The findings suggest that it is possible to recover from the disease without intensive lifestyle interventions or extreme calorie restrictions.

Type 2 diabetes affects 400 million people worldwide and increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, blindness and amputations. While the disease can be managed through a combination of positive lifestyle changes and medication, it is also possible for the high blood glucose levels that define diabetes to return to normal – through significant calorie restriction and weight loss. An intensive low-calorie diet involving a total daily intake of 700 calories (less than one cheeseburger) for 8 weeks has been associated with remission in almost nine out of ten people with recently diagnosed diabetes and in a half of people with longstanding disease.

However, there is little evidence to show whether the same effect can be achieved by people undergoing less intensive interventions, which are more feasible and potentially scalable to the wider population. To answer this question, a team led by researchers at the University of Cambridge studied data from the ADDITION-Cambridge trial, a prospective cohort study of 867 people with newly diagnosed diabetes aged 40 and 69 years recruited from general practices in the eastern region.

The research was funded by Wellcome, the Medical Research Council and the National Institute for Health Research.

The researchers found that 257 participants (30%) participants were in remission at five-year follow-up. People who achieved weight loss of 10% or more within the first five years after diagnosis were more than twice as likely to go into remission compared to people who maintained the same weight.

“We’ve known for some time now that it’s possible to send diabetes into remission using fairly drastic measures such as intensive weight loss programmes and extreme calorie restriction,” says Dr Hajira Dambha-Miller from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care.

“These interventions can be very challenging to individuals and difficult to achieve. But, our results suggest that it may be possible to get rid of diabetes, for at least five years, with a more modest weight loss of 10%. This will be more motivating and hence more achievable for many people.”

Senior author Professor Simon Griffin of the MRC Epidemiology Unit added: “This reinforces the importance of managing one’s weight, which can be achieved through changes in diet and increasing physical activity. Type 2 diabetes, while a chronic disease, can lead to significant complications, but as our study shows, can be controlled and even reversed.”

In order to clarify the best way to help patients with type 2 diabetes achieve sustained weight loss, the team is currently undertaking a study called GLoW (Glucose Lowering through Weight management). The study compares the current education programme offered by the NHS to people after they have been diagnosed, with a programme delivered by WW (formerly Weight Watchers®). The team is looking to recruit individuals who have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes within the last three years, have not attended a structured education programme and are able to visit one of our testing centres in Wisbech, Ely or Addenbrooke’s Hospital. Further details can be found at the GLOW Study website.

Reference
Dambha-Miller, H et al. Behaviour change, weight loss and remission of type 2 diabetes: a community based prospective cohort study. Diabetic Medicine; DOI: 10.1111/dme.14122

Our DNA, the human genome, comprises of a string of molecules known as nucleotides. These are represented by the letters A, C, G and T. Sometimes, changes occur in the ‘spelling’ of our DNA – an A becomes a G, for example. These changes, known as mutations, can be caused by a number of factors, some spontaneous, others environmental, such as exposure to tobacco smoke or to ultraviolet light, and all leave characteristic signatures on the genome.

As cells divide and multiply, they make copies of their DNA, so any spelling mistakes will be reproduced. Over time, the number of errors accumulates, leading to uncontrolled cell growth – the development of tumours.

Whole genome sequencing (WGS) is a technique that involves reading the entire genetic blueprint of a cancer cell and comparing it to a patient’s healthy cells to see how the DNA has mutated. By studying all the mutations present in a whole cancer genome and seeking all the signatures in them, it is possible to identify the various factors that have acted upon the tumour.

To understand whether WGS might be useful in a clinical setting, Cambridge researchers teamed up with colleagues in Sweden running a population-wide project called SCAN-B, which has been recruiting all women diagnosed with breast cancer in the South of Sweden since 2010. This was critical as SCAN-B has a large amount of clinical outcome data.

This international collaboration of researchers used WGS to analyse tumours from patients who had been diagnosed as having triple negative breast cancers. These cancers are so-called because they lack three key molecules known as receptors. They account for around 9% of breast cancers and are associated with poorer outcomes. They are also more common amongst women with African and Asian ancestry.

“Whole genome sequencing gives us a complete view of the cancer genome. It reveals many things that we couldn’t see previously, because we simply did not look for them,” explains Dr Serena Nik-Zainal from the Medical Research Council Cancer Unit at the University of Cambridge, who led the study.

“Having a complete cancer genome map for each patient helps us to understand what has caused each patient’s tumour and treat each individual more effectively. Previously, it was like going on a voyage with only a limited map, but now, with whole genome sequencing we have a much better, more detailed map and know the best route to reach our destination.”

The researchers then applied a machine learning algorithm called HRDetect, which they had previously developed to identify tumours with signatures caused by mutations in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes. Having a variant of either of these two genes greatly increases an individual’s risk of developing breast cancer and a relatively new class of anti-cancer drug called PARP-inhibitors have been developed specifically for these tumours. HRDetect scores had previously suggested that a greater proportion of women in the general population could have tumours that are very similar to BRCA1/BRCA2-mutant cancers. 

Taking the scores, the team categorised each patient as either high, intermediate or low scoring.

Patients who scored highly were those that had the best outcomes using current treatments for triple negative breast cancers – they are also most likely to respond to PARP inhibitors.

Surprisingly, those with intermediate scores had the poorest outcomes. Current triple negative breast cancer treatments had limited effectiveness suggesting that new approaches would be necessary to tackle these cancers. However, the genetic changes and signatures revealed through WGS gave clues to the mechanisms driving these tumours, which in turn may help inform the development of new drugs.

Those patients with low scores also have poor outcomes, though not as badly as those in the intermediate group. However, the WGS profile in some of these tumours suggested biological abnormalities that could potentially be targeted by existing drugs or drugs currently going through clinical trials, such as so-called checkpoint inhibitors or AKT inhibitors.

“Using whole genome sequencing, we can truly discriminate tumours that may or may not respond to current drugs among triple negative breast cancer patients, a type of breast cancer that we still struggle to treat well,” says first author Dr Johan Staaf from the Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Sweden.

“But importantly, this approach also gives us clues to some of the mechanisms that are going wrong in the poor-outcome tumours, and hence how we might treat those tumours differently or how we might develop new drugs.”

The speed of sequencing technology has progressed such that WGS can be carried out in 24 hours, with another 24-48 hours for analysis of the data. In theory, therefore, it should be possible to offer whole genome screening as a matter of course to all patients, allowing a personal readout of their tumour and potential treatment options.

“The potential for whole genome sequencing to open up a personalised approach to treating cancer is huge,” says Dr Nik-Zainal. “In the past, the cost and issues with managing the huge volume of data created barriers to its widespread application. But we are moving closer to a time where it can be routinely offered to all patients, with the potential to transform the management of even difficult-to-treat cancers.”

Reference
Staaf, J. et al. Whole-genome-sequencing of triple negative breast cancers in a population-based clinical study. Nature Medicine; 30 Sept 2019; DOI: 10.1038/s41591-019-0582-4

In astudy published today in the journal PNAS, researchers at the University of Cambridge developed novel computational models of the meanings of words, and tested these directly against real-time brain activity in volunteers.

“Our ability to put words into context, depending on the other words around them, is an immediate process and it’s thanks to the best computer we’ve ever known: the brain in our head. It’s something we haven’t yet managed to fully replicate in computers because it is still so poorly understood,” said Lorraine Tyler, Director of the Centre for Speech, Language and the Brain at the University of Cambridge, which ran the study.

Central to understanding speech are the processes involved in what is known as ‘semantic composition’ – in which the brain combines the meaning of words in a sentence as they are heard, so that they make sense in the context of what has already been said. This new study has revealed the detailed real-time processes going on inside the brain that make this possible.

By saying the phrase: “the elderly man ate the apple” and watching how the volunteers’ brains responded, the researchers could track the dynamic patterns of information flow between critical language regions in the brain.

As the word ‘eat’ is heard, it primes the brain to put constraints on how it interprets the next word in the sentence: ‘eat’ is likely to be something to do with food. The study shows how these constraints directly affect how the meaning of the next word in the sentence is understood, revealing the neural mechanisms underpinning this essential property of spoken language – our ability to combine sequences of words into meaningful expressions, millisecond by millisecond as the speech is heard.

“The way our brain enables us to understand what someone is saying, as they’re saying it, is remarkable,” said Professor Tyler. “By looking at the real-time flow of information in the brain we’ve shown how word meanings are being rapidly interpreted and put into context.”

This research is funded by the European Research Council.

Reference
Lyu, B. et al; How context drives meaning: The neural dynamics of semantic composition. PNAS (2019). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1903402116

Professor Stephen J Toope set out a plan of action based on three overarching objectives.

The first is to see the University of Cambridge retain its reputation as a global leader in interdisciplinary discovery and innovation, the second is to ensure its rigorous education is increasingly open to talented students from all backgrounds and the third is to make extraordinary contributions that address the fundamental issues facing society.

As part of plans to act on these three objectives, the Vice-Chancellor said the University has the critical mass to establish a Cambridge Initiative on Mind, Brain and Body to help answer the growing challenges of mental health.

That initiative will link together a network of researchers – from neuroscience and neurology to genetics and physics; from psychology and psychiatry to computer science and anthropology – to address widespread conditions such as depression, addiction, psychosis and neurodegenerative disease.

He highlighted the Collegiate University’s determination to address barriers in education, widen access and help students make the most of their experience at Cambridge.

The Vice-Chancellor noted the success of the first year of Adjustment, which saw Colleges collectively recruit 67 students whose grades exceeded their expected performance.

Provisional admissions data showed that one in four students will be from under-represented and disadvantaged backgrounds in the 2019/20 intake, while over two-thirds of UK undergraduates will be from state schools. For the first time, more than 25% of admitted undergraduates are of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic background.

Professor Toope said the Transition Year he spoke about a year ago will be ready to launch in 2021. A course director has been appointed and the first intake of students will begin in October 2022.

Harding Challenge

The Vice-Chancellor was also very pleased to share news of the creation of the Harding Challenge – a dedicated fund which makes it possible for the University to do more for undergraduate students in the greatest financial need. Through this fund, new donors who give to Cambridge’s student support initiative will see their impact doubled – yet another of the many things the extraordinary £100 million gift earlier this year from David and Claudia Harding has enabled.

Toope said the initiatives showed that the University is already making great strides in fulfilling the commitments it has made as part of its Access and Participation Plan recently accepted by the Office for Students.

On tackling the fundamental global challenges, the Vice-Chancellor announced that, later this term, the University will formally launch Cambridge Zero – the University's effort to support the global transition to a carbon neutral future.

Under the direction of Dr Emily Shuckburgh, Cambridge Zero will harness the full breadth of the University’s research and teaching capabilities to respond to climate change and support the transition to a zero-carbon future.

The initiative will develop a bold programme of education, research, demonstration projects and knowledge exchange to address holistically the challenge of climate change; to help think about what a sustainable future looks like; and to ensure that policy decisions are based on the best available evidence.

Through Cambridge Zero, Cambridge will engage in active collaboration with other universities and research institutes in the UK and beyond, including the newly established Global Universities Alliance on Climate.

The Vice-Chancellor said it was a landmark year for Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Assessment, the Faculty of Education and the Department of Psychology, who last autumn joined forces with UNICEF and Microsoft to develop a programme that will enable refugees and displaced children to keep learning, and to receive the appropriate certification.

He was excited to share that, working with CUP and Cambridge Assessment, the University is partnering with edX, the digital learning platform founded by Harvard and MIT, and now home to more than 20 million learners.

"Through this partnership, we will be reaping the benefits of digital learning here in Cambridge whilst also reducing the barriers to high-quality, Cambridge-made content for learners around the world," Toope said.

Brexit

On Brexit, Professor Toope said conditions under which it may happen remain uncertain, but the University continues to plan for the contingency of a disorderly and disruptive exit.

He thanked those across the University who have been working tirelessly to plan and prepare for Brexit in whatever form it may take and said the University continued to make representations to government about the effect a no-deal Brexit would have on the movement of talented people that the UK needs, and on the country’s future participation in EU research programmes.

"We are no more certain now about the conditions under which it may happen, but we have continued to plan for the contingency of a disorderly and disruptive exit," Toope said.

The Vice-Chancellor welcomed the government’s statement about the change in immigration rules designed to attract more international scientists to the UK and said he was enthusiastic about the recent government proposal to reintroduce a two-year post-study work visa for international students – something that Cambridge and other universities have long campaigned for.

He expressed the University's continuing concern for and determination to support staff and students affected by Brexit.

The University will also continue its efforts to look for collaborations across the planet, reaching out to its partners around the world – from Munich to Nanjing, from Paris to Delhi – to show through our actions, not only our words, that we are a global university open to global collaboration.

Professor Toope said that as the UK struggles to define its role in what may be a post-Brexit world, it was his sincerest hope that Cambridge will help articulate some of the answers.

"When other institutions are perceived to be failing their societies, our University must step up," Toope said. "It is our duty as a public institution."

Read the full speech

Throughout October

9am-5pm weekdays
Fitzwilliam College, Storey’s Way, CB3 0DG
Black Cantabs: History Makers 
From forgotten pioneers to modern trailblazers, the exhibition celebrates 260 years of Cambridge education for black Cambridge students and graduates, from the 1700s to the 21st century.
The portraits were originally displayed at Cambridge University Library last autumn. Further information here.

Access by appointment (Mon/Wed/Fri)
Downing’s Early Black Cantabs
Downing College, Maitland Robinson Library, Regent Street, Cambridge CB2 1DQ
Archive exhibition celebrating Downing College’s early black students, dating back more than 100 years. This exhibition shares research carried out in support of the Black Cantabs Research Society by the College Archivist.
Please contact College Archivist Jenny Ulph 

Sunday 13 October, 2pm-4pm
Queens' College, Cambridge, CB3 9ET
Caribbean Chill & Chat (Cambridge University African Caribbean Society)
Contact: @cambridgeacs on Instagram/Twitter, Cambridge ACS Facebook

Monday 14 October, 5.30pm – 6.30pm
St John's College Fisher Building, St John’s Street, CB2 1TP​
Annual Race Equality Lecture: David Lammy MP in Conversation with Gillian Joseph
Labour MP David Lammy will be in conversation with Gillian Joseph, broadcaster on Sky News, discussing his personal journey and how race and racism has shaped his life, as well as a variety of topics including: how racism manifests itself in organisations today, the barriers to career opportunities faced by BAME staff and how to overcome them, the lack of BAME role models in senior positions, and how to increase BAME access and representation in leading professions.
More information here.

Tuesday 15 October, 12.30pm – 1.30pm
The Jubilee Centre, The Jubilee Lounge, St Andrews House, 59 St Andrews Street, CB2 3BZ​
Gandhi, King & Mandela: From ‘Nation’ to Globe?
This talk offers a comparative perspective of the three great 20th century change-makers, looking at similarities and differences, and lessons on social change for the 21st century. Join Philip Powell at the Jubilee Lounge.
More information here.  

Thursday 17 October, 6pm - 7pm
St John's College Old Divinity School, All Saints Passage, CB2 1TP​
Maroon Nation: The History of Revolutionary Haiti
Johnhenry Gonzalez discusses his new book on the history of Haiti and how the country went from the most profitable slave colony to the site of the only successful slave revolt in modern times.
More information here.

Saturday 19 October, 12pm-6pm (TBC)
The Cambridge Union, 9a Bridge Street, Cambridge CB2 1UB
Motherland Conference (Cambridge University African Caribbean Society)
Contact: @cambridgeacs on Instagram/Twitter, Cambridge ACS Facebook

Thursday 17 October, 6.30pm – 8pm
BAME Speed Mentoring Sessions
Newnham College, MCR
BAME students only. Sign up here. Any questions please contact: A S Grieve at community@gatescouncil.org.

Friday 18 October, 7.30pm – 9.30pm
Black History Month Comedy Night
Pembroke College, New Cellars
No pre-booking required. All welcome. Donations will be collected on the door

Saturday 19 October, 7.30pm – 9.30pm
Unitarian Church Hall, Emmanuel Road, (entry from Earl Street), CB1 1JW​
Locks Opened: The Chesapeake Waterways and the Underground Railroad
Discover the true stories of some of the people who used the waterways in their flight to freedom. Taken from the book by William Still, a conductor of the Pennsylvania Underground Railroad, the show will introduce you to Harriet Tubman, “Boxcar” Brown and Ellen Craft, and many others, and the hardships they faced and the sacrifices they made.
By telling a selection of their stories, Sheila Arnold demonstrates what people can overcome when the desire for freedom and the pressure for change become overwhelming.
Sheila is well known in the United States for her historical storytelling, and her performances based on black history and on the civil rights movement.
More information here. 

Monday 21 October, 6pm-7.30pm
Panel discussion
Sidney Sussex, Old Library
Sidney’s BME officers have organised a panel discussion featuring black academics and activists, and focusing on the contributions of black Britons, the state of scholarship on black Britons, being black in academia, and the contemporary effects of the legacy of slavery and empire. There are free tickets for the discussion available to the public, however a dinner and drinks reception following the discussion will be open to the Sidney community only.
For more information contact: bme@sscsu.org.uk

Monday 21 October, 5pm-7pm
Knox Shaw Room, Sidney Sussex College, Sidney Street, CB2 3HU
'Lore and Logics: The Liberal State, the Carceral State, and the Limits of Justice and Inequality in Post-war America'. 
A Cambridge American History Seminar by Dr Heather Thompson, Sidney Sussex Fellow and 2019-2020 Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions.  Dr Thompson is a Pulitzer Prize winner and a leading scholar of the history of mass incarceration in the US.
For more information contact jmg216@cam.ac.uk

Tuesday 22 October, 7pm – 9pm
Gonville and Caius College, Bateman Auditorium, Trinity Street, CB2 1TA​
Marsha P. Johnson on Film
A screening of Tourmaline & Sasha Wortzel’s short film, ‘Happy Birthday, Marsha!’, celebrating trans activist and queer icon Marsha P. Johnson. Followed by a critical screening of a documentary featuring archival footage of Marsha, Sylvia Rivera, and other activists.
The Stonewall Uprising, which took place in Greenwich Village, New York, in June 1969, is generally considered to be a turning point in the history of the LGBTQ+ community. The riots helped to spark a queer revolution both within the United States and around the world, leading to the creation of the gay liberation movement and the first gay pride parade the following year.
More information here.

Tuesday 22 October, 6pm - 7pm
Wolfson College, Gatsby Room, Chancellor's Centre, Barton Road, CB3 9BB​
Rethinking Early Anti-Slavery: North Africa & Beginnings of Atlantic Abolitionism
The Germantown Petition, written in Pennsylvania in 1688, is usually judged to be the first collective statement against slavery in world history and an initial, if faltering, step in the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade. But, despite its significance, the circumstances that shaped its composition have received little attention. With Justin Meggitt, Senior Lecturer in the Study of Religion.
More information here.

Friday 25 October, 6.30pm-9.30pm
Location TBC
Chill & Chat (Cambridge University African Caribbean Society)
Contact: @cambridgeacs on Instagram/Twitter, Cambridge ACS Facebook

Friday 25 October, 7.30pm – 9pm
Panel Discussion: Take Back the Academy! Integrating Student Activism and Research
University Centre, Gates Common Room
No pre-booking required. All welcome. Any questions, please contact: A S Grieve at community@gatescouncil.org

Friday 25 October, 5pm – 6.30pm
Immigration Talk with Sohini Alg-Nijjar
Pembroke College, Nihon Room
No pre-booking required. All welcome.

Monday 28 October, 2pm-4pm
Cambridge University Library, Milstein Seminar Rooms, West Road CB3 9DR​
Taking Up Space: The Black Girl’s Manifesto for Change
Book signing. Free. Drop-in. All ages. Full access.
Cambridge graduates Chelsea Kwakye and Ore Ogunbiyi will provide a short talk about their first-hand experience of being a minority in a predominantly white institution, before signing copies of their book, Taking Up Space, which will be available to purchase.

Tuesday 29 October, 6.30pm-9.30pm
Downing College, Regent Street, Cambridge CB2 1DQ
Black History Month Formal (Cambridge University African Caribbean Society)
Contact: @cambridgeacs on Instagram/Twitter, Cambridge ACS Facebook

Other events of interest:

Saturday 19 October, 3pm - 4pm
Institute of Continuing Education, Madingley Hall Madingley, CB23 8AQ​
How to Change History
This lecture is not about time travel. It does, however, discuss how to go about changing the way we remember events in the past. Drawing on her activism on the part of victims of Nazism in the Channel Islands, Dr Gilly Carr reflects on her decade-long crusade to change how people remember them.
More information here.

Tuesday 22 October, 5pm - 7pm​
King's College, Keynes Hall, King's Parade, CB2 1ST​
Hope and Fear in Response to Religious Diversification
Religious diversification, particularly in very heterogeneous places such as London, is connected to some of today’s most controversial political questions. This panel event with leading politicians, religious experts and activists from London will discuss how to respond to the rapidly evolving challenges around economic deprivation, racism, Islamophobia, extremism, and gender-based discrimination in the UK's most ethnically and religiously diverse areas.
More information here.

Tuesday 22 October, 6.30pm – 7.30pm
Anglia Ruskin University, Lord Ashcroft Building - LAB026, East Road, CB1 1PT​
Hate Crime: Time to Stop the Hate
The Macpherson Report, commissioned to investigate the death of Stephen Lawrence, defined the meaning of racist incidents. This term is what we now call Hate Crime.
Anyone can experience Hate Crime and it can be because of someone’s faith, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or disability – which are the five officially monitored strands of Hate Crime.
During this lecture we will look at:
- What Hate Crime is and how to recognise it
- What Hate Crime looks like and understanding its many forms
- The impact it has on those who experience it
- How we can better support people who experience it
- What is being done to ‘Stop the Hate’

Speakers are:

Rose Simkins - Chief Executive of the leading national charity, Stop Hate UK
Chris Long - Chief Crown Prosecutor for the East of England Area
Sergeant Phil Priestly - Cambridgeshire Police

The event will be chaired by Graham Lewis, who is Chair of the Board of Trustees of Stop Hate UK, Special Advisor on Hate Crime to the Encompass Network, and an activist on equality in Cambridgeshire.
Presented by Stop Hate UK, www.stophateuk.org
More information here.

Wednesday 30 October, 4pm-5.30pm
Michaelhouse Cafe, Trinity Street, Cambridge CB2 1SU​
400 Years of Return: African Diasporas
2019 marks 400 years since the first enslaved Africans arrived in the United States.
‘The Year of Return’ celebrates the cumulative resilience of all the victims of the transatlantic slave trade who were scattered and displaced through the world in North America, South America, the Caribbean, Europe and Asia. This panel will explore contemporary lives in the diasporas and the remaining significance of return.   
More information here.

Researchers say that the findings may have implications for how babies are screened for hearing loss and how mild-to-moderate hearing loss in children is managed by healthcare providers.

The structure and function of the auditory system, which processes sounds in the brain, develops throughout childhood in response to exposure to sounds. In profoundly deaf children, the auditory system undergoes a functional reorganisation, repurposing itself to respond more to visual stimuli, for example. However, until now relatively little was known about the effects of mild-to-moderate hearing loss during childhood.

A research team led by Dr Lorna Halliday, now at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, used an electroencephalogram (EEG) technique to measure the brain responses of 46 children who had been diagnosed with permanent mild-to-moderate hearing loss while they were listening to sounds.

Dividing the children into two groups – younger children (8-12 years) and older children (12-16 years) – the team found that the younger children with hearing loss showed relatively typical brain responses – in other words, similar to those of children with normal hearing. However, the brain responses of older children with hearing loss were smaller than those of their normally hearing peers.

To confirm these findings, the researchers re-tested a subset of the group of younger children from the original study, six years later. In the follow-up study, the researchers confirmed that as the children with hearing loss grew older, their brain responses changed. Responses that were present when the children were younger had either disappeared or grown smaller by the time the children were older. There was no evidence that the children’s hearing loss had worsened over this time, suggesting instead that a functional reorganisation was occurring.

“We know that children’s brains develop in response to exposure to sounds, so it should not be too surprising that even mild-to-moderate levels of hearing loss can lead to changes in the brain,” says Dr Axelle Calcus, lead author of the paper, from PSL University, Paris. “However, this does suggest that we need to identify these problems at an earlier stage than is currently the case.”

“Current screening programmes for newborn babies are good at picking up moderate-to-profound levels of hearing loss, but not at detecting mild hearing loss. This means that children with mild hearing impairment might not be detected until later in childhood, if at all,” says Dr Lorna Halliday from the University of Cambridge.

“Children with hearing problems tend to do less well than their peers in terms of language development and academic performance. Detecting even mild degrees of hearing impairment earlier could lead to earlier intervention that would limit these brain changes, and improve children’s chances of developing normal language.”

The research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and the European Union Horizon 2020 Programme. The research was carried out at University College London (UCL).

Reference
Calcus, A et al. Functional Brain Alterations Following Mild-to-Moderate Sensorineural Hearing Loss in Children. eLife; 1 October 2019; DOI: 10.7554/eLife.46965

My research has taken me all over the world. I have been lucky enough to work in remote places like Kohistan in northwest Pakistan, Tibet, Iceland and Greenland, collaborating with a wide spectrum of great people and experiencing many interesting cultures and places.

I use rocks as pieces of forensic evidence. They help me to understand how the chemistry of the Earth and other planets has evolved since their formation more than four billion years ago. I work on a range of problems, including trying to understand how the plate tectonic processes can help cycle elements like iron, carbon and sulfur between the Earth’s surface and deep interior. I am also trying to find evidence for the Earth’s earliest internal melting events in 3.7-billion-year-old rocks. My work involves analytical lab work and plasma mass spectrometry as well as sample collection and fieldwork. 

I’m an Earth Scientist with a very broad scientific background. I read Natural Sciences in Cambridge as an undergraduate and leaned towards the biological sciences initially. I took earth sciences to broaden my scientific horizons and found I loved it, so switched to this in my second year.  After my PhD, I held a series of postdoctoral research positions and fellowships in the UK and abroad. There are so many people in Cambridge who are enthusiastic and passionate about research and understanding the world around them, and I find this uplifting, motivating and intellectually stimulating. I feel this environment brings out the best in me.

I’ve always wanted to have a career where you have a sense of real discovery. I remember when I made my first major scientific discovery during my first postdoc position at ETH-Zurich. When I looked at the emerging data patterns, at first I didn’t believe what I was seeing, then I was so excited I felt almost physically sick. For me, these rare moments are worth the sacrifices (and there are many) that are needed for a career in academia. Another really exciting project involved carrying out experiments that simulated the conditions of the Earth’s lower mantle (about 720km below the Earth’s surface) and using isotope tracers to understand how reactions taking place in this part of the Earth could have governed the chemical evolution of the Earth’s surface, and made our planet habitable.

One of the best pieces of advice I was given was to turn every decision you make into the right one. If I were to offer any words of advice I would like them to be “don’t give up” -  but that is rather simplistic. Everyone feels like giving up at some point but, realistically, I think it’s a case of being proactive and making continued forward progress however tough you are finding things. It’s easy to get discouraged by situations or by comparing yourself to others. It’s also easy to find everything overwhelming - but a lot of small steps can take you where you want to be. I also feel it’s always important to ask advice and heed it, but ultimately you have to make your own decisions and stick with them. Occasionally you have to be prepared to take risks and sometimes you have to decide between difficult options. 

Despite this rise in antidepressant use, there has been little change in the number of older people diagnosed with depression.

The findings are based on the Cognitive Function and Ageing Studies, conducted at two time points - between 1991 and 1993, and between 2008 and 2011. 

First author Prof Antony Arthur, from UEA’s School of Health Sciences, said: “Depression is a leading cause of poor quality of life worldwide and we know that older people may be less likely than other age groups to go to their GP with symptoms of depression. Until now, little was known about how the relationship between the prevalence of depression and antidepressant use among older people has changed over time.”

The Cognitive Function and Ageing Studies (CFAS), led by the University of Cambridge, are population based studies of individuals aged 65 with the ability to examine changes in the health needs of older people across generations based on random sampling and diagnostic methods held constant over time.

As part of CFAS, researchers interviewed more than 15,000 over 65s in England and Wales to see whether the prevalence of depression and antidepressant use is changing. They found that the proportion of older people receiving anti-depressant medication more than doubled over two decades – from 4.2 per cent in the early nineties to 10.7 per cent 20 years later. This was despite the estimated prevalence of depression among over 65s falling to 6.8 per cent compared to 7.9 per cent in the 1990s.

Depression and antidepressant use were more common in women than men at both time points. Depression was associated with living in a more deprived area. The proportion of over 65s living in care homes declined, but prevalence of depression in care homes remained unchanged – affecting around one in ten residents.

Lead investigator Prof Carol Brayne, director of the Cambridge Institute of Public Health, said: "Our research has previously shown a major age-for-age drop in dementia occurrence across generations. This new work reveals that depression has not shown the same reduction even in the presence of dramatically increased prescribing, itself not without concern given potential adverse effects we have also shown that are associated with polypharmacy."

Prof Arthur said: “Depression affects one in 15 people aged over 65, and its impact is felt by the individual, their families and friends.

“[The increase in antidepressant use] could be due to improved recognition and treatment of depression, overprescribing, or use of antidepressants for other conditions. Whatever the explanation, substantial increases in prescribing has not reduced the prevalence of depression in the over-65 population. The causes of depression in older people, the factors that perpetuate it, and the best ways to manage it remain poorly understood and merit more attention.”

The research was led by the University of East Anglia in collaboration with the University of Cambridge, the University of Newcastle and the University of Nottingham.

Reference
Arthur, A. et al. Changing prevalence and treatment of depression among the over-65s over two decades: findings from the Cognitive Function and Ageing Studies. British Journal of Psychiatry; 7 Oct 2019; DOI: 10.1192/bjp.2019.193

Adapted from a press release by the University of East Anglia.

Sir Peter attended Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, where he is also now an Honorary Fellow.

Announced today, the prize has also been awarded to William Kaelin Jr and Gregg Semenza.

Oxygen is essential in helping us convert food into energy. This year’s three Nobel laureates have received their award for discovering how cells sense and adapt to changing oxygen availability and identifying molecular machinery that regulates the activity of genes in response to varying levels of oxygen.

According to the Nobel Prize website, “The seminal discoveries by this year’s Nobel Laureates revealed the mechanism for one of life’s most essential adaptive processes. They established the basis for our understanding of how oxygen levels affect cellular metabolism and physiological function. Their discoveries have also paved the way for promising new strategies to fight anaemia, cancer and many other diseases”.

Speaking at the announcement by the Nobel Prize Committee in Stockholm, Professor Randall Johnson, from the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience (PDN) at the University of Cambridge, described it as "a very timely prize, that impacts almost every aspect of physiological response".

Dr Andrew Murray, also from PDN, said: "Oxygen is fundamental to animal life, allowing our mitochondria to extract energy from the food we eat. The work of Kaelin, Ratcliffe and Semenza revealed the elegant mechanisms by which our cells sense oxygen levels and respond to fluctuations, enhancing the delivery of oxygen to the tissues of the body and altering our metabolism.

“Since the first reports of the hypoxia inducible factors appeared in the early 1990s, we have come to realise the vital role they play in our everyday physiology, in allowing humans to live at high altitude and in countless biomedical scenarios. Hypoxia (a low tissue oxygen content) is a feature of many diseases including heart failure, chronic lung disease and many cancers.

“The work of these three scientists and their teams has paved the way to a greater understanding of these common, life-threatening conditions and new strategies to treat them. Congratulations to the three new Nobel Laureates, this is richly deserved!"

Dr Pippa Rogerson, Master of Caius, said: “Gonville & Caius College is delighted that our past student and current Honorary Fellow, Professor Sir Peter Ratcliffe, has been jointly awarded the Nobel Prize today, for discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability. The College is proud of the fifteen Nobel Laureates who have been part of our relatively small community as students or fellows. We congratulate Sir Peter most warmly.”

Sir Peter is the 108th affiliate of the University of Cambridge to have been awarded a Nobel Prize.

Related news

Professor Didier Queloz wins 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of an exoplanet

Behind the closed doors of the main Gallery, the Grade I listed ceiling with its ornate plasterwork and casts of the Parthenon Frieze at lower lever have been cleaned, restored and repainted revealing the crisp decorative detail. In the gallery immense grandeur and an intimacy of scale come together remarkably. At eye-level, the transformation is no less impressive. Gallery walls, clad in red fabric since the 1970s, have been stripped and re-covered with a sumptuous new wall covering that echoes the colour adopted by Basevi’s successor, Edward M Barry (1830-1880), for the magnificent Founder’s Entrance. Seeing paintings by Anthony Van Dyck, Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Lawrence in this room makes great masterpieces truly unforgettable.

The gallery has been rehung under the Directorship of Luke Syson, formerly of The National Gallery and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. “A highlight of the new hang will be a magnificent group of floor to ceiling portraits by Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641), and Daniel Mytens (c. 1590- 1647/48) - the dominant painters at the English court in the first decades of the 17th century,” says Syson, adding “they have been generously lent by the Trustees of the Rt. Hon. Olive, Countess Fitzwilliam’s Chattels Settlement, by permission of Lady Juliet Tadgell. Seeing them at the Fitz is truly thrilling.”

This evening’s Late event will launch the Fitz’s new annual theme of Sensual/Virtual, introduced by Luke Syson. Many of the exhibits on show in the gallery will have new ‘behind the label’ stories where visitors will be able to scan a QR code or tap their smart phone on an NFC chip to access new and complementary information.

The Fitzwilliam Museum is a glittering jewel in the crown of the University of Cambridge. Designed by the architect George Basevi (1794-1845), it is widely considered to be one of the finest museum interiors in Britain. One distinguished former director of the National Gallery of Art in Washington called the Fitz “the greatest small Museum in the world.”

Sensual/Virtual is further explored through Seeing Sound, opening on Tuesday 8th October. The show asks ‘can we listen to a painting?’ This collaborative exhibition features objects from three of the Museum’s five departments. Notable exhibits are the five autograph musical manuscripts by Brahms, Stravinsky, Handel and Handel enthusiast, Lord Fitzwilliam, the founder of the Fitzwilliam. The show also features works by Rossetti, Renoir and Picasso, which demonstrate the ways in which artists and composers have engaged in a dialogue between sight and sound.

LATE: Gallery Party runs from 19:30-21:00 on Monday, 7 October. Admission is free and entry is via the main entrance to the museum.

Adapted from a press release by The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

From this month, 15 Cambridge Colleges will be run by women, which will be marked from 14 October when Sonita Alleyne’s photograph is unveiled as part of a new exhibition The Rising Tide: Women at Cambridge at the University Library.

The Rising Tide marks 150 years since the founding of Girton College, the first women’s college in Cambridge. It focuses on the lived experience of women at Cambridge, the fight for equal educational rights, and the careers of some of the women who have shaped the institution and the world.

The portrait exhibition of Cambridge women will run along the front corridors of the library. Clothes, letters, and audio-visual material will also be on display in the Milstein Exhibition Centre.

One of the objects is a badge bearing the phrase “Behave Badly”. These were given to female students by renowned historian and Jesus College’s first woman fellow Professor Lisa Jardine.

Jardine encouraged women friends to wear the badge, under their jackets if necessary. The badge has been loaned to the exhibition by Jane Tillier, first woman Lay Chaplain at Jesus College from 1984, who admits she ‘wore it under her clerical robes'.

Sonita was one of the first to be presented with a new version of the badge created for the exhibition, and wore it to her interview on this morning's BBC Radio 4 Women's Hour.

She said: “It’s an honour to be one of five women taking up college leadership positions at Cambridge this term, and I’m thrilled to join Jesus College in its 40th year of mixed education.

"During my time as a Cambridge student, I was conscious that there was still opposition to women students, even in the mid-1980s.

"It’s good to reflect and celebrate how far we’ve come, and I am proud to be part of this exhibition.”

The Rising Tide: Women At Cambridge runs from 14 Oct 2019 – Sat 21 Mar 2020, Mon-Fri 9am-6.30pm, Sat 9am-4.30pm, at Milstein Exhibition Centre, Cambridge University Library, West Road, Cambridge CB3 9DR.

Professor Didier Queloz from the University of Cambridge has been jointly awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics along with Professor James Peebles and Professor Michel Mayor for their pioneering advances in physical cosmology, and the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star.

Queloz is Professor of Physics at the University’s Cavendish Laboratory, and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. He leads the Cambridge Exoplanet Research Centre. In 1995, along with Michel Mayor, Queloz made the first discovery of a planet outside our solar system, an exoplanet, orbiting the star 51 Pegasi. Queloz becomes the 109th affiliate of the University of Cambridge to be awarded a Nobel Prize.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the 2019 Prize this morning. The Nobel Assembly said: “The discovery by 2019 Nobel Prize laureates Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz started a revolution in astronomy and over 4,000 exoplanets have since been found in the Milky Way. Strange new worlds are still being discovered, with an incredible wealth of sizes, forms and orbits.”

"This year’s Laureates have transformed our ideas about the cosmos. While James Peebles’ theoretical discoveries contributed to our understanding of how the universe evolved after the Big Bang, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz explored our cosmic neighbourhoods on the hunt for unknown planets. Their discoveries have forever changed our conceptions of the world."

Today, many regard the discovery of 51 Pegasi b by Queloz and Mayor at the University of Geneva in 1995, as a moment in astronomy that forever changed the way we understand the universe and our place within it.

It was the first confirmation of an exoplanet – a planet that orbits a star other than our Sun. Until then, although astronomers had speculated as to the existence of these distant worlds, no planet other than those in our own solar system had ever been found.

This seminal discovery has spawned a revolution in astronomy both in terms of new instrumentation and understanding of planet formation and evolution. Since then Professor Queloz has been involved in a successful series of developments of precise spectrographs, considerable improving the precision of the Doppler technique.

Of the 1,900 or so confirmed exoplanets that have now been found – a tenth of these by Queloz himself – many are different to anything we ever imagined, challenging existing theories of planet formation.

In 2007, in the emerging area of planetary transit detection, he established a successful international collaboration with the WASP team from UK, providing the spectroscopic confirmation and precise photometry follow-up to confirm and characterize planetary candidates. He also took an active part in the Corot mission, pioneering planet transit detection from space. He conducted a part of the work that led to the first transit detection of a rocky planet (Corot-7b).

In 2012 he received with Michel Mayor the 2011 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award of Basic Sciences for developing new astronomical instruments and experimental techniques that led to the first observation of planets outside the Solar System.

In 2013 he become a professor at the University of Cambridge where he is leading a comprehensive research program with the goal of making further progress in our understanding of their formation, structure, and habitability of exoplanets in the Universe as well as to promote and share the excitement of this work with the public.

The University's Vice-Chancellor, Professor Stephen Toope, said: "I am delighted to hear that Professor Didier Queloz has been awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics. Didier’s discovery of planets beyond our solar system has ushered in a revolutionary new era for cosmology.

"This work represents an extraordinary scientific achievement but also offers humanity so much inspiration – the chance to imagine such distant and different, or perhaps similar, worlds. It gives me tremendous pleasure, on behalf of our community, to congratulate the University of Cambridge’s latest Nobel Prize winner.”

Professor Andy Parker, Head of the Cavendish Laboratory, said: "Professor Queloz’s research has led to the discovery that planets are abundant throughout our galaxy, orbiting other stars. We can now estimate that there are tens of billions of potentially inhabitable exoplanets. This takes us one step closer to answering the question of whether we are alone in the Universe: it seems increasingly likely that life in some form will have found a foothold on these many new worlds.

"The current programme of work being carried out by Professor Queloz at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University will search for signatures of life in the chemicals found in the exoplanet atmospheres. This groundbreaking research is extremely demanding technically, and addresses profound questions which fascinate all of humanity. We look forward to further breakthroughs as Professor Queloz continues his outstanding work."

Read a 2016 interview with Professor Queloz here. 
 

New Nobel Laureate Didier Queloz was at a scientific meeting when news of his #NobelPrize broke. Here, fresh from celebrating with colleagues, he speaks with @nobelprize.

Interview to follow.

Photo: Nick Saffell. pic.twitter.com/7FyURzjzAq

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 8, 2019

A perspective from Lord Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal and Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge:

"Jim Peebles played a key role back in 1965 in appreciating and interpreting the ‘cosmic microwave background’ radiation – the ‘afterglow of creation’.  He has been the most influential and respected leader of empirical cosmology with a sustained record of achievement spanning half a century.

"The study of exoplanets is perhaps the most vibrant field of astronomy. We now know that most stars are orbited by retinues of planets; there may be a billion planets in our galaxy resembling the Earth (similar in size and at a distance from their parent star where liquid water can exist). This takes us a step towards the fascinating question of detecting evidence for life on the nearest of these exoplanets. Queloz and Mayor not only discovered the first planet orbiting an ordinary star. The have also been among the leaders in the ongoing research that has led to the discovery of many thousands of other planetary systems, exhibiting an unexpected variety.

"These awards seem to show, incidentally, a welcome broadening of the Nobel criteria. In the past, astronomy has been included primarily when the discovery involves some new physics (neutron stars, gravitational waves, vacuum energy, etc). But this award highlights astronomy as also the grandest of the environmental sciences. And the award to Peebles will be welcomed by his friends and colleagues as recognition of a lifetime of sustained contributions and insights by an acknowledged intellectual leader, rather than a ‘one off’ achievement."

The device is based on layers of a material composed of oxygen and three metallic elements known as PST, and it displays the largest electrocaloric effects – changes in temperature when an electric field is applied – yet observed in a body large enough for cooling applications.

The results, reported in the journal Nature, could be used in the development of highly-efficient solid-state refrigerators and air conditioners, without the need for bulky and expensive magnets.

“When facing a challenge as big as climate change and reducing carbon emissions to net zero, we tend to focus on how we generate energy – and rightly so – but it’s critical that we’re also looking at the consumption of energy,” said co-author Dr Xavier Moya from Cambridge’s Department of Materials Science & Metallurgy.

Refrigeration and air conditioning currently consume a fifth of all energy produced worldwide, and as global temperatures continue to rise, demand is only going to keep going up. In addition, the gases currently used in the vast majority of refrigerators and air conditioners are toxic, highly flammable greenhouse gases that only add to the problem of global warming when they leak into the air.

Researchers have been trying to improve cooling technology by replacing these gases with solid magnetic materials, such as gadolinium. However, the performance of prototype devices has been limited to date, as the thermal changes are driven by limited magnetic fields from permanent magnets.

In research published earlier this year, the same Cambridge-led team identified an inexpensive, widely available solid that might compete with conventional coolants when put under pressure. However, developing this material for cooling applications will involve a lot of new design work, which the Cambridge team are pursuing.

In the current work, the thermal changes are instead driven by voltage. “Using voltage instead of pressure to drive cooling is simpler from an engineering standpoint, and allows existing design principles to be repurposed without the need for magnets,” said Moya.

The Cambridge researchers, working with colleagues in Costa Rica and Japan, used high-quality layers of PST with metallic electrodes sandwiched in between. This made the PST able to withstand much larger voltages, and produce much better cooling over a much larger range of temperatures.

“Replacing the heart of prototype magnetic fridges with a material that performs better, and does not require permanent magnets, could represent a game-changer for those currently trying to improve cooling technology,” said co-author Professor Neil Mathur.

In future, the team will use high-resolution microscopy to examine the PST microstructure, and optimise it further in order to apply even larger voltages.

The research was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Royal Society.

Reference:
B. Nair et al. ‘Large electrocaloric effects in oxide multilayer capacitors over a wide temperature range.’ Nature (2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1634-0

A bold response to the world’s greatest challenge
The University of Cambridge is building on its existing research and launching an ambitious new environment and climate change initiative. Cambridge Zero is not just about developing greener technologies. It will harness the full power of the University’s research and policy expertise, developing solutions that work for our lives, our society and our biosphere.

The international team, including researchers from the University of Cambridge, sent high-frequency sound waves across a modified semiconductor device to direct the behaviour of a single electron, with efficiencies in excess of 99%. The results are reported in the journal Nature Communications.

A quantum computer would be able to solve previously unsolvable computational problems by taking advantage of the strange behaviour of particles at the subatomic scale, and quantum phenomena such as entanglement and superposition. However, precisely controlling the behaviour of quantum particles is a mammoth task.

“What would make a quantum computer so powerful is its ability to scale exponentially,” said co-author Hugo Lepage, a PhD candidate in Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory, who performed the theoretical work for the current study. “In a classical computer, to double the amount of information you have to double the number of bits. But in a quantum computer, you’d only need to add one more quantum bit, or qubit, to double the information.”

Last month, researchers from Google claimed to have reached ‘quantum supremacy’, the point at which a quantum computer can perform calculations beyond the capacity of the most powerful supercomputers. However, the quantum computers which Google, IBM and others are developing are based on superconducting loops, which are complex circuits and, like all quantum systems, are highly fragile.

“The smallest fluctuation or deviation will corrupt the quantum information contained in the phases and currents of the loops,” said Lepage. “This is still very new technology and expansion beyond the intermediate scale may require us to go down to the single particle level.”

Instead of superconducting loops, the quantum information in the quantum computer Lepage and his colleagues are devising use the ‘spin’ of an electron – its inherent angular momentum, which can be up or down – to store quantum information.

“Harnessing spin to power a functioning quantum computer is a more scalable approach than using superconductivity, and we believe that using spin could lead to a quantum computer which is far more robust, since spin interactions are set by the laws of nature,” said Lepage.

Using spin allows the quantum information to be more easily integrated with existing systems. The device developed in the current work is based on widely-used semiconductors with some minor modifications.

The device, which was tested experimentally by Lepage’s co-authors from the Institut Néel, measures just a few millionths of a metre long. The researchers laid metallic gates over a semiconductor and applied a voltage, which generated a complex electric field. The researchers then directed high-frequency sound waves over the device, causing it to vibrate and distort, like a tiny earthquake. As the sound waves propagate, they trap the electrons, pushing them through the device in a very precise way, as if the electrons are ‘surfing’ on the sound waves.

The researchers were able to control the behaviour of a single electron with 99.5% efficiency. “To control a single electron in this way is already difficult, but to get to a point where we can have a working quantum computer, we need to be able to control multiple electrons, which get exponentially more difficult as the qubits start to interact with each other,” said Lepage.

In the coming months, the researchers will begin testing the device with multiple electrons, which would bring a working quantum computer another step closer.

The research was funded in part by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme.

Reference:
Shintaro Takada et al. ‘Sound-driven single-electron transfer in a circuit of coupled quantum rails.’ Nature Communications (2019). DOI:10.1038/s41467-019-12514-w

My parents are lawyers, and as far as I know there aren’t any other scientists in my family. I was really interested in maths, physics and biology at school, so I applied to Cambridge intending to study biology within the Natural Sciences Tripos. However, when I arrived I decided I preferred the physics course, so I switched! 

My research sets out to determine potential observational signatures from cosmic and axion strings. Cosmic and axion strings are hypothetical cosmological objects that may have formed as a result of a phase transition in the early universe. An example of a phase transition in more familiar terms is the example of water freezing to ice. The so-called 'axions' emitted by axion strings are also a hypothetical dark matter candidate, where dark matter is a theoretical type of matter that makes up around 85% of the total matter in the universe. The detection of these strings would significantly enhance our understanding of the universe and fundamental physics. 

On a daily basis, I am usually coding up and running simulations in my office. This involves developing and compiling highly parallelised code, which I run on powerful supercomputers. I then analyse my results to see if they fit with expected theoretical models. Outside my PhD work, I attend several seminars per week and also supervise undergraduate Natural Science students. 

One of the most exciting things about working in my department has been meeting so many distinguished physicists and mathematicians. Working in such close proximity to Stephen Hawking was definitely a highlight, as he was such an inspiration to me and so many other students and scientists. The most rewarding aspect of studying theoretical physics at Cambridge is the high standard of the research. Cambridge has a prestigious reputation, and the quality of the research is world-class. In my department, the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology, there is a lot of technical support available, as well as funding to enable students to travel to schools and conferences abroad. The department also has around 30-40 PhD students, making it a very sociable place to study.

It can be easy in the early days of a PhD to feel isolated from others working in your field, or not to be aware of them at all. Towards the end of my first year, I attended a two-week summer school in Spain on gravitational radiation. This really opened my eyes to the research being carried out by students all over Europe and allowed me to put my research into a wider context.

Pursue your passion, regardless of whether others in the field intimidate you or try to put you off. It can often be overwhelming being in an environment that is so male-dominated, which is especially the case in maths, physics and computing. Make sure to remind yourself that you have as much right to be there as anybody else. If science is what you want to do, go for it!

That means, for the first time, the proportion of black students has risen above 3% (3.4%), reflecting wider UK society. In 2019-20 there will be more than 200 black undergraduates studying at Cambridge – an all-time high.

The number of UK BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) undergraduate students admitted has also reached a new record and now stands at 26.8%.

Senior Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Education), Professor Graham Virgo, says:

“The University has worked hard to get the message out that it is a welcoming place for students regardless of their ethnicity. This record rise in the number of black students is a credit to their hard work and ability: we have not lowered entry standards. It is also a credit to the hard work put in by admissions staff across the University and Colleges in running various outreach activities, and the positive campaigns run by our student societies and external partners. We have achieved this without any reduction in offer levels or provision of preferential treatment.”

A number of factors are thought to be behind the increase in black students applying and being admitted. One is likely to be the “Stormzy effect”. In August 2018, the award-winning British grime artist announced he would fund tuition fees and living costs for two students each year for the duration of their study at Cambridge. Since then the University has seen an increase in the number of black students engage in its outreach activities and enquire about its courses.

Another reason for the success is attributed to proactive campaign work on behalf of the University. Earlier this year it published a series of short films presented by the You Tube influencer, and Cambridge graduate, Courtney Daniella, aimed at challenging the misconceptions surrounding a Cambridge degree. These have been shared widely.

Stormzy addressing the ACS Motherland Conference in 2018

Of equal importance, several student societies have been actively involved in access work, promoting the University to groups of young people who may not have thought of, or ever been encouraged, to apply to Cambridge. Students from a wide range of backgrounds have volunteered for outreach events. And the work of external partners such as Target Oxbridge has continued apace. This programme, run by the diversity specialist, Rare, provides advice and support for A level students wishing to apply to Cambridge and Oxford. The number of students wanting to engage with the programme has more than doubled over the past year.  

Wanipa Ndhlovu, President of the University’s African-Caribbean Society (ACS), welcomed the figures:

“This is really good news and is a testament to the hard work that ACS, as well as the University, has been putting in to break down perceptions. It should send out a signal to other black students that they can find their place at Cambridge and succeed. I hope this will be seen as encouraging to any black student who may have been told Cambridge isn’t the place for them.”

In September the University announced more than 68% of its students came from a state school background. And a total of 67 students from widening participation backgrounds were offered places through Adjustment this year, the first time the University has adopted it.

Participants include Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, Professor Gina Rippon, author and campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez, politicians David Lammy and Ed Miliband and Professor Mary Beard.

The Festival runs from 14th to 27th October with over 270 events, most of them free. They cover subjects ranging from climate change, Brexit, hate speech and the impact of artificial intelligence on society to how to bring divided communities together after major trauma and who will look after us in our old age.

Change is the theme of this year's Festival and events cover everything from social and political change to cultural transformation, with new research challenging traditional views of the past. 

Events on social change span how we care for the old in a rapidly ageing society, reproduction past and present and addiction.

In Who will look after us in our old age? on 21st October, we ask who will look after us in our old age and how it will be funded? Will the crisis in carer recruitment require greater immigration? Will women still be relied upon to take on the burden of unpaid care? Or will social robots take up the slack? Join affective computing expert Professor Peter Robinson, sociologist Elif Cetin, feminist economist Victoria Bateman and Dan Holden from the International Longevity Centre for a fascinating discussion about an issue that will affect us all. The event is chaired by Chris Mann from BBC Cambridgeshire.

Elif Cetin, a junior research fellow at the Von Hügel Institute in Cambridge, said: "It is very likely that the UK’s need for immigrants will increase as the population ages. Yet, due to the heavily politicised nature of immigration in the UK, I think it will be really difficult for politicians to openly discuss and make the case for an additional labour force that cannot be met through the domestic labour market due to reasons such as the lack of necessary qualifications, unwillingness to take care jobs due low salary and/or lack of prestige etc. The British public remains highly worried about migration and tends to express a preference for highly restricted immigration...
 

"Various types of migrants are now highly politicised and even the case of European mobility is approached within the frame of immigration controls. Surprisingly, older people are more likely to vote in favour of Brexit, which had immigration debates at its core, despite the fact that they are more likely to need care. This is because prejudice and fear about immigration and immigrants have become ossified to the extent that this group's sense of insecurity has reached the point that rejection of further immigration is likely to triumph over the necessity for having more immigrants. And fewer immigrants is also likely to affect women as it could lead to more women leaving their jobs for unpaid carer roles." 

Reproduction is at the heart of many major debates around the world today. In When was reproduction invented? on 17th October Nick Hopwood, Professor of History of Science and Medicine in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, his fellow editors of  Reproduction: Antiquity to the Present Day and Professor Susan Golombok, Director of the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge, will talk about the history of reproduction from ancient times to the present day, looking at continuity and change over the long term.

Professor Hopwood says: "The question ‘When was reproduction invented?’ is intended to highlight what we can learn from different periods of change. Some aspect of reproduction is in the news every day, and by the nature of news it can all seem new. But reporters, like scientists, clinicians and patients, typically frame what’s happening in terms of historic achievements or abuses, recent progress or worrying contrasts with how things used to be. We appeal to history all the time, because it allows us to compare in a long view. So we wanted to pool expertise to make that history robust and acknowledge that our interests shape the ways we use the past."

Give and Take: How Giving Has Changed The World And Why It Matters asks whether giving a gift must necessarily exclude hopes of a return to be considered a “good deed”. Based on a short film produced by Alexander Massmann and DragonLight Films, the event will include a discussion panel on the complex nature of gift giving for humans and their close relatives. [19th October]

Rethinking drug addiction will ask why current approaches to addiction are not working and question if this is a matter of economics, politics, ethics or education. Rowan Williams, Master of Magdalene College and former Archbishop of Canterbury, will chair a discussion on safer drug use and the research on drug consumption rooms. [22nd October]

Events focusing on political change include  Is it possible to forgive and forget after major national traumas, a panel discussion on how we bring divided communities together after war or trauma. Drawing on the examples of East and West Germany, Korea, Japan and Burundi leading experts will discuss how we rebuild peace after traumatic division has riven communities on 22nd October, a subject of huge relevance in our increasingly divided world.

Other events relate to widespread cultural change, including the Yoko Ono: Looking For... exhibition at the Ruskin Gallery, which explores themes of violence and healing, and the screening of two films by Yoko Ono.  It is the first time Ono's work has been exhibited in Cambridge and curator Gabriella Daris will give an illustrated talk about how Ono’s art resonates with the cultural and political specificities of our contemporary condition on 19th October. 

The impact of historic political and social revolutions can be seen in events such as:

Maroon Nation, where Dr Johnhenry Gonzalez, University Lecturer in Caribbean and Atlantic History, will talk about his new book on the history of Haiti and how the country went from the most profitable slave colony to the site of the only successful slave revolt in modern times. He will argue that Haiti’s early independent history has been the subject of relatively little basic research despite its historical significance. His book is inspired in part by him getting access to a vital historical document on those early years which is held in Kings College London's library. His session will discuss discuss broader questions around the provenance and proper place of foreign historic treasures held in British and other national collections. [17th October]

Four events commemorate 50 years since the Stonewall uprising, a landmark event for gay rights activism. In addition to panel discussions about the history of the uprising and the LGBTQ+ movement today, there will be screenings of two important films linked to events in New York in 1969 - Screaming Queens: The Riot At Compton's Cafeteria and Marsha P Johnson On Film, celebrating trans activist and queer icon Marsha P. Johnson [22nd October].

Other events focus on new research which changes our perspective on past eras:

In Animals In The City, historian Tom Almeroth-Williams, author of City of Beasts, will talk about the fascinating facts his research has uncovered about the interaction between humans and animals in Georgian London when people and animals lived in close proximity. He will compare the experience of living with cows in 21st century Cambridge with the experience of living in the shadow of Smithfield Market in Georgian London, painting a picture of life then and now. Focusing on evidence of tangible, dung-bespattered interactions between real people and animals, drawn from legal, parish, commercial, newspaper and private records, Almeroth-Williams will open up new perspectives on unfamiliar or misunderstood metropolitan spaces, activities, social types, relationships and cultural developments and challenge traditional assumptions about the industrial, agricultural and consumer revolutions. As one reviewer says: "It will change how you see the pre-industrial world and every mutt you meet on the street."  [23rd October]

Bring Out Your Dead!: Destiny And Health In The Middle Ages members of the After the Plague: Health and History in Medieval Cambridge project will use the actual life stories of people from medieval Cambridge, as revealed by multidisciplinary studies of their skeletons, to show the kind of health lottery faced by our ancestors. The session also includes an interactive game which allows you to play out the lives of typical people from the Middle Ages. Was the Plague the biggest health challenge facing them or were things like influenza and even toothache more deadly? [24th October]

*The Cambridge Festival of Ideas programme is available in hard copy around Cambridge and online here. Bookings open at 11am on 23rd September 2019. Follow the Festival on Twitter at https://twitter.com/camideasfest and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cambridgefestivalofideas?fref=ts

Now in their fourth year, the awards were made in four categories: collaboration, early career, established researcher/academic champion and professional service.

Winners in the collaboration category included PhD student Christopher Franck for an initiative creating a global air pollution sensor network driven by citizen science.

The early career researchers included Jessica Miller whose project has changed understandings of mental health and trauma in UK policing, informing a new wellbeing service and leading to discussion in Parliament.

Among those commended as established researchers, Vincent Gnanapragasam developed a new tool to predict an individual’s prognosis following a prostate cancer diagnosis to help make decisions about the value of treatment. In a very different field, David Trippett was recognised for bringing an ‘indecipherable’ opera back to life through international performances, broadcasts and recordings.

In the professional services category Naomi Chapman from the Polar Museum Education team developed maps to enable young and partially sighted people to explore the Arctic and Antarctic by touch.

The announcement was made at a prize ceremony held at the Old Schools on 14 October 2019.

Professor Stephen Toope, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, says: “This year’s nominations recognise impressive and inspirational individuals, and strongly reflect our mission to engage the public, tackle real-world problems and improve people’s lives. The award scheme focuses attention on the increasingly important role that institutions such as ours have to play in restoring faith in experts.”

The Vice-Chancellor’s Research Impact and Engagement Awards were established to recognise and reward outstanding achievement, innovation and creativity in devising and implementing ambitious engagement and impact plans that have the potential to create significant economic, social and cultural impact from and engagement with and for research. Each winner receives a £1,000 grant to be used for the development and delivery of engagement/impact activity or relevant training.

This year’s winners are:

Collaboration Award

Emily Mitchell (Department of Earth Sciences)

Researchers and museum specialists collaborated on a museum exhibition and public programme, engaging a range of public audiences with research on the earliest fossils to illuminate the start of complex life.

Helen Strudwick (The Fitzwilliam Museum)

This collaborative project engages audiences with our pioneering research on ancient Egyptian coffin construction and decoration, through a major exhibition, ‘Pop-Up’ museum targeting underserved audiences and digital resources.

Open-Seneca

Open-seneca is a student-led initiative creating a global low-cost mobile air pollution sensor network driven by citizen science. The aim of the initiative is to empower citizens with air pollution data to raise awareness, initiate behaviour change, and inform policy makers on environmental issues. The team are: Christoph Franck, Charles Christensen, Lorena Gordillo Dagallier, Sebastian Horstmann, Raphaël Jacquat and Peter Pihlman Pedersen. 

Early Career Award

Saumya Saxena (Faculty of History)

Saumya’s research focuses on family law and gender in India. She advised the twenty-first Law Commission of India on reform of family law and worked with the Verma Commission on amendments to law relating to rape in India.

Jessica Miller (Department of Sociology)

Jessica’s project involved engaging with over 18000 police officers and staff to change the face of trauma resilience in UK policing, and inviting commitment from decision-makers to inform national policy and operational change. 

Matthew Agarwala (Bennett Institute for Public Policy)

Matthew’s research on valuing natural resources is helping in the transition to sustainable economic growth. Having been adopted by the United Nations and other bodies, his work is shaping standards for measurement.

Zoë Fritz (School of Clinical Medicine)

Zoë’s research around resuscitation decisions led to the development of the ReSPECT process (“Recommended Summary Plan for Emergency Care and Treatment”), which has replaced problematic ‘DNACPR’s with tremendous impact on policy, practice, guidelines and beneficiaries.

Established Researcher and Academic Champion

Nicholas Thomas (Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology)

In 2018, Nicholas co-curated the landmark exhibition 'Oceania' at the Royal Academy in London. Based on collaborative research at Cambridge, the exhibition brought a dynamic, contemporary view of the art of an extraordinary region to European audiences.

Vincent Gnanapragasam (School of Clinical Medicine)

Vincent is the Chief Investigator for PREDICT Prostate, the first individualized prognostic tool accessible to both clinicians and patients to help make unbiased informed decisions about the value of treatment for newly diagnosed prostate cancer. 

David Trippett (Faculty of Music)

An unheard opera by 19th-century composer Franz Liszt languished silently in a manuscript thought fragmentary and illegible. David’s meticulous reconstruction brought it to life, to global acclaim, through international performances, broadcasts and recordings. 

Professional Service

Oliver Francis (Centre for Diet and Activity Research, and the MRC Epidemiology Unit)

Oliver’s leadership in communications has transformed the impact strategies at CEDAR and the MRC Epidemiology Unit. His innovative contributions span all aspects of the communications and impact portfolio.

Naomi Chapman (Scott Polar Research Institute)

With a local artist, Naomi developed innovative maps of the Arctic and Antarctic with which hundreds of young and partially sighted people have enjoyed a touch tour of polar research.

The project – which will also explore innovative new ways to help students during their application to study some courses at Cambridge, and investigate new ways of teaching students during their time at Cambridge - is part of the University’s work to encourage more applications from under-represented groups.

The first pilot, STEM Start, was launched over the summer and provided subject revision and support for all students preparing to start their Natural Sciences course at the University this month (October). In particular, the four-week online bridging programme aimed to build fluency and confidence in students who are less familiar with the demands that university study will make on their subject understanding, as well as their life skills.

STEM Start incorporates the University’s Isaac Physics online programme, a mass-scale, national project which is already used by students in 78% of English schools. The initiative – which won the 2019 Lawrence Bragg Medal and Prize - harnesses technology to help all students, especially those exposed to the national shortage of physics teachers, who can consequently be at a social disadvantage in pursuing STEM at university.

The pilot also introduced new students to some of the learning systems used at Cambridge and aimed to familiarise them with university life ahead of their arrival at the University.

Although face-to-face teaching such as lectures and small-group teaching will remain at the heart of a Cambridge education, the University strongly believes there is scope for it to make greater strides in implementing technology to support teaching practice.

As part of TELP, the University aims to launch more pilot studies between now and April 2020, looking at components of blended courses and fully-online courses, to support both existing taught provision and the development of distance learning. The pilots will investigate further support for A-Level students during their application to study some courses at Cambridge; opportunities to enhance undergraduate learning, for example elements of some courses could be taught online to allow students to make the most of staff contact time for practical work, and opportunities for online peer learning and discussion forums to benefit postgraduate students.

Michael Cresswell, Technology Enabled Learning Programme Lead, said: “The pilot programme signals a new direction for the University in the way it aims to use digital technology to support teaching and learning for students. In particular, the potential that online tools hold for reaching out to and supporting prospective students from under-represented groups - both in the application process and during their preparation for the start of their course - is hugely exciting.”

Professor Graham Virgo, Senior Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Education), said: “Digital technology has a crucial role to play in Cambridge’s educational experience and it is essential that we maximise the benefits of the most up-to-date innovations. As well as exploring how new technology can support students already studying at Cambridge, the TELP programme will also allow us to examine opportunities for new teaching programmes aimed at particular learner groups, with different needs, to make sure that the most talented people are encouraged to apply to Cambridge regardless of their background.”

The model could help policymakers to decide where to target vaccine deployment, or develop healthcare infrastructure, to reduce the risk of zoonotic disease outbreaks – illnesses that spread between animals and humans.

Analysis using the mathematical model, published in the journal Nature Communications, shows that several countries in Africa, including Nigeria, could be at risk of Ebola outbreaks both presently and in the future, despite having experienced no known cases to date.

“It is vital that we understand the complexities causing animal-borne diseases to spill-over into humans, to accurately predict outbreaks and help save lives,” said Dr David Redding at UCL Genetics, Evolution & Environment, first author of the study. “In our models, we’ve included more information about the animals that carry Ebola and, by doing so, we can better account for how changes in climate, land-use or human societies can affect human health.”

Designed by a team including researchers from UCL, University of Cambridge and Zoological Society of London (ZSL), the model captures the impact of climate, land use and human population factors on the risk of Ebola and predicts the known set of previous outbreaks with a high degree of accuracy, even in the absence of case data. The results show that Ebola outbreaks, resulting from spill-over events, are 1.6 times more likely in scenarios with increased warming and slower socioeconomic development.

Professor James Wood from Cambridge’s Department of Veterinary Medicine, who co-authored the study, said: “This work takes an unusually long-term approach to considering epidemic risk of Ebola, and identifies risks likely increasing across West as well as Central Africa. While there is always inherent uncertainty in specific predictions, the results suggest investment in primary health care across sub-Saharan Africa could have the most beneficial impact in reducing future risk.” 

More than two thirds of all infectious diseases originate in animals, including Ebola, Lassa fever and West Nile virus. These diseases contribute to the global health and economic burden that disproportionately affects poor communities.

The latest Ebola epidemic has claimed more than 2,100 lives since August 2018 and while there are signs it is in retreat, the risk of spread is still high according to a recent report by the UN.

The World Bank estimates that the 2014 Ebola outbreak cost the three countries most affected many billions of dollars, due to infrastructure breakdown, mass migration, crop abandonment and a rise in endemic disease due to overrun healthcare systems, among other drivers.

The team used a first principles approach of how humans interact with wildlife and how Ebola spreads within human populations to develop the predictive framework, which could also be adapted for other zoonotic diseases.

“Importantly, our model is flexible enough to allow us to predict Ebola outbreaks in alternative, simulated versions of the world. For example, we examine a set of plausible future environments and show stark differences in how Ebola responds to the best-case and worst-case scenarios of future climate change and poverty alleviation,” explained co-author Professor Kate Jones at UCL Genetics, Evolution & Environment and Institute of Zoology, ZSL.

The study was funded by the Natural Environmental Research Council, Economic and Social Research Council, the Medical Research Council, the Royal Society and the Wellcome Trust. 

Reference:
Redding, DW et al. 'Understanding the impact of environmental and socio-economic factors on emergence and epidemic potential of Ebola in Africa’, Nature Communications (2019), DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-12499-6.  

Adapted from a press release by UCL.