News

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

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – 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.

YesLicence type: Attribution

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

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – 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

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

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

Researchers have ‘hacked’ the earliest stages of photosynthesis, the natural machine that powers the vast majority of life on Earth, and discovered new ways to extract energy from the process, a finding that could lead to new ways of generating clean fuel and renewable energy.

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

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.

YesLicence type: Attribution

The University contributes nearly £30 billion to the UK economy and supports more than 86,000 jobs across the UK, according to a new report.

In spring, female mussels were seen moving to the water’s edge and anchoring into the riverbed, with their back ends raised above the waterline.

Then they squirted out regular water jets, which landed in the water up to a metre away. Squirting cycles lasted 3-6 hours.

This behaviour has never been seen in any other mussel species.

The jets disturb the river surface and attract fish. Mussel larvae in the jets can then attach to the gills of the fish and complete their metamorphosis into adults.

“Who'd have thought that a mussel, that doesn't even have a head or a brain, knows to move to the river margin and squirt jets of water back into the river during springtime? It’s amazing!” said Professor David Aldridge in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology, lead author of the report published today in the journal Ecology.

Unlike other mussel species, Unio crassus has a limited range of suitable host fishes – including minnows and chub. These species were attracted to the falling water jets.

The researchers think the mussels squirt water jets to increase the chances of their larvae attaching to the right host fishes. By being squirted into the air and not the water, the larvae are propelled greater distances from the parent mussel.

The study was carried out during spring in the Biała Tarnowska River, Poland. Six squirts were collected from each mussel for analysis – which confirmed that they contained viable mussel larvae.

Before now, there was only anecdotal evidence of this behaviour. Some scientists thought the water jets might be a way for the mussels to expel faeces.

This behaviour could explain why Unio crassus is an endangered species. Climbing out of the water to squirt makes it vulnerable to floods, destruction of river margins, and predators like mink. And its need for specific host fishes links its survival to theirs.

Understanding how this species completes its life cycle is important for its conservation under changing environmental conditions.

Reference

Aldridge, D. C. et al: Fishing for hosts: larval spurting by the endangered thick-shelled river mussel, Unio crassus. Ecology, March 2023. DOI: 10.1002/ECY.4026 

Cambridge researchers have observed a highly unusual behaviour in the endangered freshwater mussel, Unio crassus.

 

Who'd have thought that a mussel, that doesn't even have a head or a brain, knows to move to the river margin and squirt jets of water back into the river during springtime?David Aldridge Spurting Mussel Movie Mussel squirting a water jet

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

This will help scientists to understand the basic principles by which signals travel through the brain at the neural level and lead to behaviour and learning.  

An organism's nervous system, including the brain, is made up of neurons that are connected to each other via synapses. Information in the form of chemicals passes from one neuron to another through these contact points.

The map of the 3016 neurons that make up the larva of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster’s brain, and the detailed circuitry of neural pathways within it, is known as a ‘connectome’.

This is the largest complete brain connectome ever to have been mapped. It is a huge advance on previous work to map very simple brain structures including the roundworm C. elegans, which only has several hundred neurons.

Imaging entire brains has until recently been extremely challenging. Now, technological advances allow scientists to image the entire brain of the fruit fly larvae relatively quickly using electron microscopy, and reconstruct the brain circuits from the resulting data.

The fruit fly larva has similar brain structures to the adult fruit fly and larger insects, and has a rich behavioural repertoire, including learning and action-selection.

“The way the brain circuit is structured influences the computations the brain can do. But, up until this point, we haven’t seen the structure of any brain except in very simple organisms,” said Professor Marta Zlatic at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology and the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC LMB).

Zlatic led the research together with Professor Albert Cardona at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience and the MRC LMB, and Dr Michael Winding at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology. The study, which also involved collaborators from both the UK and the US, is published today in the journal Science.

She added: “Until now, the actual circuit patterns involved in most brain computations have been unknown. Now we can start gaining a mechanistic understanding of how the brain works.”

Current technology is not yet advanced enough to map the connectome of more complex animals such as large mammals. But because all brains involve networks of interconnected neurons, the researchers say that their new map will be a lasting reference for future studies of brain function in other animals.

“All brains of all species have to perform many complex behaviours: for example they all need to process sensory information, learn, choose food, and navigate their environment. In the same way that genes are conserved across the animal kingdom, I think that the basic circuit patterns that drive these fundamental behaviours will also be conserved,” said Zlatic.

To build a picture of the fruit fly larva connectome, the team used thousands of slices of the larva’s brain imaged with a high-resolution electron microscope, to reconstruct a map of the fly’s brain - and painstakingly annotated the connections between neurons. As well as mapping the 3016 neurons, they mapped an incredible 548,000 synapses.

The researchers also developed computational tools to identify likely pathways of information flow and different types of circuit patterns in the insect’s brain. They found that some of the structural features are similar to state-of-the-art deep learning architecture.

“The most challenging aspect of this work was understanding and interpreting what we saw. We were faced with a complex neural circuit with lots of structure. In collaboration with Professor Priebe and Professor Vogestein’s groups at Johns Hopkins University, we developed computational tools to predict the relevant behaviours from the structures. By comparing this biological system, we can potentially also inspire better artificial networks,” said Zlatic.

“This is an exciting and significant body of work by colleagues at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology and others,” said Jo Latimer, Head of Neurosciences and Mental Health at the Medical Research Council.

She added: “Not only have they mapped every single neuron in the insect’s brain, but they’ve also worked out how each neuron is connected. This is a big step forward in addressing key questions about how the brain works, particularly how signals move through the neurons and synapses leading to behaviour, and this detailed understanding may lead to therapeutic interventions in the future.”

The next step is to delve deeper to understand, for example, the brain circuitry required for specific behavioural functions, such as learning and decision making, and to look at activity in the whole connectome while the insect is doing things.

Adapted from a press release by the Medical Research Council

Reference

Winding, M. et al: ‘The connectome of an insect brain.’ Science, 10 March 2023. DOI: 10.1126/science.add9330 

Researchers have built the first ever map showing every single neuron and how they’re wired together in the brain of the fruit fly larva.

Now we can start gaining a mechanistic understanding of how the brain works.Marta Zlatic Map of the fruit fly brain

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

For thousands of years, humanity and science have contemplated the origins of life in the Universe. While today’s scientists are well-equipped with innovative technologies, humanity has a long way to go before we fully understand the fundamental aspects of what life is and how it forms.

“We are living in an extraordinary moment in history,” said Professor Didier Queloz, who directs the Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe at Cambridge and ETH Zurich’s Centre for Origin and Prevalence of Life. While still a doctoral student, Queloz was the first to discover an exoplanet – a planet orbiting a star other than our Sun. The discovery led to him being awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics.

In the three decades since Queloz’s discovery, scientists have discovered more than 5,000 exoplanets. Trillions more are predicted to exist within our Milky Way galaxy alone. Each exoplanet discovery raises more questions about how and why life emerged on Earth and whether it exists elsewhere in the universe.

Technological advancements, such as the James Webb Space Telescope and interplanetary missions to Mars, give scientists access to huge volumes of new observations and data. Sifting through all this information to understand the emergence of life in the universe will take a big, multidisciplinary network.

In collaboration with chemist and fellow Nobel Laureate Jack Szostak and astronomer Dimitar Sasselov, Queloz announced the formation of such a network at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in Washington, DC. The Origins Federation brings together researchers studying the origins of life at Cambridge, ETH Zurich, Harvard University, and The University of Chicago.

Together, Federation scientists will explore the chemical and physical processes of living organisms and environmental conditions hospitable to supporting life on other planets. “The Origins Federation builds upon a long-standing collegial relationship strengthened through a shared collaboration in a recently completed project with the Simons Foundation,” said Queloz.

These collaborations support the work of researchers like Dr Emily Mitchell from Cambridge's Department of Zoology. Mitchell is co-director of Cambridge’s Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe and an ecological time traveller. She uses field-based laser-scanning and statistical mathematical ecology on 580-million-year-old fossils of deep-sea organisms to determine the driving factors that influence the macro-evolutionary patterns of life on Earth.

Speaking at AAAS, Mitchell took participants back to four billion years ago when Earth’s early atmosphere - devoid of oxygen and steeped in methane – showed its first signs of microbial life. She spoke about how life survives in extreme environments and then evolves offering potential astrobiological insights into the origins of life elsewhere in the universe.

“As we begin to investigate other planets through the Mars missions, biosignatures could reveal whether or not the origin of life itself and its evolution on Earth is just a happy accident or part of the fundamental nature of the universe, with all its biological and ecological complexities,” said Mitchell.

The founding centres of the Origins Federation are The Origins of Life Initiative (Harvard University), Centre for Origin and Prevalence of Life (ETH Zurich), the Center for the Origins of Life (University of Chicago), and the Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe (University of Cambridge).

The Origins Federation will pursue scientific research topics of interest to its founding centres with a long-term perspective and common milestones. It will strive to establish a stable funding platform to create opportunities for creative and innovative ideas, and to enable young scientists to make a career in this new field. The Origins Federation is open to new members, both centres and individuals, and is committed to developing the mechanisms and structure to achieve that aim.

“The pioneering work of Professor Queloz has allowed astronomers and physicists to make advances that were unthinkable only a few years ago, both in the discovery of planets which could host life and the development of techniques to study them,” said Professor Andy Parker, head of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory. “But now we need to bring the full range of our scientific understanding to bear in order to understand what life really is and whether it exists on these newly discovered planets. The Cavendish Laboratory is proud to host the Leverhulme Centre for Life in the Universe and to partner with the Origins Federation to lead this quest.”

Scientists from the University of Cambridge, ETH Zurich, Harvard University, and the University of Chicago have founded the Origins Federation, which will advance our understanding of the emergence and early evolution of life, and its place in the cosmos.

ETH Zurich/NASAL-R: Emily Mitchell, Didier Queloz, Kate Adamal, Carl Zimmer

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

Offering a tiny cash reward for accuracy, or even briefly appealing to personal integrity, can increase people’s ability to tell the difference between misinformation and the truth, according to a new study.

The findings suggest that fake news thrives on social media not only because people are tricked into believing it, but also due to a motivational imbalance: users have more incentive to get clicks and likes than to spread accurate content. 

Social psychologists from the University of Cambridge and New York University argue that their study, published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, highlights the “perverse incentives” driving shares on social media – particularly in “divisive political climates” such as the United States.

They say the psychological pull of pandering to one’s own “in-group” by attacking the other side of a social and political divide is a significant – and often neglected – factor for why so many believe and choose to spread misinformation, or disbelieve accurate news.  

The study involved four experiments with a total of over 3,300 people from the United States, with equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. The researchers offered half of participants up to one US dollar if they correctly pointed out true or false headlines, and compared the results to those offered no incentive.

This tiny sum was enough to make people 31% better at discerning true from fake news. The best results came when participants were asked to identify accurate news that benefited the opposing political party.

In fact, the financial incentive reduced partisan division between Republican and Democrat over the truthfulness of news by around 30%. The majority of this shift occurred on the Republican side.

For example, the offer of up to a dollar made Republicans 49% more likely to report that the accurate Associated Press headline ‘Facebook removes Trump ads with symbols once used by Nazis’ was indeed true. A dollar made Democrats 20% more likely to report the Reuters headline 'Plant a trillion trees: U.S. Republicans offer fossil-fuel friendly climate fix' as accurate.

However, in another experiment, researchers inverted the set-up to “mirror the social media environment” by paying participants to identify the headlines likely to get the best reception from members of the same political party. The ability to spot misinformation reduced by 16%.

“This is not just about ignorance of facts among the public. It is about a social media business model that rewards the spread of divisive content regardless of accuracy,” said lead author Dr Steve Rathje, who conducted the work while he was a Gates Cambridge Scholar.

“By motivating people to be accurate instead of appealing to those in the same political group, we found greater levels of agreement between Republicans and Democrats about what is actually true.”

Previous research by the same team has shown that attacking political rivals is one of the most effective ways to go viral on Twitter and Facebook.

“Shifting the motivations to post on social media could help rebuild some of the shared reality lost to political polarisation in many nations, including the United States,” said senior author Prof Sander van der Linden, director of the University of Cambridge’s Social Decision-Making Lab.    

In one of the study’s experiments, half the participants were simply exposed to a short piece of text reminding them that people value truth, and falsehoods can hurt reputations. They were also told they would receive feedback on accuracy rates.

While this did not have the same effect as a small pay out, it still increased the perceived accuracy of true but politically inconvenient news by 25% compared to a control group.

“A short piece of text nudging users to consider the social value of truth could be deployed at scale by social media corporations,” said van der Linden.   

Jay Van Bavel, Professor of Psychology at New York University and co-author of the study, said: “It is not possible to pay everyone on the internet to share more accurate information. However, we can change aspects of social media platform design to help motivate people to share content they know to be accurate.”

Providing incentives improved the accuracy of news judgements across the political spectrum, but had a much stronger effect on Republican voters.

The team point to previous research showing that Republicans tend to believe in and share more misinformation than Democrats. In the latest study, payment incentives brought Republicans far closer to the accuracy levels of Democrats – shrinking the political divide.  

“Recent lawsuits have revealed that Fox News hosts shared false claims about ‘stolen’ elections to retain viewers, despite privately disavowing these conspiracy theories. Republican media ecosystems have proved more willing to harness misinformation for profit in recent years,” said Van der Linden, author of the new book Foolproof: why we fall for misinformation and how to build immunity.

Researchers argue that the findings hold lessons for social media companies and the “perverse incentives” driving political polarisation online.

Shifting the motivations to post on social media could help rebuild some of the shared reality lost to political polarisationSander van der Linden

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

The pledge, made in 2020 by nine major UK game shooting and rural organisations, aims to protect the natural environment and ensure a safer supply of game meat for consumers. Lead is toxic even in very small concentrations, and discarded shot from hunting poisons and kills tens of thousands of the UK’s wild birds each year.

A Cambridge-led team of 17 volunteers bought whole pheasants from butchers, game dealers and supermarkets across the UK in 2022-23. They dissected the birds at home and recovered embedded shotgun pellets from 235 of the 356 pheasant carcasses.

The main metal present in each shotgun pellet was revealed through laboratory analysis - conducted at the Environmental Research Institute, University of the Highlands and Islands, UK. Lead was the main element in 94% of the recovered shot pellets; the remaining 6% were predominantly composed of steel or a metal called bismuth.

The results are published today in the Conservation Evidence Journal.

At the request of the Defra Secretary of State, the UK Health & Safety Executive assessed the risks to the environment and human health posed by lead in shots and bullets. Their report proposes that the use of lead ammunition be banned, and this is currently under review. While remaining committed to phasing out lead shot voluntarily, many shooting organisations do not support the proposed regulatory restrictions.

“If UK game hunters are going to phase out lead shot voluntarily, they’re not doing very well so far,” said Professor Rhys Green in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology, first author of the study.

He added: “The small decrease in the proportion of birds shot with lead in the latest UK shooting season is nowhere near on track to achieve a complete transition to non-toxic ammunition in the next two years.”

This is the third consecutive year the team has conducted the analysis. Their latest study shows a small improvement on the 2021/22 and 2021/20 shooting seasons, when over 99% of the pheasants studied were shot using lead ammunition.

In separate initiatives, some suppliers of game meat for human consumption - including Waitrose & Partners - have voluntarily announced their intention to stop selling game killed using lead shot. An assurance scheme has also been launched to encourage suppliers and retailers to facilitate the transition.

The team did not find any pheasant on sale in Waitrose in 2022/23 despite repeated visits to 15 different stores. Waitrose staff reported that the company had not been sufficiently assured by any supplier in 2022/23 that all pheasants had been killed using non-lead ammunition.

“Waitrose is the only retailer we know of fully complying with the pledge not to supply pheasant killed using lead, but it’s only managing this by not selling any pheasant at all,” said Green.

Steel shotgun pellets are a practical alternative to lead, and the vast majority of shotguns can use them or other safe lead-free alternatives. Shooting magazines and UK shooting organisations have communicated positive messages for three years about the effectiveness and practicality of non-lead shotgun ammunition.

Shooting and rural organisations - including the British Association for Shooting and Conservation and the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust - have consistently provided information and detailed guidance to encourage the transition from lead to non-lead ammunition since 2020.

“Denmark banned lead shotgun ammunition in 1996, and a successful transition was made to steel and bismuth. It’s safer for the environment and gives game shooting a better image,” said Green.

A previous study led by Green found that pheasants killed by lead shot contain many fragments of lead too small to detect by eye or touch, and too distant from the shot to be removed without throwing away a large proportion of otherwise useable meat. This means that eating pheasant killed using lead shot is likely to expose consumers to raised levels of lead in their diet, even if the meat is carefully prepared to remove whole shotgun pellets and the most damaged tissue.

Lead has been banned from use in paint and petrol for decades. It is toxic to humans when absorbed by the body and there is no known safe level of exposure. Lead accumulates in the body over time and can cause long-term harm, including increased risk of cardiovascular disease and kidney disease in adults. Lead is known to lower IQ in young children, and affect the neurological development of unborn babies.

Funding from the RSPB and Waitrose supported this work.

Reference

Green, R.E. et al: ‘Voluntary transition by hunters and game-meat suppliers from lead to non-lead ammunition: changes in practice after three years.’ Conservation Evidence Journal, February 2023. DOI 10.52201/CEJ19/SAFD8835

Three years into a five-year pledge to completely phase out lead shot in UK game hunting, a Cambridge study finds that 94% of pheasants on sale for human consumption were killed using lead.

If UK game hunters are going to phase out lead shot voluntarily, they’re not doing very well so farRhys GreenAndy Hay, RSPB imagesPheasant

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.

YesLicence type: Attribution-Noncommerical

The meal of choice for the Caribbean cleaner fish, the sharknose goby, is a platter of parasites, dead tissue, scales and mucus picked off the bodies of other fishes. By removing these morsels, gobies are offering their ‘cleaning services’ to other marine life – a famous example of a mutually beneficial relationship between species.

But new research from the University of Cambridge and Cardiff University shows that when gobies inadvertently set up shop within the territories of aggressive damselfish, damselfish scare off the gobies’ ‘choosy client customers’.

The study, published today in Behavioral Ecology, is an example of a largely unexplored phenomenon: a mutually beneficial relationship in nature being disrupted by a third party. 

Sharknose gobies work solo or band together and set up a ‘cleaning station’: a fixed location in a particular nook of coral reef, where other marine life burdened by parasites go to take advantage of the gobies’ dietary needs.

“Gobies wait at cleaning stations for customers to visit, similar to shops. And with customers, come the parasites,” said Dr Katie Dunkley, a behavioural ecologist at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology. “In return for providing a cleaning service the gobies receive a payment of food.”

Customers are varied and include parrotfish, surgeonfish and butterflyfish. These choosy client fish shop around, visiting different cleaning stations open for business. If interested, they will adopt a stationary pose that makes a clean more likely – typically a head or tail-stand position with all fins flared.

During a clean – which could last from a few seconds to several minutes – gobies make physical contact with the customer, removing parasites and other dead body tissue. This is known as ‘tactile stimulation’ and, as well as getting rid of parasites, it may act as a massage reducing the customer’s stress, says Dunkley. Previous research has established the importance of cleaners – their removal led to fewer numbers and less variety of fish species on reefs.

“Cleaning stations act as a marketplace, and if customers stop showing up, over time a cleaning station is going to go out of business,” said Dunkley.

Five researchers spent over 34 hours observing cleaning stations on a shallow fringing reef in Tobago over a period of six weeks. Equipped with snorkels and waterproof paper they recorded underwater interactions for 10-minute periods from 8am-5:15pm each day.

They found that client fish were less likely to go to cleaning stations that were more often patrolled by damselfish, who scared ‘intruders’ away. 

“I thought that damselfish might play a role as they visit cleaning stations too – although don’t often get cleaned – but to see just how influential they were was startling.

“Damselfish act like farmers as they weed out algae they don’t want, to encourage their preferred algae to grow. Damselfish are protective over their algal territories, and these antisocial fish spend a lot of time patrolling their territories, scaring away intruders through biting, attacking, chasing or threatening displays.”

Damselfish’s territories cover up to 70% of some reefs. On a healthy coral reef, a balance is maintained between algae and coral. But as reefs deteriorate and overfishing intensifies, algae thrive. As reefs deteriorate damselfish may become more common and/or aggressive – leading to fewer species receiving the goby cleaning treatment needed to keep them healthy, says Dunkley. This could ultimately contribute to the breakdown of delicate ecosystems supported by reefs.

“In future we’d like to tease out the motives of damselfish. Are they driven by wanting to protect their algae farms or monopolise cleaning stations?” said Dunkley, a Charles Darwin and Galapagos Islands Fund Junior Research Fellow at Christ’s College, Cambridge.

“Just as humans are connected through family, friends and colleagues, all fish are connected to each other. It’s important that we don’t just look at relationships in isolated bubbles. We need to step back and see how all fish are connected so that we can protect ecosystems like coral reefs.”

The study was funded by a Natural Environment Research Council GW4+ studentship and Christ’s College University of Cambridge Galapagos Islands Fund (both awarded to first author, Katie Dunkley). Last author, James Herbert-Read, was supported by the Whitten Lectureship in Marine Biology, and a Swedish Research Council Grant (2018–04076).

Dunkley et al, The presence of territorial damselfish predicts choosy client species richness at cleaning stations, Behavioral Ecology, DOI: doi.org/10.1093/beheco/arac122

Damselfish have been discovered to disrupt ‘cleaning services’ vital to the health of reefs. And climate change may mean this is only likely to get worse.

"We need to step back and see how all fish are connected so that we can protect ecosystems like coral reefs."Dr Katie Dunkley Secrets of the reef revealed

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

A global strategy is launched today to coordinate the complex research activities necessary for a new approach to coronavirus vaccine development. The aim is to develop more effective, longer lasting vaccines against continually emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants, and against new coronaviruses that may emerge in the future.

The Coronavirus Vaccines Research and Development Roadmap (CVR) is led by the US Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota. It is the product of an international collaboration of 50 scientific experts from around the world, who forged a unified strategy to make these critically needed vaccines a reality.

“The response of the scientific and medical communities to the development and delivery of COVID-19 vaccines has been incredible, but as new variants emerge and immunity begins to wane we need newer technologies. It’s vital that we continue to develop vaccine candidates to help keep us safe from the next virus threats,” said Professor Jonathan Heeney, Head of the Lab of Viral Zoonotics at the University of Cambridge and advisor on the international CVR Taskforce.

Heeney, who is also a Fellow at Darwin College, Cambridge, is leading an ongoing clinical trial to evaluate an innovative coronavirus vaccine he developed at the University of Cambridge and spin-out company DIOSynVax. Administered needle-free using a blast of air, the vaccine primes the immune system to give a broader protective response to coronaviruses and is a step towards developing a future-proofed coronavirus vaccine.

Last year DIOSynVax was awarded $42 million from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the UK Government to support this work.

“The COVID-19 pandemic marks the third time in just twenty years that a coronavirus has emerged to cause a public health crisis,” said Michael T. Osterholm, PhD, MPH, CIDRAP director, University of Minnesota Regents Professor and McKnight Presidential Endowed Chair in Public Health.

He added: “The COVID-19 pandemic taught us the hard lesson that we must be better prepared. Rather than waiting for a fourth coronavirus to emerge — or for the arrival of an especially dangerous SARS-CoV-2 variant — we must act now to develop better, longer lasting and more broadly protective vaccines. If we wait for the next event to happen before we act, we will be too late.”

The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 in 2019 was preceded by an epidemic in 2003 caused by a different coronavirus called SARS-CoV. Then, in 2012, the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, or MERS-CoV, emerged. Coronaviruses can carry a high risk of death: for MERS-CoV, about one third of infections result in death, and approximately one in ten for SARS-CoV, although neither spreads easily from person to person.

In contrast, SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic, has a much lower fatality rate, but because it is so highly infectious between people, it had caused worldwide more than 650 million confirmed cases and 6.6 million deaths by the end of 2022. Even more concerning is the threat of a new coronavirus in the future that could be both highly transmissible and highly lethal. In addition, the emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 variants may further jeopardise the significant protection provided by current vaccines against severe disease and death.

The CVR confronts these extraordinary threats with a detailed, comprehensive and coordinated plan to accelerate the development of long-lasting, broadly protective coronavirus vaccines capable of preventing severe disease and death, and potentially protect against infection and transmission. The CVR further emphasises the goal that future broadly protective vaccines must be suitable for all regions worldwide, including remote areas and low- and middle-income countries.

The report highlights different paths to success. One approach could involve a stepwise process, starting with vaccines to protect against variants of SARS-CoV-2. Another approach could focus on vaccines capable of protecting against multiple types of coronaviruses, including those likely to spill over from animals to humans in the future.

The CVR summarises key barriers and gaps and outlines specific goals and milestones for advancing broadly protective coronavirus vaccines. The work is organised into five topic areas:

• Virology. Developing broadly protective coronavirus vaccines requires learning more about the global distribution of coronaviruses circulating in animal reservoirs that have the potential to spill over to humans.
• Immunology. Scientists need to learn more about human immunology, including research that will expand the breadth and durability of immune protection from vaccines and natural infection. Improved understanding of mucosal immunity may unlock new strategies to block infection.
• Vaccinology. Identifying key preferred product characteristics will inform priorities and strategies for vaccine R&D and accelerate discovery. Leveraging new technologies and identifying the best methods to assess vaccine efficacy will further catalyse critical advancements.
• Animal and human infection models for vaccine research. The limited availability of a range suitable animal models is a key barrier to developing broadly protective coronavirus vaccines. Additionally, work is needed to explore the potential role for the safe and effective use of controlled human infection models in coronavirus vaccine research.
• Policy and financing. The successful development and global distribution of broadly protective coronavirus vaccines will require reinvigorating and sustaining a high level of political commitment and long-term investment in vaccine R&D and manufacturing.

“The vaccines that we currently have for COVID-19 are the most important tool that we have in our battle against the pandemic,” said Charlie Weller, PhD, Head of Prevention, Infectious Diseases, at the Wellcome Trust. “But we can do better – by developing vaccines that give us broader protection – protection against new variants, protection from coronaviruses that have not yet emerged but might cause the next pandemic. We can discover new ways to deliver vaccines, such as skin patches or intranasal vaccines – and maybe even vaccines that could block transmission. This roadmap creates the structured plan that will give us the tools we need to better protect ourselves, our families and our communities around the world.”

The report was developed with funding from The Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

A scientific webinar on the CVR is planned for Thursday, April 20, 2023, 10:00-11:00 EDT. Register for the webinar here.

Reference

Moore, K.A. "A Research and Development (R&D) Roadmap for Broadly Protective Coronavirus Vaccines: A Pandemic Preparedness Strategy." February 2023, Vaccine. DOI: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2023.02.032

Plan will accelerate a new approach to coronavirus vaccines research and development, to protect against COVID-19 variants and future pandemic threats from new coronaviruses

It’s vital that we continue to develop vaccine candidates to help keep us safe from the next virus threatsJonathan HeeneyAndriy Onufriyenko, GettyCOVID-19 variants

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.

YesLicence type: Attribution

Cambridge scientists gave new-born rats, which are naturally born prematurely, combined glucocorticoid steroids and statin therapy. The results, published today in Hypertension, show that the combined treatment led to the elimination of negative effects of steroids on the cardiovascular system while retaining their positive effects on the developing respiratory system.

Preterm birth (before 37 weeks) is one of the greatest killers in perinatal medicine today. One in ten babies is born preterm in high-income countries; this can increase to almost 40% in low- and middle-income countries.

Preterm babies are extremely vulnerable because they miss out on a crucial final developmental stage in which the hormone cortisol is produced and released exponentially into the unborn baby’s blood. Cortisol is vital to the maturation of organs and systems that are needed to keep the baby alive once born.

For example, in the lungs, cortisol ensures that they become more elastic. This allows the lungs to expand so the baby can take its first breath. Without cortisol the new-born lungs would be too stiff, which leads to respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) and could be fatal.

The established clinical treatment for any pregnancy threatened with preterm birth is glucocorticoid therapy, given via the mother before the baby is born and/or directly to the baby after birth. These synthetic steroids mimic the natural cortisol by speeding up the development of organs – including the lungs – which means the preterm baby is much more likely to survive.

Lead author Professor Dino Giussani from the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge said: “Glucocorticoids are a clear lifesaver, but the problem with steroids is that they speed up the maturation of all organs. For the baby’s lungs this is beneficial, but for the heart and circulation system it can be damaging – it resembles accelerated ageing.”

A previous clinical study by Professor Paul Leeson’s laboratory at Oxford University found that people who had been exposed to glucocorticoid therapy as unborn babies, via their mothers, showed measures of cardiovascular health typical of people a decade older.

Cambridge researcher Dr Andrew Kane, involved in the rat study, thought that this accelerated ageing could result from steroids causing oxidative stress Steroids lead to an imbalance of molecules known as free radicals, which result in a reduction in nitric oxide. Nitric oxide is very beneficial to the cardiovascular system – it increases blood flow and has anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.

To test if a lack of nitric oxide could be the origin of the adverse negative cardiovascular side-effects associated with glucocorticoid therapy, the researchers combined the steroid treatment with statins, which are widely used to lower cholesterol and are known to increase nitric oxide.

Researchers gave the synthetic steroid, dexamethasone, combined with the statin, pravastatin, to rat pups. There were three other groups – one receiving dexamethasone alone, one receiving pravastatin alone and a control group that received saline. Measures of respiratory and cardiovascular function were then taken when the rats had grown to ‘childhood’.

The Cambridge scientists found that steroids produced adverse effects on heart and blood vessels, and molecular indices associated with cardiovascular problems. But if statins were given at the same time, the rats were protected from these effects. Crucially, the statins did not affect any of the beneficial effects of steroids on the respiratory system.

“Our discovery suggests that combined glucocorticoid and statin therapy may be safer than glucocorticoids alone for the treatment of preterm babies,” said Professor Giussani.

“We’re not saying to stop using glucocorticoids, as they are clearly a life-saving treatment. We’re saying that to improve this therapy – to fine tune it – we could combine it with statins. This gives us the best of both worlds – we can maintain the benefits of steroids on the developing lungs, but ‘weed out’ their adverse side-effects on the developing heart and circulation, thereby making therapy much safer for the treatment of preterm birth.”

The team plan to replicate the experiment in sheep, which have a similar physiology to humans, before conducting human clinical trials.

The research was funded by the British Heart Foundation and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). Dr Andrew Kane was supported by the Frank Edward Elmore Fund and the James Baird Fund.

Giussani, DA et al. Combined statin and glucocorticoid therapy for the safer treatment of preterm birth. Hypertension; 1 Feb 2023; DOI: 10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.122.19647

Potentially life-saving steroids commonly given to preterm babies also increase the risk of long-term cardiovascular problems, but a new study in rats has found that if given in conjunction with statins, their positive effects remain while the potential negative side-effects are ‘weeded out’.

"We’re not saying to stop using glucocorticoids, as they are clearly a life-saving treatment. We’re saying that to improve this therapy – to fine tune it – we could combine it with statins."Mother is holding a tiny hand of her preterm baby that is in the NICU.

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

The ERC is the premier European funding organisation for excellent frontier research. This year it has awarded €657m in grants to 321 researchers across Europe.

Consolidator grants are given to excellent scientists, who have 7 to 12 years’ experience after their PhDs, to pursue their most promising ideas.

“ERC Consolidator grants support researchers at a crucial time of their careers, strengthening their independence, reinforcing their teams and helping them establish themselves as leaders in their fields,” said President of the European Research Council Professor Maria Leptin. “And this backing above all gives them a chance to pursue their scientific dreams.”

Cambridge awardees:

Dr Eloy De Lera Acedo, of the Department of Physics, has been awarded a grant for REACH_21: Probing the Cosmic Dawn and Epoch of Re-ionization with the REACH experiment.

Dr Daniel Hodson, of the Department of Haematology, has been awarded a grant for Unwind-Lymphoma: RNA helicases; switched paralogue dependency as an exploitable vulnerability in aggressive B cell lymphoma.

Hodson said: “This ERC-funded project, Unwind Lymphoma, will explore sex-specific, cancer cell addiction to the DDX3 family of RNA helicases, proteins that unwind secondary structure in mRNA.

“We will develop recent findings from our lab showing that whilst most male Burkitt lymphoma cells have deleted the X-chromosome gene DDX3X, they instead become uniquely addicted to the Y-chromosome paralogue DDX3Y, a related protein that is silenced in most normal cells. By unravelling the molecular basis of this ‘switched paralogue dependency’ we will expose a potential therapeutic Achilles Heel in this devastating form of blood cancer.

“I am thrilled to receive this award, which I hope will take me one step closer to a tenured position in Cambridge or beyond.”

Sohini Kar-Narayan, Professor of Device and Energy Materials of the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, has been awarded a grant for BIOTRONICA: Bio-Electronic Integrated Devices for Healthcare Applications.

Kar-Narayan said: “My research focuses on the development and characterisation of novel functional polymers and nanocomposites, and their application in functional devices using microscale additive manufacturing methods. It covers novel energy harvesting nanomaterials to microfluidic biosensors, to materials and devices for next-generation flexible and wearable electronics.

“I am absolutely delighted to have been awarded a Consolidator Grant to develop new tools for remote health monitoring and personalised medicine. These include novel non-invasive ‘point-of-care’ biosensors, which could potentially be self-powered through energy harvested from the body, thus enabling a step change in health monitoring and patient care.”

Dr Elisa Laurenti, University Associate Professor in Stem Cell Medicine and Wellcome Royal Society Sir Henry Dale Fellow of the Wellcome Medical Research Council Cambridge Stem Cell Institute and Department of Haematology, has been awarded a grant for HEXAGEN: Harnessing haematopoietic stem cell EX vivo Adaptation for GENe therapy.

Laurenti said: “Blood stem cell-based gene therapy has the potential to cure an expanding range of debilitating genetic diseases. HEXAGEN seeks to further improve gene therapies and their outcomes by overcoming the loss of stem cell function observed in current clinical protocols. Using cutting edge single cell technologies, we aim to identify how blood stem cells adapt to the invitro environment, dissect how this negatively impacts their function, and design new strategies to improve gene therapy.

“This award gives my team the unique opportunity to be ambitious and complete a full circle from basic stem cell biology to improving gene therapy for patients with many diseases. I am very excited, because unlocking blood stem cell behaviour outside our bodies will also drive many other clinical applications.”

Dr Naomi McGovern, of the Department of Pathology and the Centre for Trophoblast Research, has been awarded a grant for PMDR: Placental macrophages: Their development and role in the placenta.

McGovern said: “My team’s research focus is human placental macrophage biology. We are interested in determining the role of these cells in mediating healthy placental function and in protecting the placenta from infection. By developing our understanding of these cells, we will be able to provide new insight into pregnancy disorders.

“I am delighted that our proposal was selected for an ERC Consolidator Award. It is an acknowledgement of the exciting research my team carries out. The hard work of my team and the additional expertise provided by our supportive collaborators all helped to form the basis for this proposal. The award will provide my group with the time and resources to undertake high-risk research to inform on placental biology. It is now up to us to deliver on this generous investment.”

Professor Robert Phipps, of the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, has been awarded a grant for IonPairEnantRadical: Transforming Enantioselective Radical Chemistry using Ion-Pairing Catalysis.

Phipps said: “Chemical reactions that are driven by radical mechanisms are rapidly growing in importance, but it is an ongoing challenging to control enantioseletivity in those that form stereocentres. This grant will fund an ambitious program which will apply innovative and unexplored ion-pairing strategies to control enantioselectivity in a variety of important radical chemistries for which there are no or limited existing methods for imposing enantiocontrol.

“I am extremely grateful that my proposal was selected for funding in this very competitive call. I am excited about the chemistry that my group will be able to explore over the coming five years with this fantastic opportunity!”

Akshay Rao, Professor of Physics of the Cavendish Laboratory in the Department of Physics, has been awarded a grant for SPICE: Spin-Exchange and Energy Transfer at Hybrid Molecular/Lanthanide Nanoparticle Interfaces to Control Triplet Excitons.

Rao said: “Our project, SPICE, will explore the physics and chemistry of a new class of hybrid materials, organic molecules connected to lanthanide doped nanoparticles.

“Although we are still at an early stage of research, if we succeed it may create transformative applications in areas ranging from optoelectronics, data communication, photocatalysis, optogenetics and 3D bio-printing. Over the long term this kind of blue-sky science is what drives technological innovation helping to drive improved productivity in industry, but also directly tacking major societal challenges such as climate change and health.

“We are delighted that our project has received the support of the European Research Council. This is a great opportunity for us to pursue high-risk high-gain blue-sky science and push the limits of our understanding of these materials and take them towards application. The award also serves as recognition of the excellent science done by our PhD students and postdoctoral researchers, who’s tireless efforts to push the scientific frontier have made possible the breakthroughs that have brought us here.”

Dr Milka Sarris, Assistant Professor of the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience, was awarded a grant for LongWayFromFlam: The uncharted journeys of inflammatory cells and their functional implications.

Sarris said: “My group studies how cells of the immune system move in the body to generate and resolve inflammatory responses. To study these processes, we use state of the art microscopy techniques and genetic approaches in zebrafish, a small vertebrate model organism.

“I am absolutely thrilled to have won this award at a key stage of my career and to be able to pursue an ambitious new line of fundamental research. It was a long process and I remain very grateful to my university colleagues, the peer reviewers and the evaluation committee for their feedback.”

Eight researchers from the University of Cambridge have won European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grants

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

The grant, from Bill & Melinda Gates Agricultural Innovations (Gates Ag One), will enable researchers led by the University of Cambridge Crop Science Centre to engineer plants to take advantage of naturally occurring interactions with micro-organisms – fungi and bacteria – that help in the uptake of nutrients from the soil and air.

“African agriculture is at an inflection point, with vastly increasing demand at a time when supply is at risk, especially due to a changing climate,” said Giles Oldroyd, Director of the Crop Science Centre and Russell R Geiger Professor of Crop Science.

“The outcomes of this work have the potential to see gains as great as those from the Green Revolution, but without relying on costly and polluting inorganic fertilisers.

“Increasing sustainable production of crops in small-holder farming systems, like those in sub-Saharan Africa, directly addresses some of the worst poverty on the planet.”

Nutrients are vital to the success of crops. However, the land of small-scale farmers in sub-Saharan Africa is depleted of nutrients. Artificial fertilisers are too expensive for small-scale farmers to buy, and their livestock numbers too low to produce sufficient levels of manure to nourish their crops. This leads to deceasing yields overtime, which affects livelihoods. Average maize productivity in sub-Saharan Africa is less than a quarter of that in the USA.

The Engineering the Nitrogen Symbiosis for Africa (ENSA) research programme utilises natural symbioses between plants, soil fungi and bacteria, that deliver nutrients to the plant. By leveraging these relationships ENSA aims to engineer crops to make better use of nutrients already present in the air and the soil. This would allow sustainable increases in crop yields, potentially revolutionising smallholder farming in low-and-middle-income-countries, while providing a viable solution to sustainable and secure food production in high-income countries.

The grant funds the Engineering the Nitrogen Symbiosis for Africa (ENSA) research programme. ENSA is a Cambridge-led international collaboration with partners: University of Oxford, UK; NIAB, UK; Royal Holloway University of London, UK; Aarhus University, Denmark; Wageningen University and Research, The Netherlands; University of Freiburg, Germany; University of Toulouse III Paul Sabatier, France; University of Illinois, USA; Pennsylvania State University, USA.

A not-for-profit subsidiary of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Gates Ag One was created to leverage global crop science to meet the needs of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. It focuses on accelerating research that enhances the biological processes of six priority food crops: cassava, cowpea, maize, rice, sorghum, and soybean.

“The pioneering work of ENSA is fundamental to levelling the playing field for smallholder farmers in Africa, leveraging the latest crop technology to ensure all communities have the chance to thrive,” said Joe Cornelius, CEO of Gates Ag One. “Breakthrough advances in crop science and innovation mean intractable challenges like nutrient uptake and soil health need not hold back agricultural development. We’re delighted that Gates Ag One can support ENSA to continue its work to meet the needs of smallholder farmers.”

A Cambridge-led consortium has received US$35m (£28m) over five years to develop sustainable solutions to increasing the yields of small-scale farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, without the need for costly and polluting inorganic fertilisers.

Increasing sustainable production of crops in small-holder farming systems, like those in sub-Saharan Africa, directly addresses some of the worst poverty on the planet.Giles OldroydThe Crop Science CentreChecking the progress of an ENSA related field trial of barley in Cambridge

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

Research led by Cambridge scientists, and published in Nature Food, shows that tropical small-scale octopus fisheries offer a sustainable source of food and income to communities that face food insecurity, where the prevalence of undernourishment can exceed 40% and stunting in children under five commonly exceeds 30%. 

The high micronutrient density of octopus - including vitamin B12, copper, iron and selenium - means that human populations only need to eat a small quantity to supplement a diet primarily comprising staple plant crops. The new research shows that just a small amount of production in a tropical small-scale octopus fishery can deliver the micronutrient needs to a relatively large number of people.

The fast growth and adaptability of octopuses to environmental change can also facilitate sustainable production, and catch methods in the fisheries - primarily consisting of hand techniques, small-scale lines, pots and traps - are less environmentally harmful than those of large industrial fishing.

Dr David Willer, lead author, from the Department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow at Murray Edwards College, said: “Worldwide, nearly half of people’s calories come from just three crops – rice, wheat, and maize - which are high energy, but relatively low in key nutrients. Just a small serving of something very, very micronutrient rich, like octopus, can fill critical nutritional gaps. And, of course, if you get better nutrition as a child you’re much more physically and mentally prepared for later life, which can lead to better jobs, better employment and better social development.

“These small fisheries also provide an income and a livelihood, often to women whose economic status is enhanced as a result. Small-scale octopus fisheries revolve around local communities and potentially that gives them a greater resilience against market pressures and other disruptions to global food supply and trade.”

Small-scale fisheries, across all sectors, currently provide more than two-thirds of the fish and seafood destined for human consumption worldwide, and employ over 90% of fishers involved in capture fisheries. 47% of the workforce employed in these fisheries are women.

Based on a global review of data from global seafood databases and published literature, and written in partnership with science-led social enterprise Blue Ventures, the research found that in many cases tropical small-scale octopus fisheries are operating using relatively low impact techniques, and when combined with local and national management approaches can provide a more sustainable source of seafood. Successful approaches include periodic fishery closures, size restrictions, and licences. The need for knowledge transfer of fishing gears is also crucial so that the message on fish sustainability and securing the food supply and economic stability is spread widely. 
 

Undernourished coastal communities in the tropics - where children’s growth can be stunted by a lack of micronutrients – can get the vitamins and minerals they need from sustainable small-scale octopus fisheries, say researchers.

Just a small serving of something very, very micronutrient rich, like octopus, can fill critical nutritional gaps.Dr David Willer, Department of ZoologyBlue Ventures

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

Incentivising farmers to restore some land as habitats for nature could deliver UK climate and biodiversity targets at half the taxpayer cost of integrating nature into land managed for food production, according to a new study published today in the British Ecological Society journal People and Nature.

The research, led by the universities of Cambridge, Leeds and Glasgow, provides the first evidence for the taxpayer savings offered by focusing food production in certain areas to allow the creation of new woods, wetland and scrub habitats on some of the land currently used for farming.

The study suggests that this 'land sparing' approach would cost just 48% of the funds required to achieve the same outcomes for biodiversity and the climate through an approach known as 'land sharing', where conservation measures get mixed into farming by adding hedgerows to fields, reducing pesticides, and so on – all of which lowers food yield.

Additionally, researchers say that trying to share land with nature through making farming more wildlife-friendly would see the UK lose 30% more of its food production capacity than if farmers are encouraged to spare portions of land entirely for creating semi-natural habitats.

The UK Government has legally binding commitments to reverse nature declines by 2030 and reach net-zero carbon by 2050. Sparing land for habitats could hit these targets at half the cost of trying to farm on land shared with nature, say researchers.

“Currently, only a fraction of the £3.2 billion of public money annually paid to farmers goes on biodiversity and climate mitigation, some £600m a year,” said Lydia Collas, who led the study as part of her PhD at Cambridge University’s Department of Zoology.

“Almost all this fraction of funding supports land-sharing approaches that may do little to benefit species or sequester carbon, but do typically reduce food yields. Until now there has been no research on whether this is the most cost-effective solution to delivering environmental targets.”

Cambridge’s Prof Andrew Balmford, senior author of the study, said: “Greater incentives for farmers to create woodlands and wetlands will deliver for wild species and climate mitigation at half the cost to the taxpayer of the land-sharing approach that currently receives ten times more public funding.”

The researchers say their findings – presented at the British Ecological Society’s annual meeting by study co-author Prof Nick Hanley, an environmental economist from the University of Glasgow – should inform the current Brexit-prompted rethink of England’s new Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMs).

The Landscape Recovery strand of the ELM is set to receive under 1% of the overall budget next year – a dramatic underspend considering the economic, environmental and food security benefits of a habitat creation approach, argue the scientists.

They say that the revamped Countryside Stewardship Scheme would also deliver far better value for money if it supports farmers to create habitats for nature instead of repeating the largely 'wildlife-friendly' approach of the scheme in its current form. 

“If a two-fold cost saving was identified in other government policy areas, such as health, there would be an outcry,” said Collas, “particularly in the face of the worst recession in a generation.”

The researchers conducted a choice experiment study with 118 farmers responsible for 1.7% of all England’s arable land, asking them to estimate the payments they would require to implement land-sharing practices or habitat-creating 'sparing' approaches on their land.

Farmers chose from a variety of agricultural approaches, nature interventions and, crucially, payment rates. The study also considered the government's costs of administering and monitoring these schemes.

The team used three bird species – yellowhammers, bullfinches and lapwings – as a proxy for effects on biodiversity, as well a range of ways farmers could help slow climate change, such as woodland and hedgerow creation.

On average, farmers in the experiment accepted lower payments per hectare for land sharing practices. However, habitat creation schemes deliver far greater environmental outcomes per hectare, so creating woodlands, wetlands and scrublands would deliver the same overall biodiversity and climate mitigation benefits at half the cost to the taxpayer.

“We found that enough farmers are willing to substantially change their business to benefit from payments for public goods in the form of habitats, provided the government rewards them properly for doing so,” said Balmford.

Collas, now a Policy Analyst at Green Alliance, added: “Existing evidence already shows that semi-natural habitats deliver far more biodiversity and climate mitigation per unit area, and creating them has far less impact on food production than meeting targets through land sharing.

“This evidence is dismissed when thinking about agricultural policy in the UK because of an untested assumption that farmers are unwilling to create natural habitat. We now have evidence showing this assumption is wrong.”

Study of farmer preferences shows that turning whole areas of farmland into habitats comes with half the price tag of integrating nature into productive farmland, if biodiversity and carbon targets are to be met.

Semi-natural habitats deliver far more biodiversity and climate mitigation per unit areaLydia CollasGetty imagesDrone view of agricultural field - a tractor is baling hay next to woodland

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

24 things we learned in 2022.

In research published in Nature Communications, scientists show that the omicron variant of the virus is immunologically distinct from other variants such as the vaccine variant and the alpha and delta variants – that is, exposure to it has a different effect on the neutralising antibody response and hence protection to other variants. But also, sub-variants of omicron are themselves distinct from each other. Their research further suggests that a combination of infection plus vaccination could provide increased protection against future variants.

Since SARS-CoV-2 was first identified in 2020, new variants of the virus have emerged as its genetic code evolves. Some of these variants threaten to spread faster, be more virulent or evade the protection of the vaccine – these are known as ‘variants of concern’.

Antonia Netzl, a PhD student at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, together with colleagues at Cambridge and Innsbruck, analysed data on people’s immune responses to different variants and vaccinations. They used these to create ‘antigenic maps’ and ‘antibody landscapes’ to explore the differences between variants.

A more recent variant of concern is the omicron variant, but since its emergence in December 2021 several sub-lineages have evolved, including BA.1, BA.2, BA.4, BA.5, and BA.2.12.1. Of these, BA.5 became the dominant variant in many countries earlier this year, though new dominant variants have subsequently supplanted it.

Netzl and colleagues found, using their maps, that not only was omicron immunologically distinct from alpha and delta, but its sub-variants BA.1, BA.2 and BA.5 were also distinct from each other. The antibody landscapes, an illustration of people’s immune profile, allowed the researchers to see how vaccination and/or infection with another variant increased virus neutralisation against other viruses.

Netzl, a Gates Cambridge Scholar, said: “We found that people who had been exposed to BA.1 were better protected against BA.2, but the reverse wasn’t true.

“But the good news was that we also found that two distinct exposures – for example, vaccination plus infection with a different variant – increased antibody levels against all variants. So, people who had been vaccinated and then infected with delta, for example, were better protected against omicron than those who had only been vaccinated or infected and not both.”

Netzl says this suggests that an update of the vaccine variant will be beneficial for increasing antibody levels and thereby offering some protection against all currently circulating variants as well as yet-unknown variants.

“Our work suggests that an update of the vaccine variant will be beneficial for increasing antibody levels and thereby protection against all currently circulating variants. The bivalent vaccines, which contain the original prototype variant and an omicron variant in a single vaccine dose, could provide this increased protection.”

The findings are supported by clinical trials and have already been put into practice with the roll-out of the bivalent Prototype+omicron BA.4/5 and Prototype+omicron BA.1 vaccines. 

Although infection by multiple different variants gives the unvaccinated protection too, Netzl points out that vaccinations offer effective protection and reduce the severity of infection.

“People should still make sure they get themselves vaccinated, even if they have already had COVID once. Vaccination is important for boosting our immune response and thereby reducing the risk of infection and symptom severity.”

Netzl said the research, alongside the real-world clinical trials, gives a strong basis to the investigations in vaccine development and design.

This research was carried out at the University of Cambridge and the Janine Kimpel Group at the University of Innsbruck. The co-lead authors were Antonia Netzl and Annika Rössler.

Reference
Rössler, A, Netzl, A, et al. BA.2 and BA.5 omicron differ immunologically from both BA.1 omicron and pre-omicron variants. Nat Comm; 13 Dec 2022; DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-35312-3

COVID-19 vaccinations that combine two or more distinct variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus could offer protection against both current and future ‘variants of concern’, say scientists at the University of Cambridge and Medical University of Innsbruck.

Our work suggests that an update of the vaccine variant will be beneficial for increasing antibody levels and thereby protection against all currently circulating variantsAntonia NetzlSamuelFrancisJohnsonCoronavirus

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.

YesLicence type: Public Domain