as tall as 500 metres – play an important role in how the ocean stores heat and carbon, according to new research.

Turbulence plays a key role in how much carbon and heat gets absorbed by the ocean, and where it gets storedLaura CimoliLaura Cimoli/GLODAPMap of depth-integrated anthropogenic carbon

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Yes

The organs are kept functioning by restarting local circulation to the heart, lungs and abdominal organs – but, crucially, not to the brain – of patients whose hearts have stopped beating for five minutes or longer and have been declared dead by circulatory criteria (donation after circulatory death, or DCD).

It is hoped that this technique could increase the number of usable donated hearts by as much as 30% in the future, helping address the shortage of transplant organs. In 2021, 8,409 heart transplants were reported to the Global Observatory on Donation and Transplantation (GODT) by 54 countries. This activity is in contrast with the 21,935 patients who were on a heart waiting list during the year 2021, of whom 1,511 died while waiting and many others became too sick to receive a transplant.

John Louca, a final year medical student at Gonville & Caius College, University of Cambridge, and the study’s first author, said: “Heart transplants are the last bastion for patients with end-stage heart failure. They are successful – patients who receive a transplant live on average a further 13 to 16 years. The biggest problem they face is actually getting access to a donated heart: many patients will die before an organ becomes available. That’s why we urgently need to find ways to increase the suitability of donor organs.”

Though the first heart transplant performed at the Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town (South Africa) in 1967 was obtained from a DCD donor, this technique was abandoned and replaced by heart transplants obtained from donors confirmed dead using neurological criteria (donation after brain death, or DBD) – in other words, their brain has stopped functioning entirely.

Until recently, heart transplants worldwide were still performed only with organs obtained from DBD donors. However, in recent years, heart transplants from DCD donors have become a clinical reality worldwide thanks to years of research carried out in Cambridge.

DCD is the donation of organs by patients who tragically have a non-survivable illness. These patients are typically unconscious in intensive care in hospital and dependent on ventilation. Detailed discussions between doctors, specialist nurses and the patient’s family take place and if the family agree to organ donation, the process starts.

After treatment is withdrawn, the heart stops beating and it begins to sustain damage to its tissues. After 30 minutes, it is thought that this damage becomes irreversible and the heart unusable. To prevent this damage, at the time of death these non-beating hearts are transferred to a portable machine known as the Organ Care System (OCS) where the organ is perfused with oxygenated blood and assessed to see whether it is suitable for transplantation.

This technique was pioneered by Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in Cambridge, whose transplant team carried out the first DCD heart transplant in Europe in 2015. Royal Papworth has since become the largest and most experienced DCD heart transplant centre in the world.

DCD heart transplantation started simultaneously in Australia, followed by Belgium, The Netherlands, Spain and USA. According to the GODT, 295 DCD heart transplants were performed in these six countries in 2021.

Organ Care Systems are expensive, costing around US$400,000 per machine plus an additional $75,000 for consumables for each perfused organ. An alternative, and much more cost-effective approach, is known as thoraco-abdominal normothermic reperfusion (taNRP). This involves perfusing the organ in situ in the donor’s body and is estimated to cost around $3,000. Its use was first reported in 2016 by a team at Royal Papworth Hospital.

In a study published in eClinical Medicine, an international team of clinical scientists and heart specialists from 15 major transplant centres worldwide, including the UK, Spain, the USA and Belgium, looked at clinical outcomes of 157 DCD donor hearts recovered and transplanted from donors undergoing taNRP. They compared these with the outcomes from 673 DBD heart transplants, which represents the ‘gold-standard’.

The team found that overall, the use of taNRP increased the donor pool significantly, increasing the number of heart transplantations performed by 23%.

Mr Stephen Large, Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon at Royal Papworth Hospital and chief investigator, said: “Withdrawing life support from a patient is a difficult decision for both the families and medical staff involved and we have a duty to honour the wishes of the donor as best we can. At present, one in ten retrieved hearts is turned down, but restoring function of the heart in situ could help us ensure more donor hearts find a recipient.”

Survival rates were comparable between DCD and DBD heart transplantation, with 97% of patients surviving for more than 30 days following taNRP DCD heart transplant, 93% for more than a year and 84% of patients still alive after five years.

Professor Filip Rega, Head of Clinic at the Department of Cardiac Surgery, UZ Leuven, Belgium, said: “This promising new approach will allow us to offer heart transplantation, a last resort treatment, to many more patients in need of a new heart.”

The researchers say that some of the benefits from taNRP are likely thanks to the reduced amount of time the heart was not receiving oxygenated blood, known as its warm ischaemic time, when compared to direct procurement (that is, when the heart is removed immediately for transplant, and perfused outside the body). The median average time was 16.7 minutes, significantly less than the 30 minutes associated with permanent damage to the heart cells.

An added benefit to this approach is that it allows medical teams to simultaneously preserve several organs, such as the liver, pancreas and kidneys, without the need of several organ-specific external machine perfusion devices. This decreases complexity and costs.

Professor Ashish Shah, Head of the Department of Cardiac Surgery at Vanderbilt University Hospitals, Nashville, USA, said: “Heart transplantation has been and always will be a uniquely international effort. The current study is another example of effective international collaboration and opens a new frontier, not just in transplantation, but in our basic understanding of how all hearts can be rescued.”

Dr Beatriz Domínguez-Gil, Director General of the National Organisation of Transplantation in Spain, said: “The results of this collaborative study bring hope to thousands of patients in need for a heart transplant every year throughout the world. Its findings reveal that DCD heart transplantation based on taNRP can lead to results at least similar to the gold standard and increase hearts available for transplantation in a manner that contributes to the sustainability of health-care systems.”

Reference
Louca, J et al. The international experience of in-situ recovery of the DCD heart: A multicentre retrospective observational study. eClin Med; published online 2 March 2023; DOI: 10.1016/j.eclinm.2023.101887

More donated hearts could be suitable for transplantation if they are kept functioning within the body for a short time following the death of the donor, new research has concluded.

Patients who receive a transplant live on average a further 13 to 16 years. The biggest problem they face is actually getting access to a donated heartJohn LoucaSewcream (Getty Images)Hands holding an image of a heart

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

Yes

Scientists from the University of Cambridge now have a way to estimate how much water a rocky planet can store in its subterranean reservoirs. It is thought that this water, which is locked into the structure of minerals deep down, might help a planet recover from its initial fiery birth.

The researchers developed a model that can predict the proportion of water-rich minerals inside a planet. These minerals act like a sponge, soaking up water which can later return to the surface and replenish oceans. Their results could help us understand how planets can become habitable following intense heat and radiation during their early years.

Planets orbiting M-type red dwarf stars — the most common star in the galaxy — are thought to be one of the best places to look for alien life. But these stars have particularly tempestuous adolescent years — releasing intense bursts of radiation that blast nearby planets and bake off their surface water.

Our Sun’s adolescent phase was relatively short, but red dwarf stars spend much longer in this angsty transitional period. As a result, the planets under their wing suffer a runaway greenhouse effect where their climate is thrown into chaos. 

“We wanted to investigate whether these planets, after such a tumultuous upbringing, could rehabilitate themselves and go on to host surface water,” said lead author of the study, Claire Guimond, a PhD student in Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences.

The new research, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, shows that interior water could be a viable way to replenish liquid surface water once a planet’s host star has matured and dimmed. This water would likely have been brought up by volcanoes and gradually released as steam into the atmosphere, together with other life-giving elements.

Their new model allows them to calculate a planet’s interior water capacity based on its size and the chemistry of its host star. “The model gives us an upper limit on how much water a planet could carry at depth, based on these minerals and their ability to take water into their structure,” said Guimond.

The researchers found that the size of a planet plays a key role in deciding how much water it can hold. That’s because a planet’s size determines the proportion of water-carrying minerals it is made of.

Most of a planet’s interior water is contained within a rocky layer known as the upper mantle — which lies directly below the crust. Here, pressure and temperature conditions are just right for the formation of green-blue minerals called wadsleyite and ringwoodite that can soak up water. This rocky layer is also within reach of volcanoes, which could bring water back to the surface through eruptions.

The new research showed that larger planets — around two to three times bigger than Earth — typically have drier rocky mantles because the water-rich upper mantle makes up a smaller proportion of their total mass.

The results could provide scientists with guidelines to aid their search for exoplanets that might host life, “This could help refine our triaging of which planets to study first,” said Oliver Shorttle, who is jointly affiliated with Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences and Institute of Astronomy. “When we’re looking for the planets that can best hold water you probably do not want one significantly more massive or wildly smaller than Earth.”

The findings could also add to our understanding of how planets, including those closer to home like Venus, can transition from barren hellscapes to a blue marble. Temperatures on the surface of Venus, which is of a similar size and bulk composition to Earth, hover around 450oC and its atmosphere is heavy with carbon dioxide and nitrogen. It remains an open question whether Venus hosted liquid water at its surface 4 billion years ago.  “If that’s the case, then Venus must have found a way to cool itself and regain surface water after being born around a fiery sun,” said Shorttle, “It’s possible that it tapped into its interior water in order to do this.”

Reference:
Guimond, C. M., Shorttle, O., & Rudge, J. F. 'Mantle mineralogy limits to rocky planet water inventories'. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2023). DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stad148

In the search for life elsewhere in the Universe, scientists have traditionally looked for planets with liquid water at their surface. But, rather than flowing as oceans and rivers, much of a planet’s water can be locked in rocks deep within its interior.

We wanted to investigate whether these planets, after such a tumultuous upbringing, could rehabilitate themselves and go on to host surface waterClaire GuimondNASAWater worlds

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Researchers from the University of Cambridge conducted a study in a tech consultancy firm using two robot wellbeing coaches, where 26 employees participated in weekly robot-led wellbeing sessions for four weeks. Although the robots had identical voices, facial expressions, and scripts for the sessions, the physical appearance of the robot affected how participants interacted with it.

Participants who did their wellbeing exercises with a toy-like robot said that they felt more of a connection with their ‘coach’ than participants who worked with a humanoid-like robot. The researchers say that perception of robots is affected by popular culture, where the only limit on what robots can do is the imagination. When faced with a robot in the real world however, it often does not live up to expectations.

Since the toy-like robot looks simpler, participants may have had lower expectations and ended up finding the robot easier to talk and connect with. Participants who worked with the humanoid robot found that their expectations didn’t match reality, since the robot was not capable of having interactive conversations.

Despite the differences between expectations and reality, the researchers say that their study shows that robots can be a useful tool to promote mental wellbeing in the workplace. The results will be reported today (15 March) at the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction in Stockholm.

The World Health Organization recommends that employers take action to promote and protect mental wellbeing at work, but the implementation of wellbeing practices is often limited by a lack of resources and personnel. Robots have shown some early promise for helping address this gap, but most studies on robots and wellbeing have been conducted in a laboratory setting.

“We wanted to take the robots out of the lab and study how they might be useful in the real world,” said first author Dr Micol Spitale, from Cambridge’s Department of Computer Science and Technology.

The researchers collaborated with local technology company Cambridge Consultants to design and implement a workplace wellbeing programme using robots. Over the course of four weeks, employees were guided through four different wellbeing exercises by one of two robots: either the QTRobot (QT) or the Misty II robot (Misty).

The QT is a childlike humanoid robot and roughly 90cm tall, while Misty is a 36cm tall toy-like robot. Both robots have screen faces that can be programmed with different facial expressions.

“We interviewed different wellbeing coaches and then we programmed our robots to have a coach-like personality, with high openness and conscientiousness,” said co-author Minja Axelsson. “The robots were programmed to have the same personality, the same facial expressions and the same voice, so the only difference between them was the physical robot form.”

Participants in the experiment were guided through different positive psychology exercises by a robot in an office meeting room. Each session started with the robot asking participants to recall a positive experience or describe something in their lives they were grateful for, and the robot would ask follow-up questions. After the sessions, participants were asked to assess the robot with a questionnaire and an interview. Participants did one session per week for four weeks, and worked with the same robot for each session.

Participants who worked with the toy-like Misty robot reported that they had a better working connection with the robot than participants who worked with the child-like QT robot. Participants also had a more positive perception of Misty overall.

“It could be that since the Misty robot is more toy-like, it matched their expectations,” said Spitale. “But since QT is more humanoid, they expected it to behave like a human, which may be why participants who worked with QT were slightly underwhelmed.”

“The most common response we had from participants was that their expectations of the robot didn’t match with reality,” said Professor Hatice Gunes, who led the research. “We programmed the robots with a script, but participants were hoping there would be more interactivity. It’s incredibly difficult to create a robot that’s capable of natural conversation. New developments in large language models could really be beneficial in this respect.”

“Our perceptions of how robots should look or behave might be holding back the uptake of robotics in areas where they can be useful,” said Axelsson.

Although the robots used in the experiment are not as advanced as C-3PO or other fictional robots, participants still said they found the wellbeing exercises helpful, and that they were open to the idea of talking to a robot in future.

“The robot can serve as a physical reminder to commit to the practice of wellbeing exercises,” said Gunes. “And just saying things out loud, even to a robot, can be helpful when you’re trying to improve mental wellbeing.”

The team is now working to enhance the robot coaches’ responsiveness during coaching practices and interactions.

The research was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). Hatice Gunes is a Staff Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

Reference:
Micol Spitale, Minja Axelsson, and Hatice Gunes. ‘Robotic Mental Well-being Coaches for the Workplace: An In-the-Wild Study on Form.’ Paper presented to the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, Stockholm, Sweden, 13-16 March 2023.

Try a positive psychology session with the robots used in this research as part of the Cambridge Festival on Saturday, 18 March. 

Robots can be useful as mental wellbeing coaches in the workplace – but perception of their effectiveness depends in large part on what the robot looks like.

Our perceptions of how robots should look or behave might be holding back the uptake of robotics in areas where they can be usefulMinja AxelssonHatice GunesQT robot (left) and Misty robot (right)

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Yes

Team AlgaeSorb’s winning pitch persuaded a panel of innovation experts to award them the top prize of £1500 for an idea, which judge Dr Nicky Dee, Founder of climate-focused venture capital group Carbon13, described as “elegant”. 

“The Climate Challenge was an incredible opportunity to not only meet like-minded students, but learn invaluable skills on crafting and designing impact-driven projects,” said Team AlgaeSorb’s Anish Chaluvadi, a Gates-Cambridge Scholar and Nanoscience and Nanotechnology PhD student at King’s College. 

The team also includes Nanoscience and Nanotechnology PhD student Timothy Lambden (Girton College) and Tristan Spreng, a Natural Sciences Masters’ student (Trinity College) and President of the Cambridge University Energy Technology Society. 

“The Climate Challenge was one of the most exciting and well-organised events I got to attend during my four years at Cambridge," Spreng said. "From the breadth of speakers at the seminar sessions to exchanging ideas with other participants during the launch and final events, it was a truly amazing experience.” 

Eight teams gathered in the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership’s (CISL) newly retro-fitted Entopia building to pitch ideas ranging from using machine learning to create algorithms for flood risk to crunching satellite data for locating wall-mounted solar panels. 

The judging panel also included serial entrepreneur Simon Hombersley, Professor Jaideep Prabhu, the Jawaharlal Nehru Professor of Indian Business and Enterprise at the Cambridge Judge Business School, Lindsay Hooper, Executive Director of CISL and Chris Gibbs from the University’s technology transfer unit Cambridge Enterprise.  

Dr Dee said AlgaeSorb was a brilliant entry by a mixed team, which drew on different country experiences and expertise across chemistry, physics and materials sciences. 

“As a result they developed an elegant solution to tackle methane in the Global South where other landfill solutions are not available and in a way that supports the local communities,” she said. 

In between pitches, experts such as Professor Prabhu and Cambridge Zero Director Professor Emily Shuckburgh offered insights on sustainable innovation and its importance in the race to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and keep global temperatures below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Dr Amy Munro-Faure, Cambridge Zero’s Head of Education and Student Engagement led a quick game that mixed teams for spontaneous pitches, which resulted in a wild melange of ideas that included saving dolphins and travelling through time. 

The eight-week Climate Challenge programme is run in partnership with CISL Canopy, Carbon13, Energy IRC, Cambridge Enterprise, the Maxwell Centre and sponsored by Moda Living. Competing teams undertake training and develop early-stage proposals for solutions to tackle climate challenges in innovative ways.  

Each year there is a new theme. This year’s theme, “A Just Transition”, asked teams to consider the social impacts of their climate solutions.  

Two runner-up teams were awarded a prize of £750. FireSight, formed of Jovana Knezevic and Onkar Gulati, pitched a risk assessment and consulting service to address global wildfires using remote sensing and machine learning. Carolina Pulignani and Shannon A. Bonke of Wastevalor fascinated the judges with their technology that converts waste into methanol.  

Team Reckon, made up of Aparna Holenarasipura Sreedhara and Akanksha Sahay, won the Audience Choice Award for their software as a service platform entry. The software gives organisations the ability to measure the social impact of their climate transition plans.

Judges said the Climate Challenge was a powerful demonstration of how innovation and the determination to tackle climate change permeate every level of the Cambridge University community.  

“Helping build the entrepreneurial mindset in the University ecosystem is critical to the innovation agenda and particularly crucial for a true net zero where over half the innovations needed for 2050 are still in the lab,” Gibbs said.

A team of student entrepreneurs who see algae as a potential business solution for reducing methane emissions from landfill and waste-water sites won the 2023 Cambridge Zero Climate Challenge after a nail-biting competition. 

The climate challenge was one of the most exciting and well-organised events I got to attend during my four years at CambridgeTristan Spreng

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Yes

The Cambridge Bursary Scheme is available to students with residual household incomes up to £62,215. But we understand that there are further pressures impacting students and their families, so we have increased responsive funding for students who are experiencing financial hardship. Across the colleges and the University, a further £4.5m has been allocated for support in the current academic year, to benefit all students (undergraduate and postgraduate).

The University and colleges are introducing other measures, including subsidising the cost of food, such as at the University’s West Hub, and fixed price meals at a number of colleges. College rent increases have also been kept at below inflation rates, with student input into these decisions.

We also continue to monitor increases in the cost of living, and are actively considering ways to improve future support for students who are most likely to be impacted.

We will continue to work closely with the Russell Group and others to raise the issue of student support at government level.

We encourage any student who is struggling with the cost of living to speak to their college and access support.

We understand how the rising cost of living is affecting many of our students. Across the collegiate University we have a range of support available, in particular the Cambridge Bursary Scheme for undergraduates under which approximately £10m of funding can be accessed every year.

Ståle Eriksen The canteen at the University of Cambridge's West Hub offers subsidised lunch

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YesRelated Links: Financial support

The University of Cambridge was one of 27 Privileged Bodies – institutions and corporations that enjoy the historic right to present these to the Sovereign – presenting an Address. The Acting Vice-Chancellor introduced and delivered the text of the University’s Address to His Majesty, highlighting the role of the late Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, as the University's Chancellor for thirty-five years, and mentioning members of the Royal Family who are alumni, including the King.

In accordance with University regulations, the Acting Vice-Chancellor was accompanied by the Registrary and the Proctors. He was joined by other members of the University specially nominated for this occasion: the Master of Jesus College, the President of the Postdocs of Cambridge Society and the Presidents (Postgraduate and Undergraduate) of the University of Cambridge Students’ Union. The Esquire Bedells and the University Marshal also attended.

Responding to the Privileged Bodies, HM The King remarked: “Whether in the fields of education, science, or the arts, or whether as representatives of the faith communities or of civic organisations, you advance our knowledge and our understanding of how we relate to each other and the world about us. You underpin the very foundations upon which our country is built and help to construct a framework of excellence and achievement within which our civil society functions and our national narrative can be formed.”

The last time the University was invited to deliver a Loyal Address was in 2012, on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

A delegation, led by the Acting Vice-Chancellor, Dr Anthony Freeling, was at Buckingham Palace on Thursday, 9 March to deliver a Loyal Address to HM the King.

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Yes

Cambridge University Association Football Club (CUAFC) will wear an innovatively recycled football kit for the 37th Women’s Varsity Match and the 138th Men’s Varsity Match against Oxford University on Sunday 19th March.

The kits include shirts, shorts and socks made from OEKO-TEX certified recycled yarn, produced by recycling used plastic bottles. At the Varsity matches, CUAFC are wearing the equivalent of 2,500 plastic 0.5 litre bottles, approximately 30 bottles per player.

To produce the kits, post-consumer PET plastic bottles are first shredded into small pieces in a recycling plant and cleaned. The parts are melted and the resulting mass is pressed into the desired shape by extrusion. From this the yarn is produced and further processed into fabric which is used to make clothing. The result: Kits made entirely from plastic bottles. 

Matt Hawthorn, captain of the men's team, studying Land Economy at Pembroke College says: “We are proud, as the oldest football club in the world, to lead the way on sustainability in Cambridge sport by choosing kits made from recycled plastic bottles. As sports teams typically need to order new kits for each season and for the Varsity matches, this is a first step towards reducing our environmental footprint.”

Fran Steele, captain of the women’s team, studying Medicine at Wolfson College says: “CUAFC is incredibly excited to be wearing a sustainable kit at the Varsity Match 2023. As a club, we are proud to promote the use of recyclable sports kits, which can help to raise awareness about environmental issues and encourage others to adopt more sustainable practices. The use of this sports kit for this large event is a small but impactful way to contribute to a more sustainable and environmentally-conscious future.”

The kits have been developed by Appareal, a Swiss-based company whose mission is to provide sustainable clothing from recycled sources. It was co-founded four years ago by Andy Wright, who took up studying an Mst at Selwyn College in 2022. Having read the College’s Sustainability Charter, Mr Wright saw an opportunity to expand it through the use of sustainable sports clothing.

The men's and women's Varsity matches against Oxford University will take place on the 19th of March at the Breyer Group Stadium in Leyton, East London, home to League 2 leaders Leyton Orient. Tickets can be bought on the Leyton Orient website.

 

The men’s and women’s teams will tackle their annual Varsity matches in football kits made from 2,500 plastic bottles.

Dik NgCUAFC men's and women's football teams wear kit made of recycled plastic bottles

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YesLicence type: Attribution