Recently appointed Trinity College master Dame Sally Davies, DBE, ​FRS. FMedSci, received the honour of Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB) for services to Public Health and Research in the 2020 New Year Honours List.

Shell Professor of Chemical Engineering in the University's Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, Professor Lynn Gladden, CBE, FRS. FREng, was made a dame, and Distinguished Research Fellow Professor Anthony Cheetham FRS. and Clare Hall Fellow Dr Mene Pangalos were both knighted.

Before arriving at Trinity College in October, Dame Sally was Chief Medical Officer for England and Chief Medical Advisor to the UK Government. She led the UK Government’s international campaign on antimicrobial resistance and advised it in health emergencies, including Ebola in West Africa 2013-15, Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2018, Zika, Wave 3 of the flu pandemic in 2010, and the Novichok attack in 2018.

She said: "I am honoured to receive this GCB recognising the efforts of many people across Government, the NHS and beyond, working together on issues ranging through health research and public health to fighting the rise of antimicrobial resistance both in the UK and across the world. We will continue to build coalitions for action as this war to save lives is not over."

Professor Gladden, who is Executive Chair of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for services to Academic and Industrial Research in Chemical Engineering.

Dame Lynn, who is also a Fellow of Trinity College, is internationally recognised for her work on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) methods, taking techniques well-established in the medical world and modifying them so that they can be applied to advancing the scientific understanding of fluid flows and chemical reaction.

The overall motivation for much of this work is to increase the energy-efficiency of chemical processes and produce products with better ‘in-use’ properties. Such products range from controlled-release pharmaceutical materials to optimised materials (known as catalysts) to perform catalytic conversions to produce ‘clean’ fuels.

She said: “This is a great surprise and honour. It also provides a great opportunity to thank senior colleagues in my research group, and all the students and post-doctoral workers who have worked with me over the past 30 years. I must also thank the University of Cambridge, Trinity College and, in particular, my first ‘boss’ Professor John Davidson, who have been so supportive over the years.”   

Professor Cheetham, of the University's Department of Materials Science, was awarded a Knights Bachelor for services to Material Chemistry, UK Science and Global Outreach.

Dr Pangalos, who is AstraZeneca's Executive Vice President of BioPharmaceuticals Research and Development, was awarded a Knights Bachelor for services to UK Science.

He said: “I am truly humbled and immensely honoured to receive this award and feel incredibly fortunate to have worked alongside so many talented colleagues and collaborators through my career. The UK is one of the best places in the world to do applied research, and life sciences clusters such as the one in Cambridge drive the convergence of scientific innovation and talent, enabling us to better turn science into life-changing medicines.”

Professor Andy Neely, FREng, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Enterprise and Business Relations at the University, and former Head of the Institute for Manufacturing (IfM), received an OBE for services to Research and to University/Industry Collaboration.

Professor Neely, who is a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Director of the Centre for Digital Built Britain and Founding Director of the Cambridge Service Alliance, is widely recognised for his work on the servitization of manufacturing - which involves firms (often manufacturing firms) developing the capabilities they need to provide services and solutions - as well as his work on performance measurement and management. He is Vice-Chair of the Cambridge and Peterborough Business Board and a non-executive Director of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult. In his role as Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Enterprise and Business Relations he works closely with the business community to encourage collaboration and innovation.

He said: “The mission of Cambridge University is to contribute to society. We do that at scale by working in partnership with others and I have been incredibly fortunate across my career to work with a wide range of talented people from universities and business. While awards single out individuals, individuals usually rely on teams and I have been lucky enough to work with some of the best teams. So while I am flattered to have been honoured, I’d really like to say thank you to all those who I have worked with for all they have done."

I would like to see the future renewable energy frontiers led by women. I hope I will be one of these women, along with the many other female scientists who are paving the way towards a greener future. It is hard to ignore the global need for better renewable energy sources and storage as soon as possible, and I hope my research will lead to better energy storage alternatives sooner rather than later.

Determination will take you far in life. Any time someone tells you that you aren't good enough to pursue a career in science, or perhaps you should "do something more suited for your skills" take that as a challenge to prove that person wrong. My advice to other women is to be confident that you ARE smart enough, you ARE brilliant, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

It never seemed odd to me that a woman would want to pursue physics. I grew up in Clifton Park, New York, and went to a large public high school with almost 1000 students per year. I was fortunate enough to have female science teachers throughout high school, and it was partly their influence that led me to major in physics at university.

At university, I helped to set up a Women in STEM programme. I attended Wake Forest University, a liberal arts college in North Carolina. With this programme, we created an after-school project with a local middle school called ‘Girls in STEM’ which helped girls age 12-15 start thinking about STEM careers. 

Choosing my Master's project was one of the hardest moments of my research career. I finally had the chance to create my own project, and I found this incredibly challenging but also so rewarding to know that all the work I do on this project is wholly my own. My research sets out to address our global need for storing renewable energy. I currently design lithium-ion battery materials using computational techniques, with the aim of developing a battery with long life and high capacity. This would mean that we are able to use solar, wind, and renewable energy, and store this energy effectively in Li-ion batteries.

I am a theoretical physicist, so each day I come in and work on the computer. My work involves creating models of new materials, calculating energies of different battery material structures, and developing code to better understand these materials. I work in the Theory of Condensed Matter group, located in West Cambridge at the Cavendish site. In chemistry, we learn about different orbitals, energy states, and phases of materials. But actually visualising and creating a material with these chemical properties was something new for me. The first day I was able to actually visualise, on my computer screen, the orbitals in a material I had computationally identified was a fantastic moment. 

In Cambridge, every academic I talk to at all levels is concerned about improving renewable energy sources. For this reason, I have found Cambridge an incredible place to conduct research on energy materials. Furthermore, the international nature of Cambridge has helped me build collaborations in countries I would not have had access to from the United States.  

It is impossible to walk into a pub, coffee shop, or grocery store without hearing incredibly academic conversations, and I have found that academically driven environment to be extremely rewarding.

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 results, published today in the journal Nature Genetics, provide the most comprehensive map of breast cancer risk variants to date. The researchers involved, from over 450 departments and institutions worldwide, say the findings will help provide the most detailed picture yet of how differences in our DNA put some women at greater risk than others of developing the disease.

The majority of the DNA is identical between individuals, but there are some differences, known as genetic variants, and these changes can have a profound effect, increasing an individual’s susceptibility to disease.

Our DNA – the blueprint for the human body – contains between 20,000-25,000 genes. Many of these code for proteins, the building blocks that make up the human body. Genetic variants can be located within genes, altering the protein. However, most of genetic variants are located outside genes, sometimes regulating the function of genes, turning their ‘volume’ up or down or even off. Finding which gene is targeted by these variants is not straightforward.

Most diseases are complex, polygenetic diseases – in other words, no single genetic variant or gene causes the disease, but rather the combination of a number of them act together to increase the likelihood that an individual will develop a particular disease. Breast cancer is one such disease.

Previous genome-wide association studies (GWAS), which involve comparing the DNA of patients against that of healthy controls, have found around 150 regions of the genome that clearly affect breast cancer risk. Within these regions, researchers know there are one or more genetic changes that affect the risk of developing cancer, but rarely are they able to pinpoint the specific variants or genes involved. Fine-mapping studies, such as this one, allow scientists to narrow down which variants contributing to the disease, how they might work and predict which are the genes involved.

“We know from previous studies that variants across our DNA contribute towards breast cancer risk, but only rarely have scientists have been able to identify exactly which genes are involved,” said Dr Laura Fachal from the Wellcome Sanger Institute. “We need this information as it gives us a better clue to what is driving the disease and hence how we might treat or even prevent it.”

In this new study, researchers from hundreds of institutions worldwide collaborated to compare the DNA of 110,000 breast cancer patients against that of some 90,000 healthy controls. By looking in much closer detail than was previously possibly, they identified 352 risk variants. It is not yet clear exactly how many genes these target, but the researchers have identified 191 genes with reasonable confidence; less than one in five of these had been previously recognised.

“This incredible haul of newly-discovered breast cancer genes provides us with many more genes to work on, most of which have not been studied before,” said Dr Alison Dunning from the University of Cambridge. “It will help us build up a much more detailed picture of how breast cancer arises and develops. But the sheer number of genes now known to play a role emphasises how complex the disease is.”

Of the newly-discovered genetic variants, a third predispose women towards developing hormone-responsive breast cancer, the type of disease found in four out of five breast cancer patients, which respond to hormonal treatments such as tamoxifen. 15% of the genetic variants predispose women to the rarer type, estrogen-receptor-negative breast cancer. The remaining genetic variants play a role in both types of breast cancer.

In the majority of cases, the genetic change affected gene expression – in other words, how active a particular gene was and how much of a particular protein it created – rather than altering the type of protein itself. For instance, nine different variants regulate the same gene, the Estrogen Receptor (ESR1) gene. Many other variants affect places in the DNA where the Estrogen Receptor protein binds, and, in turn regulates other genes. This highlights the importance of the ESR1 gene and its protein product, the Estrogen Receptor, in breast cancer development.

While each genetic variant only increases the risk of developing breast cancer by a very small amount, the researchers say that added together, these will allow them to ‘fine tune’ genetic testing and give women a much clearer picture of their genetic risk. This will then allow doctors and clinicians to provide advice on the best strategy for reducing their risk and preventing onset of the disease.

Professor Doug Easton, also from the University of Cambridge, said: “Our work would not have been possible without the help of the 200,000 volunteers who allowed us to study their DNA. It is also testament to the work of hundreds of researchers from all over the world who collaborated on this study.”

Reference
Fine-mapping of 150 breast cancer risk regions identifies 191 likely target genes. Nature Genetics; 7 Jan 2020; DOI: 10.1038/s41588-019-0537-1

The widespread applicability of my research is very appealing to me. Most people will be directly or indirectly affected by mental ill-health at some point in their lives. My research aims to understand the association between depression and cardiovascular health in young people.

My background is quite varied. I have a BSc in Biomedical Science and a Master’s in Biological Science (Pharmacology). I also have training in epidemiology and medical statistics. The start of the PhD was still a bit of a challenge as I had to teach myself how to code!

Cambridge is a scientific hub so there are always interesting talks or conferences to attend nearby. It’s a great place to carry out research because there are so many ongoing opportunities throughout the year. My department is particularly good at organising events as well as supporting its students during their studies.

I work on the Addenbrooke’s site and I spent most of my time analysing big data. I am working with two major UK datasets that contain long-term information of people’s health. A usual day for me consists of statistical analysis using these datasets to try and understand early life risk factors for depression. The analysis can get very complicated sometimes so I often spend time trying to create diagrams to represent what I have discovered in a clear way. Some of the most interesting days are when I present my work at meetings and get to discuss what I have found with lots of different people. The conversation often leads to exciting new ideas!

My advice to others is to trust in yourself. Be confident in your decision-making, be patient when learning new skills, and always put your mental health first.

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) affects as many as one in 50 people worldwide. One of the most common types of the condition, affecting almost a half of OCD patients, is characterised by severe contamination fears – even from touching something as commonplace as a door knob – leading to excessive washing behaviour. The condition can have a serious impact on people’s lives, their mental health, their relationships and their ability to hold down jobs.

OCD is treated using a combination of medication such as Prozac and a form of cognitive behavioural therapy (‘talking therapy’) termed ‘exposure and response prevention’. This exposure therapy often involves instructing OCD patients to touch contaminated surfaces, such as a toilet, but to refrain from then washing their hands; however, this experience can be so stressful that many patients cannot take part.

“OCD can be an extremely debilitating condition for many people, but the treatments are not always straightforward,” explained Baland Jalal, a neuroscientist based in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge. “In fact, exposure therapy can be very stressful and so is not always effective or even feasible for many patients.”

To overcome this challenge, a team of researchers from the UK and USA tested whether, rather than asking patients to contaminate their own hands, it might be possible to help them overcome their fears by contaminating a fake hand instead – a procedure they call ‘multisensory stimulation therapy’.

The technique builds on a famous trick known as the ‘rubber hand illusion’. In this illusion, an individual places both hands in front of them on a table, either side of a partition such that they cannot see their right hand. Instead, to the left of the partition they see a fake right hand. The illusionist – in this case, the experimenter – strokes both the fake hand and hidden right hand using a paintbrush. After several minutes of stroking the individual often reports ‘feeling’ touch arising from the fake hand as though it was their own.

In the majority of cases, the rubber hand illusion only works if both hands are stroked in synchrony; if they are stroked asynchronously, the illusion is diminished or disappears entirely. However, in a number of psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia and body dysmorphic disorder, the illusion appears to work in both cases, suggesting that the body image held in the minds of these patients is more malleable than in healthy individuals.

In a previous study, carried out by Jalal and neuroscientist VS Ramachandran using healthy volunteers, once the illusion had begun to work, the researchers contaminated the dummy hand with fake faeces. The participants reported disgust sensations as if it were their own hand that had been contaminated.

In a new study published today in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, Jalal and Ramachandran teamed up with researchers at Harvard University – Richard J McNally, Director of Clinical Training in Department Psychology and Jason A Elias and Sriramya Potluri in the Department Psychiatry.

The team recruited 29 OCD patients from the McLean Hospital Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Institute, an intensive residential treatment programme affiliated with Harvard Medical School. Sixteen of these patients had their hidden and dummy hands stroked at the same time, while the remaining 13 patients (the control group) had their hands stroked out of synch.

After 5 minutes of stroking, the participant was asked to rate how much the rubber hand felt like their own. The experimenter then used a tissue to smear the fake faeces on the rubber hand while simultaneously dabbing a damp paper towel on the participant’s real right hand (to create the sensation of having the contaminant smeared on their real hand). The participant was then asked to rate their disgust, anxiety and handwashing urge levels, and the experimenter rated the participant’s facial expression of disgust.

The researchers found that patients in both the experimental and control groups felt an equally strong rubber hand illusion. In other words, even when their real and fake hands were being stroked asynchronously, they had still begun to sense the fake hand as their own. Unsurprisingly, therefore, patients in both groups initially reported similar levels of contamination.

The experimenter then removed the clean paper towel and the tissue that had been used to contaminate the rubber hand, leaving fake faeces on the rubber hand. The experimenter continued to stroke the rubber hand and the participant’s real hand for an additional 5 minutes, after which the participant again provided contamination ratings and the experimenter rated their facial expression.

Now, the patients in the experimental condition were more disgusted: 65% of participants in the experimental condition had a disgust facial expression compared to 35% in the control. This supports previous studies that show that the rubber hand illusion becomes stronger the longer the hand is stroked.

Next, the experimenter stopped the stroking and placed the fake faeces on the patient’s real, right hand and asked the participant once again to provide contamination ratings. Now the differences were much more pronounced in the experimental condition. While those in the control group had average disgust, anxiety and washing urge levels at nearly 7, the experimental group had levels of nearly 9 – that is, an overall 23% difference in contamination ratings.

“Over time, stroking the real and fake hands in synchrony appears to create a stronger and stronger and stronger illusion to the extent that it eventually felt very much like their own hand,” said Jalal. “This meant that after ten minutes, the reaction to contamination was more extreme. Although this was the point our experiment ended, research has shown that continued exposure leads to a decline in contamination feelings – which is the basis of traditional exposure therapy.”

Jalal says it can be safely assumed that the fake hand contamination procedure would lead to similar fall in levels of disgust and contamination ratings, possibly after 30 minutes.

Jalal says the rubber hand illusion may offer a way of treating OCD patients without the high stress levels that exposure therapy can cause. “If you can provide an indirect treatment that is reasonably realistic, where you contaminate a rubber hand instead of a real hand, this might provide a bridge that will allow more people to tolerate exposure therapy or even to replace exposure therapy altogether.”

Jalal has previously worked on other indirect treatments for treating patients with OCD, including a smartphone app. He says that unlike other indirect treatments, this new approach creates a compelling illusion that a part of the patient’s body is being exposed to contamination and so could be even more immersive. It also has additional benefits: “Whereas traditional exposure therapy can be stressful, the rubber hand illusion often makes people laugh at first, helping put them at ease. It is also straightforward and cheap compared to virtual reality, and so can easily reach patients in distress no matter where they are, such as poorly resourced and emergency settings.”

Jalal says the next step is to do randomised clinical trials and compare this technique to existing treatments. Ramachandran agrees, adding: “These results are compelling but not conclusive. We need larger samples and to iron out some methodological wrinkles.”

Other applications of multisensory stimulation therapy might include therapy for people afraid of needles. Exposure therapy would mean repeated needle injections into a real arm and could result in punctured veins. Using a fake hand could provide a clever and convenient alternative.

Reference
“Fake it till You Make it”! Contaminating Rubber Hands (“Multisensory Stimulation Therapy”) to Treat Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Frontiers in Neuroscience; 9 Jan 2020; DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2019.00414

At the age of 26, Jane Goodall travelled from England to what is now Tanzania, Africa, and ventured into the little-known world of wild chimpanzees. Among her many discoveries, perhaps the greatest was that chimpanzees make and use tools. She completed a PhD at Newnham College in Cambridge in 1966, and subsequently founded the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977 to continue her conservation work and the youth service programme Roots & Shoots in 1991. She now travels the world as a UN Messenger of Peace.

Her words below (from the latest issue of Horizons magazine) continue our focus on Sustainable Earth, looking at how we transition to a carbon zero future, protect the planet's resources, reduce waste and build resilience. See also the newly released film here. 

“In 1986, I helped organise a conference on how chimpanzee behaviour differed according to the environment. There was a session on conservation and one on conditions in captivity – in both cases, it was utterly shocking. I went to the conference as a scientist, and I left as an activist.

Since then, I’ve been travelling the world raising awareness not only of chimpanzee conservation and welfare, but also of wider environmental issues.

We have just one home, one planet, and we’re destroying it very, very fast. The human population is growing, but on a planet with finite natural resources, and we’re using up these resources faster than nature can replenish them. We’re polluting the air, the water and the land. We’re recklessly pumping out CO₂ into the atmosphere and, at the same time, we’re destroying our forests and oceans – the two great lungs of the world. If we carry on with business as usual, in 20 years’ time, we may have a planet that’s virtually unliveable.

We must not give up hope. Every single day that we live, we make some impact on the planet. We have a choice as to what kind of impact that is.

I see reasons to be optimistic. Nature is resilient. If we work to restore those places that we have destroyed, if we give them time, they will recover. A bleak, destroyed area can become beautiful again as the insects and
birds and other animals come back. Animals on the very brink of extinction can be given another chance.

I truly believe we have a window of time during which we can begin to heal some of the damage we’ve inflicted and at least slow down the climate crisis. But we have to act now.

My greatest hope is our young people. There’s a saying, ‘We haven’t inherited this planet from our parents, we’ve borrowed it from our children’. But we haven’t borrowed our children’s future – we’ve stolen it. In my travels, I have met so many young people who seemed depressed, angry or just apathetic, feeling that their future has been compromised and that there’s nothing they can do about it. That was why we started our Roots & Shoots education programme in 1991, to empower young people to make the world a better place.

Cambridge, like all universities and schools, can play a role in shaping the attitudes of young people. We need to educate and inspire them, to teach them to respect each other and to respect other living organisms. We need environmental concerns to be taught not just in science, but in every discipline.

We are finally beginning to use our intellect to come up with technological solutions that will enable us to live in greater harmony with our planet – electric cars and renewable energy, for instance – and to think about our own ecological footprints. We need the scientific endeavour for which institutions such as Cambridge are famous to be directed towards doing something about the mess that we’ve made of our planet.

The human spirit is indomitable. Throughout my life, I’ve met so many incredible people – men and women who tackle what seems impossible and won’t give up until they succeed. With our intellect and our determined spirit, and with the tools that we have now, we can find a way to a better future.

But do we have time? I don’t know.”

Read more about our research linked with Sustainable Earth in the University's research magazine; download a pdf; view on Issuu.

The team recruited an advisory panel of autistic mothers with whom they co-developed an anonymous, online survey. After matching, this was completed by 355 autistic and 132 non-autistic mothers, each of whom had at least one autistic child.

Sixty percent of autistic mothers in the study reported they had experienced post-natal depression.  By comparison, only 12% of women in the general population experience post-natal depression. In addition, autistic mothers had more difficulties in multi-tasking, coping with domestic responsibilities, and creating social opportunities for their child.

The study also found that when autistic mothers disclosed their autism diagnosis to a professional, they were not believed the majority of the time. Autistic women felt misunderstood by professionals more frequently during pre- and post-natal appointments and found motherhood an isolating experience. Despite these challenges, autistic mothers reported they were able to act in the best interest of their child, putting their child’s needs first and seeking opportunities to boost their child’s self-confidence.  

Dr Alexa Pohl, who led the study, said: “Autistic mothers face unique challenges during the perinatal period and parenthood. Despite these challenges, an overwhelming majority of autistic mothers reported that parenting overall was a rewarding experience. This research highlights the need for increased awareness of the experiences of motherhood for autistic women and the need for more tailored support.”

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, Director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge, and part of the team, said: “This worryingly high number of autistic mothers who experience post-natal depression means we are failing them and their infants at a critical point in their lives. We now need more research into why the rates are so much higher, whether they are seeking help and not getting it, or if they are not seeking help and for what reasons. A new research priority is to develop autism-relevant screening tools and interventions for post-natal depression in these mothers.”

Monique Blakemore, an autistic advocate and member of the team, said: “This vital study was initiated by the autistic community, who collaborated as equal partners with researchers in the design, dissemination and interpretation of the survey.  This is an excellent example of what can be achieved through such partnership.”

The study was supported by the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC), East of England, at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, the Autism Research Trust, the MRC, the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre, and Autistica.

Reference
A comparative study of autistic and nonautistic women’s experience of motherhood by Alexa Pohl, Sarah Crockford, Monique Blakemore, Carrie Allison and Simon Baron-Cohen. Molecular Autism. DOI: 10.1186/s13229-019-0304-2

Broadly, my research explores the reasoning capacity of neural networks. You might have seen these algorithms in action when using automatic face recognition on social media or issuing voice commands to your phone. Neural networks, also hidden behind media-friendly terms such as deep learning, are nowadays a go-to research direction if one is interested in attaining the state-of-the-art accuracy on a classification task associated with a large amount of data.

Despite their impressive practical performance, these models are limited in their ability to combine familiar ideas to arrive at new conclusions as they tend to simply memorise the data. Having learned from the examples of red squares and blue circles, a truly intelligent system surely shouldn’t be confused by a red circle. This is a core challenge in learning algorithms and I hope my research will contribute to the international efforts of the machine learning community to induce reasoning and generalisation in neural networks.

During my current internship at Mila Quebec AI Institute, I'm investigating how agents based on neural networks communicate with each other in order to solve simple games. These games draw inspiration from the studies on language evolution in humans. The communication aspect is particularly cool and exciting because by analysing the messages sent between the agents I can see how closely these algorithms mimic the reasoning process of a biological intelligent system.

I have been extremely fortunate with my supervisors (Mateja Jamnik and Sean Holden) as well as the welcoming and friendly nature of the Department of Computer Science and Technology. Cambridge provides students with a unique degree of freedom, independence and intellectual stimulation. What I particularly appreciate after my experience with competitive institutions in Poland and France is that Cambridge provides the best resources for obtaining a well-rounded education alongside the ‘hard skills’ in a student’s chosen field.

I’ve always liked the quote “the areas in which you struggle the most are the ones in which you have the most to give.” If you put a lot of effort into grasping a subject or solving a task that seems daunting to begin with, you are well-equipped to support others who struggle with the same task. I believe this also applies to challenges outside of research.

Embrace stepping out of the ‘good student’ role. The skills required in a research career, especially in science and technology, frequently won’t fully overlap with what led you to have the top grades in your previous education. Firstly, there won’t be nearly as much of the immediate positive feedback so it is crucial to enjoy the process apart from the results. Secondly, the work will never seem finished so it is more important to follow a healthy routine. Reach out to friendly experienced colleagues to find out how they cope with these challenges.

Work with a light and kind attitude to yourself and others. The trap of oscillating between imposter syndrome and ‘I’m like, a genius’ is real in research. At the end of the day you are learning, trying new things and having lots of fun, together with like-minded people.

A massive experiment that deployed regular police patrols on platforms in the London Underground has shown that four 15-minute patrols a day in some of the capital’s most crime-ridden stations reduced reported crime and disorder by 21%.

Researchers from Cambridge University’s Institute of Criminology worked with the British Transport Police (BTP) to conduct the experiment across six months in 2011-2012. The findings have been published in the journal Criminology.

The team identified the 115 London stations where reported crime was highest. They randomly allocated 57 of these stations with four daily “doses” of platform patrols – two officers on foot for quarter of an hour – four days a week, and compared the effects to the remaining “untreated” stations.

The researchers found that, while the experiment was running, a total of 3,549 calls to police from the platform came from stations without patrols, compared to 2,817 in the stations receiving a policing “dosage” – a relative difference of 21%.

The team also looked at crime data from the six months prior to the experiment, and found that recorded crime fell 14% overall during the experimental period in those stations treated with the new patrols.

Strikingly, they discovered that the vast majority of reduction in both crime and calls for assistance occurred when these police patrols were absent – some 97% of the measured effect. The criminologists have dubbed this the “London Underground paradox”.

“The total crime prevention benefit of police patrols may be greater when they are absent than when they are present,” said study co-author Prof Lawrence Sherman. “In the London Underground experiment we see a huge residual effect of brief appearances by patrolling officers after they leave”     

“This phantom effect suggests that crime declines when potential offenders are apprehensive about a possible police presence based on recent patrolling patterns – even when there are no police in the vicinity,” he said.

“In London stations, it may be that more professional kinds of offenders are particularly sensitive to changes in police presence, such as pickpockets and distraction thieves.”

“The London Underground paradox could have implications for debates on police priorities in an age of austerity, such as the benefits of investigating past crimes compared with the benefits of preventing future crimes,” Sherman said.

London’s Underground opened in 1863, the first underground railway in the world, and provides more than 1.3 billion passenger rides per year.

The majority of crime in the transport network occurs on the trains and in concourse areas. Crime on platforms constitute 11% of the total, and historically platforms have had no regular police patrols.

As such, platforms offered an opportunity to conduct an experiment on spaces within a major metropolis that had never seen proactive police presence – ideal for gauging patrol effectiveness without previous “contamination”, say researchers.

“Platforms are small, stable and confined places with finite entry and exit points. These characteristics make them optimal for measuring the localised deterrence effects of police patrols,” said first author Dr Barak Ariel.

“We wanted to measure what happens when police patrols are introduced into an urban environment for the first time in over 150 years.”

The team targeted “hot spots” – areas where crime is more concentrated, and preventative patrols can have greatest effect – by ranking stations based on the previous year’s crime rates, and including the top 115 of Greater London’s 270 stations in the experiment.

Researchers also narrowed the experiment’s focus based on “hot hours” and “hot days”. Previous data showed the sample platforms experienced more crime and calls to police from Wednesday to Saturday between 3pm and 10pm.

Twenty uniformed BTP officers were selected and trained to work exclusively on patrolling the platforms of the “treatment” stations during “hot” days and hours. Each two-person unit was allocated between three and five stations, with platforms patrolled for fifteen minutes four times a day.

Officers were asked to conduct these patrols in a random or unpredictable order within the “hot hours”, and encouraged to engage with the public while patrolling.

Police were most effective at preventing platform crime during periods and days when patrols were scheduled – but just 3% of that reduction came when officers were actually scheduled to patrol.

The researchers also found “regional” effects: crime in the rest of the station fell almost as much as crime on platforms during the four days when regular patrols were deployed.

“Our findings indicate that consistent patrols can cause large reductions in both crime and emergency calls in areas that have never before been proactively patrolled by police in this way,” added Sherman.

“The more that uniformed police have been there, and the more recently, the less likely future crimes may be to occur.” 

‘Pani Pahar – the Water Curriculum’ was jointly developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge and the Hearth Education Advisors, a division of Canta Consultants LLP. It is designed for students between the ages of 9 and 15, and is now freely available to students, teachers and schools. The aim of the curriculum is to engage students in experiential learning and to instil in them a sense of responsibility towards water conservation.

The curriculum has grown out of ‘Pani, Pahar – Waters of the Himalayas’, a collaborative research project between the University of Cambridge, The Centre for Ecology Development and Research in India (CEDAR) and Southasia Institute for Advanced Studies in Nepal (SIAS). The project explores the changing landscapes and escalating water crises of the Indian Himalayas. It combines academic research led by Professor Bhaskar Vira and Dr Eszter Kovacs from Cambridge’s Department of Geography with contemporary imagery by photojournalist Toby Smith, which has been exhibited in the UK and India.

The curriculum aims to help students understand water resources and sustainability and how these are impacted by climate change. The detailed lesson plans encourage reflection and research on the human causes of water scarcity, and some of the effects of environmental change on humans and our shared resources. It also helps students understand the meaning of activism, recognise some of the challenges associated with activism, and begin to associate activism with the needs and issues of their school.

“These school materials are designed to allow young people, who are highly mobilised through the school strikes for climate, to develop a critical engagement with these issues, with learning resources and educational materials that are targeted at different stages of the secondary school curriculum,” said Vira. “We wanted to show the links between our research on water scarcity and broader concerns about environmental change and crises.”

The curriculum has three sets, one for each level, each involving a 10-hours contact time with the students. The curriculum is targeted at students of junior, middle and senior level.

The curriculum was launched in India earlier this week, although Vira says it could easily be incorporated into the school systems of other countries, including the UK.

Funding for the research project and exhibition was provided by the UK’s Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) programme, which was a joint initiative of the UK Department for International Development (DFID), Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Funding was also provided by the University of Cambridge’s Economic and Social Research Council Impact Acceleration Account. The Oxonian India Foundation funded the graphic design of the curriculum materials.

“Reforestation is an important part of tackling climate change, but we need to carefully consider the best places for it. In some places, changes to water availability will completely change the local cost-benefits of tree-planting programmes,” said Laura Bentley, a plant scientist in the University of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute, and first author of the report. 

Planting large areas of trees has been suggested as one of the best ways of reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, since trees absorb and store this greenhouse gas as they grow. While it has long been known that planting trees reduces the amount of water flowing into nearby rivers, there has previously been no understanding of how this effect changes as forests age.

The study looked at 43 sites across the world where forests have been established, and used river flow as a measure of water availability in the region. It found that within five years of planting trees, river flow had reduced by an average of 25%. By 25 years, rivers had gone down by an average of 40% and in a few cases had dried up entirely. The biggest percentage reductions in water availability were in regions in Australia and South Africa.  

“River flow does not recover after planting trees, even after many years, once disturbances in the catchment and the effects of climate are accounted for,” said Professor David Coomes, Director of the University of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute, who led the study. 

Published in the journal Global Change Biology, the research showed that the type of land where trees are planted determines the degree of impact they have on local water availability. Trees planted on natural grassland where the soil is healthy decrease river flow significantly. On land previously degraded by agriculture, establishing forest helps to repair the soil so it can hold more water and decreases nearby river flow by a lesser amount.

Counterintuitively, the effect of trees on river flow is smaller in drier years than wetter ones. When trees are drought-stressed they close the pores on their leaves to conserve water, and as a result draw up less water from the soil. In wet weather the trees use more water from the soil, and also catch the rainwater in their leaves.

“Climate change will affect water availability around the world,” said Bentley. “By studying how forestation affects water availability, we can work to minimise any local consequences for people and the environment.” 

This research was funded by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and the Natural Environment Research Council.

Reference 

Bentley, L. et al: ‘Partial river flow recovery with forest age is rare in the decades following establishment.’ Global Change Biology, Jan 2020. DOI: 10.1111/gcb.14954

Many people tend to put on weight as they leave adolescence and move into adulthood, and this is the age when the levels of obesity increase the fastest. This weight gain is related to changes in diet and physical activity behaviour across the life events of early adulthood, including the move from school to further education and employment, starting new relationships and having children.

Writing in Obesity Reviews, researchers from the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR) at Cambridge looked at changes in physical activity, diet and body weight as young adults move from education into employment and to becoming a parent. To do this, they carried out systematic reviews and meta-analyses of existing scientific literature – these approaches allow them to compare and consolidate results from a number of often-contradictory studies to reach more robust conclusions.

Leaving school

In the first of the two studies, the team looked at the evidence relating to the transition from high school into higher education or employment and how this affects body weight, diet and physical activity. In total, they found 19 studies covering ages 15-35 years, of which 17 assessed changes in physical activity, three body weight, and five diet or eating behaviours.

The team found that leaving high school was associated with a decrease of seven minutes per day of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. The decrease was larger for males than it was for females (a decrease of 16.4 minutes per day for men compared to 6.7 minutes per day for women). More detailed analysis revealed that the change is largest when people go to university, with overall levels of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity falling by 11.4 minutes per day.

Three studies reported increases in body weight on leaving high school, though there were not enough studies to provide a mean weight increase. Two studies suggested that diets decrease in quality on leaving high school and one suggested the same on leaving university.

“Children have a relatively protected environment, with healthy food and exercise encouraged within schools, but this evidence suggests that the pressures of university, employment and childcare drive changes in behaviour which are likely to be bad for long-term health,” said Dr Eleanor Winpenny from CEDAR and the MRC Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge.

“This is a really important time when people are forming healthy or unhealthy habits that will continue through adult life. If we can pinpoint the factors in our adult lives which are driving unhealthy behaviours, we can then work to change them.”

Becoming a parent

In the second study, the team looked at the impact of becoming a parent on weight, diet and physical activity.

A meta-analysis of six studies found the difference in change in body mass index (BMI) between remaining without children and becoming a parent was 17%: a woman of average height (164cm) who had no children gained around 7.5kg over five to six years, while a mother of the same height would gain an additional 1.3kg. These equate to increases in BMI of 2.8 versus 3.3.

Only one study looked at the impact of becoming a father and found no difference in change.

There was little evidence looking at physical activity and diet. Most studies including physical activity showed a greater decline in parents versus non-parents. The team found limited evidence for diet, which did not seem to differ between parents and non-parents.

“BMI increases for women over young adulthood, particularly among those becoming a mother. However, new parents could also be particularly willing to change their behaviour as it may also positively influence their children, rather than solely improve their own health,” said Dr Kirsten Corder, also from CEDAR and the MRC Epidemiology Unit.

“Interventions aimed at increasing parents’ activity levels and improving diet could have benefits all round. We need to take a look at the messages given to new parents by health practitioners as previous studies have suggested widespread confusion among new mothers about acceptable pregnancy-related weight gain.”

Reference
Winpenny, E. et al. Changes in physical activity, diet and body weight across the education and employment transitions of early adulthood: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Obesity Reviews; 20 Jan 2020

Corder, K. et al. Becoming a parent: a systematic review and meta-analysis of changes in BMI, diet and physical activity. Obesity Reviews; 20 Jan 2020

Most black holes are too small on the sky for us to determine their immediate environment, but we can still explore these mysterious objects by watching how matter behaves as it nears, and falls into, them.

As material spirals towards a black hole, it is heated up and emits X-rays that, in turn, echo and reverberate as they interact with nearby gas. These regions of space are highly distorted and warped due to the extreme nature and crushingly strong gravity of the black hole.

Now, researchers have used the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton X-ray observatory to track these light echoes and map the surroundings of the black hole at the core of an active galaxy. Their results are reported in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Named IRAS 13224–3809, the black hole’s host galaxy is one of the most variable X-ray sources in the sky, undergoing very large and rapid fluctuations in brightness of a factor of 50 in mere hours.

“Everyone is familiar with how the echo of their voice sounds different when speaking in a classroom compared to a cathedral – this is simply due to the geometry and materials of the rooms, which causes sound to behave and bounce around differently,” said Dr William Alston from Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy, lead author of the new study.

“In a similar manner, we can watch how echoes of X-ray radiation propagate in the vicinity of a black hole in order to map out the geometry of a region and the state of a clump of matter before it disappears into the singularity. It’s a bit like cosmic echo-location.”

As the dynamics of infalling gas are strongly linked to the properties of the consuming black hole, Alston and his colleagues were also able to determine the mass and spin of the galaxy’s central black hole by observing the properties of matter as it spiralled inwards.

The material forms a disc as it falls into the black hole. Above this disc lies a region of hot electrons – with temperatures of around a billion degrees – called the corona. While the scientists expected to see the reverberation echoes they used to map the region’s geometry, they also spotted something unexpected: the corona itself changed in size quickly, over a matter of days.

“As the corona’s size changes, so does the light echo – a bit like if the cathedral ceiling is moving up and down, changing how the echo of your voice sounds,” said Alston.

“By tracking the light echoes, we were able to track this changing corona, and – what’s even more exciting – get much better values for the black hole’s mass and spin than we could have determined if the corona was not changing in size. We know the black hole's mass cannot be fluctuating, so any changes in the echo must be down to the gaseous environment.”

The study used the longest observation of an accreting black hole ever taken with XMM- Newton, collected over 16 spacecraft orbits in 2011 and 2016 and totalling 2 million seconds – just over 23 days. This, combined with the strong and short-term variability of the black hole itself, allowed Alston and collaborators to model the echoes comprehensively over day-long timescales.

The region explored in this study is not accessible to observatories such as the Event Horizon Telescope, which managed to take the first ever picture of gas in the immediate vicinity of a black hole – the one sitting at the centre of the nearby massive galaxy M87. The result, based on observations performed with radio telescopes across the world in 2017 and published last year, became a global sensation.

“The Event Horizon Telescope image was obtained using a method known as interferometry – a technique that can only work on the few nearest supermassive black holes to Earth, such as those in M87 and in our home galaxy, the Milky Way, because their apparent size on the sky is large enough for the method to work,” said co-author Michael Parker, who is an ESA research fellow at the European Space Astronomy Centre near Madrid.

“By contrast, our approach is able to probe the nearest few hundred supermassive black holes that are actively consuming matter – and this number will increase significantly with the launch of ESA’s Athena satellite.”

Characterising the environments closely surrounding black holes is a core science goal for ESA’s Athena mission, which is scheduled for launch in the early 2030s and will unveil the secrets of the hot and energetic Universe.

Measuring the mass, spin and accretion rates of a large sample of black holes is key to understanding gravity throughout the cosmos. Additionally, since supermassive black holes are strongly linked to their host galaxy’s properties, these studies are also key to furthering our knowledge of how galaxies form and evolve over time.

“The large dataset provided by XMM-Newton was essential for this result,” said Norbert Schartel, ESA XMM-Newton Project Scientist. “Reverberation mapping is a technique that promises to reveal much about both black holes and the wider Universe in coming years. I hope that XMM-Newton will perform similar observing campaigns for several more active galaxies in coming years, so that the method is fully established when Athena launches.”

Reference:
William N. Alston et al. ‘A dynamic black hole corona in an active galaxy through X-ray reverberation mapping.’ Nature Astronomy (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-019-1002-x

Adapted from an ESA press release.

Bumblebees drink nectar from flowers, then offload it in their nest – by vomiting –  for use by other bees in the colony. The sugar within nectar makes it appealing, and the more sugar within the nectar, the more energy it contains. But nectar also gets more thick and sticky as the sugar content rises, and this makes it more difficult for bees to drink and regurgitate –  requiring more time and energy. 

Published today in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, the study looked at the mechanics of both nectar drinking and regurgitation in one of the most common bumblebees in the UK, Bombus terrestris. It found that the best concentration of nectar for bumblebees in terms of overall energy gain is lower than might be expected. Nectar that is low in sugar is easy for bees to drink and very easy to vomit back up. As nectar gets more sugary, it gradually takes bees longer to drink, but swiftly becomes much more difficult to vomit. 

“Bumblebees must strike a balance between choosing a nectar that is energy-rich, but isn’t too time-consuming to drink and offload. Nectar sugar concentration affects the speed of the bees’ foraging trips, so it influences their foraging decisions,” said Dr Jonathan Pattrick, first author of this study, formerly a PhD student based jointly in the University of Cambridge’s departments of Plant Sciences and Zoology and now a post-doctoral researcher in the University of Oxford’s Department of Zoology. 

While it has long been known that nectar with a higher sugar concentration takes bees longer to drink, its effect on nectar regurgitation has not previously received much attention. This new information will help scientists make better predictions about which types of nectar bumblebees and other pollinators should like best, and consequently the kinds of flowers and plants they are most likely to visit. This will inform crop breeders in producing the most appealing flowers for better crop pollination and higher yields. 

To conduct the research, bees were allowed to forage on sugar solutions of three different concentrations in the Department of Plant Science’s Bee Lab. While doing this, the bees were also timed and weighed. When the bees returned to their ‘nest’, the researchers watched them through a Perspex lid, timing how long it took for the bees to vomit up the nectar they had collected.

“For low strength nectar, bees had a quick vomit that only lasted a few seconds, then were back out and foraging again,” said Pattrick, “but for really thick nectar they took ages to vomit, sometimes straining for nearly a minute.” 

For any given nectar concentration, bees regurgitate the nectar quicker than they initially drink it. But as nectar sugar concentration –  and therefore stickiness –  goes up, the rate of regurgitation decreases faster than the rate of drinking. “It’s hard to drink a thick, sticky liquid, but imagine trying to spit it out again through a straw – that would be even harder,” said Pattrick. “At a certain sugar concentration, the energy gain versus energy loss is optimised for nectar feeders.”

The perfect nectar sugar concentration for the highest energy intake depends on the species drinking it, because different species feed in different ways. Bumblebees and honeybees feed by dipping their tongue repeatedly into the nectar, but regurgitate by forcing the nectar back up through a tube – just like when humans are sick. Other species such as Orchid Bees suck nectar up instead of lapping it, so struggle even more when nectar is highly concentrated. This influences nectar preference and the plants visited by different species.

Current crop breeding is focused on enhancing traits like yield and disease resistance, rather than considering pollinator preference. The new results improve predictions of the perfect nectar concentration for making the most efficient use of pollinating bumblebees.

Nectar is produced by flowers to attract pollinators, and a source of food for many species of insect, bird and mammal. The levels of the sugars sucrose, glucose and fructose within the nectar vary depending on the plant producing it.

“Studies have shown that numbers of some pollinators are going down, but there are more and more people in the world to feed. We need to make better use of the pollinators we have,” said Professor Beverley Glover in Cambridge’s Department of Plant Sciences and Director of Cambridge University Botanic Garden, who led the study. “This research will help us understand the types of flowers and plants the bees are most likely to visit, which will inform crop breeding to make the best use of the available pollinators.”

This research was funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).

Reference
Pattrick, J.G. et al. ‘The mechanics of nectar offloading in the bumblebee Bombus terrestris and implications for optimal concentrations during nectar foraging.’ Interface, Jan 2020. DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2019.0632

This is the first time researchers have demonstrated that this scanning technique, called carbon-13 hyperpolarised imaging, can be used to monitor breast cancer.

The team based at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute and the Department of Radiology, University of Cambridge, tested the technique in seven patients with various types and grades of breast cancer before they had received any treatment.

They used the scan to measure how fast the patients’ tumours were metabolising a naturally occurring molecule called pyruvate, and were able to detect differences in the size, type and grade of tumours – a measure of how fast growing, or aggressive the cancer is.

The scan also revealed in more detail the ‘topography’ of the tumour, detecting variations in metabolism between different regions of the same tumour.

Professor Kevin Brindle, lead researcher from the institute, said: “This is one of the most detailed pictures of the metabolism of a patient’s breast cancer that we’ve ever been able to achieve. It’s like we can see the tumour ‘breathing’.

“Combining this with advances in genetic testing, this scan could in the future allow doctors to better tailor treatments to each individual, and detect whether patients are responding to treatments, like chemotherapy, earlier than is currently possible”.

Hyperpolarised carbon-13 pyruvate is an isotope-labelled form of the molecule that is slightly heavier than the naturally occurring pyruvate which is formed in our bodies from the breakdown of glucose and other sugars.

In the study, the scientists ‘hyperpolarised’, or magnetised, carbon-13 pyruvate by cooling it to about one degree above absolute zero (-272°C) and exposing it to extremely strong magnetic fields and microwave radiation. The frozen material was then thawed and dissolved into an injectable solution.

Patients were injected with the solution and then received an MRI scan at Addenbrookes Hospital. Magnetising the carbon-13 pyruvate molecules increases the signal strength by 10,000 times so that they are visible on the scan.

The researchers used the scan to measure how fast pyruvate was being converted into a substance called lactate.

Our cells convert pyruvate into lactate as part of the metabolic processes that produce energy and the building blocks for making new cells. Tumours have a different metabolism to healthy cells, and so produce lactate more quickly. This rate also varies between tumours, and between different regions of the same tumour.

The researchers showed that monitoring this conversion in real-time could be used to infer the type and aggressiveness of the breast cancer.

The team now hopes to trial this scan in larger groups of patients, to see if it can be reliably used to inform treatment decisions in hospitals.

Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer in the UK, with around 55,000 new cases each year. 80% of people with breast cancer survive for 10 years or more, however for some subtypes, survival is much lower.

Professor Charles Swanton, Cancer Research UK’s chief clinician, said: “This exciting advance in scanning technology could provide new information about the metabolic status of each patient’s tumour upon diagnosis, which could help doctors to identify the best course of treatment.

“And the simple, non-invasive scan could be repeated periodically during treatment, providing an indication of whether the treatment is working. Ultimately, the hope is that scans like this could help doctors decide to switch to a more intensive treatment if needed, or even reduce the treatment dose, sparing people unnecessary side effects.”

The research was supported by Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute and The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research.

Reference
Gallagher, FA et al. Imaging breast cancer using hyperpolarized carbon-13 MRI. PNAS; 21 Jan 2020; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1913841117

My research sets out to use what scientists have learned from over half a century of research on proteins - the workhorses of the cell - to design new proteins to carry out pre-programmed functions. The intellectual challenge of protein engineering and of using redesigned proteins to dissect cellular pathways is what motivates me.

I spend my days thinking and breathing science, whether that is interacting with my research group in the Department of Pharmacology, writing papers and grants, discussing ideas and future projects with colleagues and collaborators, as well as undergraduate teaching and department administration.

No two days are the same. It’s the interaction with people and the intellectual challenge that makes the job so much fun. I try to spend one day a week at PolyProx Therapeutics, which is based at the Babraham Research Campus just a few miles from the city centre.

Two recent days in our group stand out. The first was when colleagues in my group showed proof of concept of our idea that we were hoping to patent and to spin out into a company. Based on my understanding of the underlying cellular mechanisms, I had been quietly confident that it would work, but I don’t think the rest of my group was until we got those first results! That was in the spring of 2017. A year later we were pitching to investors, and I have to say one of the happiest days of 2018 was when one of these investors said they liked what they’d heard and wanted to put some money in. Now, our research is supported by both research grants into my academic lab and investment into the company, and it is very exciting.

Cambridge is a great place to be because of the wealth of scientists and commercialisation opportunities. I hope my research will lead to a new level of understanding of cellular quality control pathways that will allow us to harness them for therapeutic benefit. Ultimately I hope that the work in my academic group and in PolyProx Therapeutics will lead to new drugs for diseases such as cancer.

My advice for women considering a career in a STEM field is to go for it! Know that you can have a career and do the other things you might want out of life such as having a family.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder estimated to affect one in 160 children worldwide. It is characterised by impairments in social communication, which manifest as problems with understanding emotions and with non-verbal communication, such as eye contact and smiling, and in failures to develop, maintain and understand social relationships. People with ASD also tend to have restricted interests and show repetitive behaviour. In mild cases of ASD, people are able to live independently, but for some the condition can be severe, requiring life-long care and support.

Although the biological mechanisms underlying ASD remain largely unknown, previous research has suggested that it may result from changes in brain development early in life, and in particular in relation to GABA, a neurotransmitter, a chemical in the brain that controls how nerve cells communicate. In the adult brain, GABA is inhibitory, which means it switches nerve cells ‘off’. In fetal life and early postnatal development, it is mostly excitatory, switching nerve cells ‘on’ and making them fire, playing a key role in the development and maturation of nerve cells. Alterations in the GABA-switch (from excitatory to inhibitory) can cause a delay in when the developing neural circuits reach functional maturity, with consequences for network activity. This implies that intervening at an early age may help reduce some of the symptoms that can make life challenging for people with ASD.

Current treatments for ASD at preschool age are mainly behavioural interventions, such as using play and joint activities between parents and their child to boost language, social and cognitive skills. However, with limited resources there is an inequality in access to these treatments across the globe, particularly in developing countries.

Previous studies in rats and small clinical trials involving children with ASD suggest that the drug bumetanide, which has been approved for use in oedema, a condition that results in a build-up of fluid in the body, could help reduce symptoms of ASD.

Now, an international collaboration between researchers at a number of institutions across China and at the University of Cambridge, UK, has shown that bumetanide is safe to use and effective at reducing symptoms in children as young as three years old. ASD can be reliably diagnosed at age 24 months or even as early as 18 months of age.

The team recruited 83 children aged three to six years old and divided them into two groups. A treatment group of 42 children received 0.5mg of bumetanide twice a day for three months, while a control group of 41 children received no treatment. The researchers assessed symptoms using the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS), which is used to rate behaviour such as imitation, emotional response and verbal and non-verbal communication. Children scoring above 30 on the scale are considered to have ASD.

Before treatment, both groups had similar CARS scores, but afterwards, the treatment group now had a mean total score of 34.51 (compared to the control group mean score of 37.27). Also, importantly, the treatment group showed a significant reduction in the number of items on the CARS assigned a score greater than or equal to three, with the average number of 3.52 items in the treatment group compared to 5.49 items in the control group.

Dr Fei Li from Xinhua Hospital, Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, the clinical lead of the study, said: "I have many children with autism spectrum disorder under my care, but as psychological treatment resources are not available in many places, we are unable to offer them treatment. An effective and safe treatment will be very good news for them.

“The mother of a four year old boy living in a rural area outside Shanghai who received the treatment told me that he was now better at making eye contact with family members and relatives and was able to participate more in activities. In future, we hope to be able to ensure all families, regardless of where they are living, can receive treatment for their child."

To understand the mechanisms underlying the improvements, the researchers used a brain imaging technique known as magnetic resonance spectroscopy to study concentrations of neurotransmitters within the brain. They found that in two key brain regions – the insular cortex (which plays a role in emotions, empathy and self-awareness) and visual cortex (responsible for integrating and processing visual information) – the ratio of GABA to glutamate decreased over the three-month period in the treatment group. GABA and glutamate are known to be important for brain plasticity and promoting learning.

Professor Ching-Po Lin of National Yang-Ming University said: "This is the first demonstration that bumetanide improves brain function and reduces symptoms by reducing the amount of the brain chemical GABA. Understanding this mechanism is a major step towards developing new and more effective drug treatments.”

Professor Barbara Sahakian from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge said: "This study is important and exciting, because it means that there is a drug that can improve social learning and reduce ASD symptoms during the time when the brains of these children are still developing. We know that GABA and glutamate are key chemicals in the brain for plasticity and learning and so these children should have an opportunity for better quality of life and wellbeing."

The team say the discovery that bumetanide changes the relative of concentrations of GABA to glutamate could provide a useful biomarker – a tell-tale biological measure – of how effective a treatment is. However, they cautioned that further research is needed to confirm the effectiveness of bumetanide as a treatment for ASD.

Dr Qiang Luo from Fudan University said: “These findings are very promising and suggest we will be able to use the biomarker measure to identify which children with ASD will benefit most from bumetanide. Further studies in a larger number of children will hopefully confirm whether bumetanide is an effective treatment for children with autism spectrum disorder.”

Reference
Lingli Zhang et al. Symptom improvement in children with autism spectrum disorder following bumetanide administration is associated with decreased GABA/glutamate ratios. Translational Psychiatry; 27 Jan 2020

Funding
The research was supported by the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning, Shanghai Shenkang Hospital Development Center, Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Shanghai Committee of Science and Technology, Xinhua Hospital of Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, National Human Genetic Resources Sharing Service Platform, the National Key Research and Development Program of China, 111 Project, the Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Major Project, Guangdong Key Project, and ZJ Lab.

The Centre, which is due to open in 2022, will bring together researchers from across UK Universities with industry partners such as Rolls Royce, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Siemens and Dyson to accelerate the development of low-carbon technologies for the propulsion and power sectors.

Professor Rob Miller, Director of the Whittle Laboratory, said: “Our enemy is time. To achieve net-zero by 2050 we have focused on accelerating the technology development process itself. The results have been astonishing, with development times being reduced by a factor of 10 to 100.”

The Prince, who is patron of the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), hosted a roundtable meeting of aviation and power generation business leaders, senior Government officials and researchers about how the UK can accelerate the development of decarbonisation technologies.

“We are at a pivotal moment, in terms of both Cambridge’s history of leading technology development in propulsion and power, and humanity’s need to decarbonise these sectors,” said Miller. “Fifty years ago, the Whittle Laboratory and its industrial partners faced the challenge of making air travel efficient and reliable. Now the new Whittle Laboratory and the National Centre will enable us to lead the way in making it green.”

Simon Weeks, Chief Technology Officer of the Aerospace Technology Institute said: “We are pleased to support the National Centre for Propulsion and Power with funding through the ATI Programme. The centre will play a critical role in developing sustainable propulsion technologies – a key part of the UK’s air transport technology strategy. It builds on the world-leading reputation of the Whittle Laboratory to create a globally unique capability.”

Business Minister Nadhim Zahawi said: “The new National Centre for Propulsion and Power will support the UK’s thriving aerospace sector and help it develop cutting-edge technology at an even faster pace. By fuelling innovation we will ensure the UK remains firmly established as a world leader in low carbon technologies - as we make strides towards our goal of net zero emissions by 2050.”

The National Centre, supported by the Aerospace Technology Institute with funding from the Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, aims to scale agile technology development to around 80% of the UK’s future aerodynamic needs. The process is described as ‘tightening the circle’ between design, manufacture and testing.

Design time has been reduced used AI and augmented design systems running on graphics processors, originally designed for computer gaming. Manufacturing times have been reduced by directly linking the design systems to rows of in-house 3D printing and rapid machining tools, rather than relying on external suppliers. Testing times have been reduced by developing rapidly assembly and disassembly experimental test facilities, which can be operated by Formula One-style pit teams.

“There’s a natural human timescale of about a week, in which if you can go from idea to result then you have a virtuous circle between understanding and inspiration,” said Miller. “We’ve found that when the technology development timescale approaches the human timescale – as it does in our leaner process – then innovation explodes.”

The aviation roundtable was convened by the Whittle Laboratory and CISL, which share a common objective of developing new ways in which policy leadership, industry and academia can collaborate to accelerate innovation and achieve net-zero by 2050.

The University launched Cambridge Zero in 2019 to bring together its research, policy and private sector engagement activities on climate change. The Whittle Laboratory and CISL are key partners in that initiative, and both demonstrate the importance of academia working with government and the private sector on the critical issue of our time.

Adolescence is a time of major change in life, with increasing social and cognitive skills and independence, but also increased risk of mental illness. While it is clear that these changes in the mind must reflect developmental changes in the brain, it has been unclear how exactly the function of the human brain matures as people grow up from children to young adults.

A team based in the University of Cambridge and University College London has published a major new research study that helps us understand more clearly the development of the adolescent brain.

The study collected functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data on brain activity from 298 healthy young people, aged 14-25 years, each scanned on one to three occasions about 6 to 12 months apart. In each scanning session, the participants lay quietly in the scanner so that the researchers could analyse the pattern of connections between different brain regions while the brain was in a resting state.

The team discovered that the functional connectivity of the human brain – in other words, how different regions of the brain ‘talk’ to each other – changes in two main ways during adolescence.

The brain regions that are important for vision, movement, and other basic faculties were strongly connected at the age of 14 and became even more strongly connected by the age of 25. This was called a ‘conservative’ pattern of change, as areas of the brain that were rich in connections at the start of adolescence become even richer during the transition to adulthood.

However, the brain regions that are important for more advanced social skills, such as being able to imagine how someone else is thinking or feeling (so-called theory of mind), showed a very different pattern of change. In these regions, connections were redistributed over the course of adolescence: connections that were initially weak became stronger, and connections that were initially strong became weaker. This was called a ‘disruptive’ pattern of change, as areas that were poor in their connections became richer, and areas that were rich became poorer.

By comparing the fMRI results to other data on the brain, the researchers found that the network of regions that showed the disruptive pattern of change during adolescence had high levels of metabolic activity typically associated with active re-modelling of connections between nerve cells.

Dr Petra Vértes, joint senior author of the paper and a Fellow of the mental health research charity MQ, said: “From the results of these brain scans, it appears that the acquisition of new, more adult skills during adolescence depends on the active, disruptive formation of new connections between brain regions, bringing new brain networks ‘online’ for the first time to deliver advanced social and other skills as people grow older.”

Professor Ed Bullmore, joint senior author of the paper and head of the Department of Psychiatry at Cambridge, said: “We know that depression, anxiety and other mental health disorders often occur for the first time in adolescence – but we don't know why. These results show us that active re-modelling of brain networks is ongoing during the teenage years and deeper understanding of brain development could lead to deeper understanding of the causes of mental illness in young people.”

Measuring functional connectivity in the brain presents particular challenges, as Dr František Váša, who led the study as a Gates Cambridge Trust PhD Scholar, and is now at King’s College London, explained.

“Studying brain functional connectivity with fMRI is tricky as even the slightest head movement can corrupt the data – this is especially problematic when studying adolescent development as younger people find it harder to keep still during the scan,” he said. “Here, we used three different approaches for removing signatures of head movement from the data, and obtained consistent results, which made us confident that our conclusions are not related to head movement, but to developmental changes in the adolescent brain.”

The study was supported by the Wellcome Trust.

Reference
Váša, F et al. Conservative and disruptive modes of adolescent change in human brain functional connectivity. PNAS; 28 Jan 2020; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1906144117

As a systems engineer, I am part of the team responsible for designing the software for the world’s largest radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). The team includes representatives from over 100 organisations across 20 countries. My main motivation is the chance to be part of a global collaboration that is contributing to creating an instrument of this scale that will ultimately lead to expanding our knowledge of the universe.

To be part of a project of this scale, that is breaking new ground in engineering and astronomy, is a true privilege. A big part of my day-to-day is the interaction with other engineers and astronomers from all over the world. Our HQ, based at the Jodrell Bank Observatory, brings together engineers and scientists from all over the world. This is probably the richest part of my work experience – the exposure to and engagement with a diverse group of people.

The University of Cambridge, specifically the Institute of Astronomy and the Cavendish Laboratory, is heavily involved in the design of a critical component of the SKA– the Science Data Processor (SDP), which essentially serves as the ‘brain’ of the SKA, processing raw data into images. It was through regularly visiting my colleagues in Cambridge that I was motivated to enrol at the Cambridge Judge Business School as an Executive MBA candidate.

The most interesting day I’ve had so far was when I visited the site of the telescope in South Africa’s Karoo Desert and saw the first assembled dish of what will eventually be 128 dishes that make up the SKA. It felt incredibly exciting to witness the beginnings of this project and to imagine the possibilities that will be realised in this vast, empty space. As an engineer and as a South African, I was overcome by a swell of hope.

I hope my research will lead to new and interesting scientific discoveries that have the potential to upend or enhance what we know about physics and the universe. I am also just as excited, if not more, about the project’s ability to inspire and build the next generation of scientists and engineers and make a strong case for similar projects of this scale.

Ensure that you are passionate and inspired by whatever you want to do, as it is this passion that will see you through any challenges that you may encounter on your path. There is no obstacle to conviction.