The hunting tortoise was seen in July 2020 on Frégate Island, a privately owned island in the Seychelles group managed for ecotourism, where around 3,000 tortoises live. Other tortoises in the same area have been seen making similar attacks.

“This is completely unexpected behaviour and has never been seen before in wild tortoises,” said Dr Justin Gerlach, Director of Studies at Peterhouse, Cambridge and Affiliated Researcher at the University of Cambridge’s Museum of Zoology, who led the study.

He added: “The giant tortoise pursued the tern chick along a log, finally killing the chick and eating it. It was a very slow encounter, with the tortoise moving at its normal, slow walking pace – the whole interaction took seven minutes and was quite horrifying.” 

The interaction was filmed by Anna Zora, conservation manager on Frégate Island and co-author of the study. 

“When I saw the tortoise moving in a strange way I sat and watched, and when I realised what it was doing I started filming,” said Zora.

The finding is published today in the journal Current Biology.

All tortoises were previously thought to be vegetarian - although they have been spotted feeding opportunistically on carrion, and they eat bones and snail shells for calcium. But no tortoise species has been seen actively pursuing prey in the wild before.

The researchers think that this entirely new hunting behaviour was driven by the unusual combination of a tree-nesting tern colony and a resident giant tortoise population on the Seychelles’ Frégate island.

Extensive habitat restoration on the island has enabled sea-birds to recolonise, and there is a colony of 265,000 noddy terns, Anous tenuirostris. The ground under the colony is littered with dropped fish and chicks that have fallen from their nests.

In most places, potential prey are too fast or agile to be caught by giant tortoises. The researchers say that the way the tortoise approached the chick on the log suggests this type of interaction happens frequently.

On the Galapagos and Seychelles islands, giant tortoises are the largest herbivores and eat up to 11% of the vegetation. They also play an important role in dispersing seeds, breaking vegetation and eroding rocks.

“These days Frégate island’s combination of tree-nesting terns and giant tortoise populations is unusual, but our observation highlights that when ecosystems are restored totally unexpected interactions between species may appear; things that probably happened commonly in the past but we’ve never seen before,” said Gerlach.

This research was supported by Fregate Island Foundation.

Reference
Zora, A. & Gerlach, J.: ‘First documented observations of giant tortoises hunting and consuming birds.’ Current Biology, August 2021, DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.06.088

Spectrum 10K is led by researchers at the world-leading Autism Research Centre (ARC), the University of Cambridge, together with the Wellcome Sanger Institute and University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and will study how biological and environmental factors impact on the wellbeing of autistic individuals.

In the UK, there are approximately 700,000 autistic individuals. The level of support needed by autistic individuals varies considerably. Many autistic people have additional physical health conditions such as epilepsy, or mental health conditions such as anxiety or depression.

It is unclear what gives rise to the diversity within the autism spectrum or why some autistic people have better outcomes than others. The project aims to answer this question and to identify what support works best for each individual.

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, leading Spectrum 10K and Director of the ARC, explained: “There is an urgent need to better understand the wellbeing of autistic individuals. Spectrum 10K hopes to answer questions such as why some autistic people have epilepsy or poor mental health outcomes and others do not.”

Individuals of all ages, genders, ethnicities and intellectual capacities will take part in Spectrum 10K. Eligible participants join by completing an online questionnaire and providing a DNA saliva sample by post. Autistic participants involved in Spectrum 10K can also invite their biological relatives (autistic or otherwise) to participate. Information collected from the questionnaire and DNA saliva sample, and information from health records will be used to increase knowledge and understanding of wellbeing in autism.

Dr James Cusack, CEO of the autism research charity Autistica and an autistic person, said: “We are delighted to support Spectrum 10K. This project enables autistic people to participate in and shape autism research to build a future where support is tailored to every individual’s needs.”

The Spectrum 10K team views autism as an example of neurodiversity and is opposed to eugenics or looking for a cure for preventing or eradicating autism itself.  Instead, their research aims to identify types of support and treatment which alleviate unwanted symptoms and co-occurring conditions that cause autistic people distress.

The Spectrum 10K team collaborates with an Advisory Panel consisting of autistic individuals, parents of autistic children, clinicians, and autism charity representatives to ensure Spectrum 10K is designed in a way that best serves the autistic community. 27 specialist NHS sites around the UK are also helping with recruitment for Spectrum 10K.

Dr Venkat Reddy, Consultant Neurodevelopmental Paediatrician in the Community Child Health Services at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, said: “There is a need to conduct further research into autism and co-occurring conditions to enable researchers and clinicians to build a better understanding of autism. I would encourage autistic individuals and their families to consider taking part in Spectrum 10K.”

Chris Packham, naturalist and TV presenter who is also autistic, said: “I’m honoured to be an ambassador of Spectrum 10K because I believe in the value of science to inform the support services that autistic kids and adults will need.”

Paddy McGuinness, actor, comedian, television presenter, and father of three autistic children, said: “As a parent of three autistic children, I am really excited to support Spectrum 10K. This research is important to help us understand what makes every autistic person different, and how best to support them.”

Dr Anna and Alastair Gadney, parents of a teenager with autism and learning difficulties: “We have been exploring, over many years, how to implement the best support for our son. We wholeheartedly endorse Spectrum 10K and hope our involvement can help increase understanding of autism and in-turn support many families out there.”

Recruitment for Spectrum 10K is now open. Autistic children under the age of 16 must be registered by their parent or legal guardian. Autistic adults who lack the capacity to consent by themselves must be registered by a carer/or family member. To register, participants should visit www.spectrum10k.org

The study provides previously unprecedented detail on how infections might spread in a hospital context, showing that a minority of individuals can cause most of the transmission.

The researchers analysed data from the first wave of the pandemic, between March and June 2020.  While a great deal of effort is made to prevent the spread of viruses within hospital by keeping infected and non-infected individuals apart, this task is made more difficult during times when the number of infections is high. The high level of transmissibility of the virus and the potential for infected individuals to be asymptomatic both make this task particularly challenging.

Looking back at data from the first wave, researchers identified five wards at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, part of Cambridge University Hospitals (CUH) NHS Foundation Trust, where multiple individuals, including patients and healthcare workers, tested positive for COVID-19 within a short space of time, suggesting that a local outbreak might have occurred.

Using new statistical methods that combine viral genome sequence data with clinical information about the locations of individuals, the researchers identified cases where the data were consistent with transmission occurring between individuals in the hospital. Looking in detail at these transmission events highlighted patterns in the data.

The results of the study, published today in eLife, showed that patients who were infected in the hospital were mostly infected by other patients, rather than by hospital staff. Out of 22 cases where patients were infected in hospital, 20 of these were the result of the virus spreading from patients to other patients

Dr Chris Illingworth, a lead author on the study, who carried out his research while at Cambridge’s MRC Biostatistics Unit, said: “The fact that the vast majority of infections were between patients suggests that measures taken by hospital staff to prevent staff transmitting the virus to patients, such as the wearing of masks, were likely to have been effective.

“But it also highlights why it is important that patients themselves are screened for COVID-19 regularly, even if asymptomatic, and wear face masks where possible.”

The study found contrasting results among healthcare workers, who were almost as likely to be infected by patients as they were by other healthcare workers. This was one piece of evidence that motivated the decision to upgrade the respiratory protection worn by healthcare workers in COVID-19 wards at CUH. A recent Cambridge study indicated that this resulted in staff being better protected against catching COVID-19.

The researchers also found a trend towards individuals either infecting no one else, or infecting multiple other people – just over a fifth of patients (21%) caused 80% of the infections. This phenomenon is sometimes called ‘superspreading’ and can make infection control very challenging. Whether or not an individual can be identified in advance as being more or less likely to pass on the virus is an ongoing topic of research.

Dr William Hamilton, an infectious diseases clinician at CUH and co-lead author on the study said: “Preventing new cases of hospital-based infection is a critical part of our work.  Here we have shown that analysing clinical and viral genome sequence data can produce insights that inform infection control measures, which are so important for protecting patients and healthcare workers alike.”

The research was funded by COG-UK, Wellcome, the Academy of Medical Sciences, the Health Foundation and the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.

Reference
Illingworth, CJR & Hamilton, WL et al. Superspreaders drive the largest outbreaks of hospital onset COVID-19 infections. eLife; 24 Aug 2021; DOI: 10.7554/eLife.67308

Burnell is one of twelve former and current Cambridge researchers, including six women, to be recognised in 2021 for their exceptional research and outstanding contributions to science.

Dame Jocelyn has been honoured for her work on the discovery of pulsars in the 1960s while she was a postgraduate student at New Hall (now Murray Edwards College) carrying out research at Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory.

Past winners of the Copley Medal have included Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein and Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin. Dame Jocelyn said: “I am delighted to be the recipient of this year’s Copley Medal, a prize which has been awarded to so many incredible scientists.

“With many more women having successful careers in science, and gaining recognition for their transformational work, I hope there will be many more female Copley winners in the near future.

“My career has not fitted a conventional – male – pattern. Being the first person to identify pulsars would be the highlight of any career; but I have also swung sledgehammers and built radio telescopes; set up a successful group of my own studying binary stars; and was the first female president of the Institute of Physics and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

“I hope that my work and presence as a senior woman in science continues to encourage more women to pursue scientific careers”.

The Copley Medal award includes a £25,000 gift which Dame Jocelyn will add to the Institute of Physics' Bell Burnell Graduate Scholarship Fund, which provides grants to graduate students from under-represented groups in physics.

Three female scientists currently working at Cambridge have been recognised in 2021. Professor Sadaf Farooqi from the MRC Metabolic Diseases Unit receives the Croonian Medal and Lecture, together with Sir Stephen O'Rahilly, for their seminal discoveries regarding the control of human body weight, resulting in novel diagnostics and therapies, which improve human health. 

Dr Serena Nik-Zainal from the MRC Cancer Unit has been awarded the Francis Crick Medal and Lecture, for her contributions to understanding the aetiology of cancers by her analyses of mutation signatures in cancer genomes, which is now being applied to cancer therapy.

Professor Anne Ferguson-Smith from the Department of Genetics and currently the University’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research receives the Buchanan Medal, for her pioneering work in epigenetics, her interdisciplinary work on genomic imprinting, the interplay between the genome and epigenome, and how genetic and environmental influences affect development and human diseases.

Former Cavendish Laboratory Research Fellow, Professor Michelle Simmons, has won the Bakerian Medal and Lecture, for her seminal contributions to our understanding of nature at the atomic-scale by creating a sequence of world-first quantum electronic devices in which individual atoms control device behaviour. 

Professor Frances Kirwan, alumna and Honorary Fellow of Clare College, received the Sylvester Medal, for her research on quotients in algebraic geometry, including links with symplectic geometry and topology, which has had many applications.

Other current Cambridge researchers honoured include Dr Sjors Scheres from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. Scheres has been awarded the Leeuwenhoek Medal and Lecture for his ground-breaking contributions and innovations in image analysis and reconstruction methods in electron cryo-microscopy, enabling the structure determination of complex macromolecules of fundamental biological and medical importance to atomic resolution.

Emeritus Professor Michael Green from the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics has been awarded Royal Medal A for crucial and influential contributions to the development of string theory over a long period, including the discovery of anomaly cancellation.

The Royal Society’s President, Sir Adrian Smith, said: “Through its medals and awards the Royal Society recognises those researchers and science communicators who have played a critical part in expanding our understanding of the world around us.”

“From advancing vaccine development to catching the first glimpses of distant pulsars, these discoveries shape our societies, answer fundamental questions and open new avenues for exploration.”

Find the full list of 2021 Royal Society medal, award and prize winners here.

Farming large numbers of carnivores, like mink, could allow the formation of undetected ‘disease reservoirs’, in which a pathogen could spread to many animals and mutate to become a risk to human health.

Research led by the University of Cambridge has discovered that carnivores have a defective immune system, which makes them likely to be asymptomatic carriers of disease-causing pathogens.

Three key genes in carnivores that are critical for gut health were found to have lost their function. If these genes were working, they would produce protein complexes called inflammasomes to activate inflammatory responses and fight off pathogens. The study is published today in the journal Cell Reports.

The researchers say that the carnivorous diet, which is high in protein, is thought to have antimicrobial properties that could compensate for the loss of these immune pathways in carnivores – any gut infection is expelled by the production of diarrhoea. But the immune deficiency means that other pathogens can reside undetected elsewhere in these animals.

“We’ve found that a whole cohort of inflammatory genes is missing in carnivores - we didn’t expect this at all,” said Professor Clare Bryant in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Veterinary Medicine, senior author of the paper. 

She added: “We think that the lack of these functioning genes contributes to the ability of pathogens to hide undetected in carnivores, to potentially mutate and be transmitted becoming a human health risk.”

Zoonotic pathogens are those that live in animal hosts before jumping to infect humans. The COVID-19 pandemic, thought to originate in a wild animal, has shown the enormous damage that can be wrought by a novel human disease. Carnivores include mink, dogs, and cats, and are the biggest carriers of zoonotic pathogens. 

Three genes appear to be in the process of being lost entirely in carnivores: the DNA is still present but it is not expressed, meaning they have become ‘pseudogenes’ and are not functioning. A third gene important for gut health has developed a unique mutation, causing two proteins called caspases to be fused together to change their function so they can no longer respond to some pathogens in the animal’s body.

“When you have a large population of farmed carnivorous animals, like mink, they can harbour a pathogen - like SARS-CoV-2 and others - and it can mutate because the immune system of the mink isn’t being activated. This could potentially spread into humans,” said Bryant.

The researchers say that the results are not a reason to be concerned about COVID-19 being spread by dogs and cats. There is no evidence that these domestic pets carry or transmit COVID-19. It is when large numbers of carnivores are kept together in close proximity that a large reservoir of the pathogen can build up amongst them, and potentially mutate.

This research was funded by Wellcome.

Reference
Digby, Z. et al: ‘Evolutionary loss of inflammasomes in the Carnivora and implications for the carriage of zoonotic infections.’ Cell Reports, August 2021. DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2021.109614
 

The simulator will capture the whole aviation sector, from the sources of renewable electricity and raw materials to the production and transport of fuel, and the introduction of new aircraft technologies and operations. Leaders in industry and government will gain an understanding of the potential for change and the trade-offs between decisions. The simulator will guide innovation, investment and policy action, and provide educational benefits.

The AIA is led by the Whittle Laboratory and the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL). “Achieving an aviation sector with no climate impact is one of society’s biggest challenges,” said Professor Rob Miller, Director of the Whittle Laboratory and co-lead of the project. “Solving it will require a complex combination of technology, business, human behaviour and policy. We have assembled a world-class team of academics and industry experts to take on this challenge.”

Users of the simulator will be able to simulate future scenarios to 2050 and calculate the resource requirements, such as renewable electricity and land use, the climate impact, both CO₂ and non-CO₂, and the cost of flying.

Options include the type of energy used, such as hydrogen, batteries and a range of sustainable aviation fuels, the type of aircraft and aircraft technologies, the way in which aircraft are operated, and the value judgments made by the public and government. The simulator will take a whole system approach – from the source of the electricity to the methods of fuel production and transport – to the passenger journey.

“International travel helps people and societies connect,” said Clare Shine, Director of CISL. “To retain this opportunity for future generations, we must urgently address aviation’s environmental impact as part of systemic decarbonisation of the economy. This calls for imaginative and inclusive innovation, which is why the Aviation Impact Accelerator brings together insight from industry, policy and civil society.”

The AIA team also includes the Air Transportation Systems Lab at University College London and the Melbourne Energy Institute at the University of Melbourne. The AIA is in partnership with HRH The Prince of Wales’s Sustainable Markets Initiative, The World Economic Forum, Cambridge Zero, MathWorks and SATAVIA, and is supported by industry advisors Rolls-Royce, Boeing, BP, Heathrow and Siemens Energy.

“The transition to a zero-carbon future requires a bold response to climate change,” said Dr Emily Shuckburgh, Director of Cambridge Zero. “The Aviation Impact Accelerator is such a bold response, bringing together multidisciplinary expertise to inform decision making and enable meaningful change.”

The simulator was conceived in early 2020 at a roundtable hosted by HRH The Prince of Wales and attended by senior industry leaders, government and academia.

“The Aviation Impact Accelerator will play a vital role in highlighting the action required to achieve net zero aviation and support Heathrow to ensure 2019 is our year of ‘peak carbon’,” said John Holland-Kaye, CEO of Heathrow Airport. “The first priority is accelerated use of sustainable aviation fuel. Government can act to unlock SAF through a mandate stimulating supply, plus incentives to drive demand. The prize is a new British growth industry and UK leadership in the race to net zero.”

The official launch of the Aviation Impact Accelerator will take place at COP26 in November. 

Adapted from a CISL news story.

Achieving this target will require a mix of technological, societal and nature-based solutions working together to enable systemic change. Research in the 2020s must be prioritised into solutions for sectors that are particularly difficult to decarbonise, such as aviation, electricity generation and storage, and maritime shipping.

The report, led by the University of Cambridge, also highlights net zero solutions which could be implemented now, such as the electrification of road freight, hydrogen produced using renewable energy instead of current carbon-intensive methods, and changes to land use planning to prioritise denser, mixed-use, low traffic neighbourhoods.

The briefing, Net-Zero Solutions and Research Priorities in the 2020s, is published by the COP26 Universities Network and brings together 26 leading scientists from 10 UK universities. It comes at a critical time ahead of the United Nations COP26 Climate Change Summit, which takes place in Glasgow this November.

“It is abundantly clear from the recent IPCC report that the 2020s will be the crucial decade to reduce emissions in order to meet the Paris Agreement goals, and the decisions made at COP26 will be critical in achieving that,” said co-lead author Dr Erik Mackie from Cambridge Zero, the University’s climate initiative. “This cross-disciplinary report will aid decision-makers by identifying the key actions that we must take now, and the priority areas where we should urgently focus our research efforts to tackle hard-to-decarbonise sectors.”

The paper highlights net-zero solutions in eight priority sectors, setting out actions to take now, research priorities for the next decade, and future benefits for each sector. These are:

• Electricity (generation, storage, system and networks)
• Buildings
• Road transport
• Industry
• Land/sea use and agriculture
• Aviation and shipping
• Waste
• Greenhouse Gas Removal (GGR)

Nature-based Solutions (NbS) – key actions that can work with nature to address climate change and biodiversity loss across all sectors, while also supporting economic recovery – are highlighted separately.

“The coming decade will be about action and implementation, and we need to focus on solutions that can be practically implemented before 2030 – our report highlights some of these solutions for each of our priority sectors, many of which will have co-benefits due to their interdisciplinary nature,” said co-lead author Dr Elizabeth Tennyson, Marie-Curie Research Fellow in Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory. “No single sector is the solution: many sectors need to work in parallel in order to get to net zero. We hope this policy brief will not only influence change but also encourage further innovations.”

Additional solutions highlighted in the report include the retrofitting of buildings, increased R&D investment to bring low-carbon farming practices to market, and the deployment of Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) at scale by mid-2020s to support the first low-carbon and net zero industrial clusters.

The authors stress that each solution should be assessed with respect to greenhouse gas emissions reductions, energy efficiency and societal implications to provide a basis for developing long-term policies, maximising positive impact of investment and research effort, and guiding industry investors in safe and responsible planning.

“It is great to see this group of universities pooling their expertise and coming to a broad consensus view about the needs for research and immediate actions in the fight against climate change,” said co-author Professor David Cebon from Cambridge’s Department of Engineering, who leads the Centre for Sustainable Road Freight.

Of 26 co-authors on the paper, 14 are from the University of Cambridge, from fields including chemistry, engineering, architecture, computer science, and epidemiology.

Established in 2020, the COP26 Universities Network aims to improve access to evidence and academic expertise for the UN Climate Summit in Glasgow for the UK Government, NGOs and the international community, working together to deliver ambitious climate change outcomes.

In the search for life elsewhere, astronomers have mostly looked for planets of a similar size, mass, temperature and atmospheric composition to Earth. However, astronomers from the University of Cambridge believe there are more promising possibilities out there.

The researchers have identified a new class of habitable planets, dubbed ‘Hycean’ planets – ocean-covered planets with hydrogen-rich atmospheres – which are more numerous and observable than Earth-like planets.

The researchers say the results, reported in The Astrophysical Journal, could mean that finding biosignatures of life outside our Solar System within the next few years is a real possibility.

“Hycean planets open a whole new avenue in our search for life elsewhere,” said Dr Nikku Madhusudhan from Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy, who led the research.

Many of the prime Hycean candidates identified by the researchers are bigger and hotter than Earth, but still have the characteristics to host large oceans that could support microbial life similar to that found in some of Earth’s most extreme aquatic environments.

These planets also allow for a far wider habitable zone, or ‘Goldilocks zone’, compared to Earth-like planets. This means that they could still support life even though they lie outside the range where a planet similar to Earth would need to be in order to be habitable.

Thousands of planets outside our Solar System have been discovered since the first exoplanet was identified nearly 30 years ago. The vast majority are planets between the sizes of Earth and Neptune and are often referred to as ‘super-Earths’ or ‘mini-Neptunes’: they can be predominantly rocky or ice giants with hydrogen-rich atmospheres, or something in between.

Most mini-Neptunes are over 1.6 times the size of Earth: smaller than Neptune but too big to have rocky interiors like Earth. Earlier studies of such planets have found that the pressure and temperature beneath their hydrogen-rich atmospheres would be too high to support life.

However, a recent study on the mini-Neptune K2-18b by Madhusudhan’s team found that in certain conditions these planets could support life. The result led to a detailed investigation into the full range of planetary and stellar properties for which these conditions are possible, which known exoplanets may satisfy those conditions, and whether their biosignatures may be observable.

The investigation led the researchers to identify a new class of planets, Hycean planets, with massive planet-wide oceans beneath hydrogen-rich atmospheres. Hycean planets can be up to 2.6 times larger than Earth and have atmospheric temperatures up to nearly 200 degrees Celsius, depending on their host stars, but their oceanic conditions could be similar to those conducive for microbial life in Earth’s oceans. Such planets also include tidally locked ‘dark’ Hycean worlds that may have habitable conditions only on their permanent night sides, and ‘cold’ Hycean worlds that receive little radiation from their stars.

Planets of this size dominate the known exoplanet population, although they have not been studied in nearly as much detail as super-Earths. Hycean worlds are likely quite common, meaning that the most promising places to look for life elsewhere in the Galaxy may have been hiding in plain sight.

However, size alone is not enough to confirm whether a planet is Hycean: other aspects such as mass, temperature and atmospheric properties are required for confirmation.

When trying to determine what the conditions are like on a planet many light years away, astronomers first need to determine whether the planet lies in the habitable zone of its star, and then look for molecular signatures to infer the planet’s atmospheric and internal structure, which govern the surface conditions, presence of oceans and potential for life.

Astronomers also look for certain biosignatures which could indicate the possibility of life. Most often, these are oxygen, ozone, methane and nitrous oxide, which are all present on Earth. There are also a number of other biomarkers, such as methyl chloride and dimethyl sulphide, that are less abundant on Earth but can be promising indicators of life on planets with hydrogen-rich atmospheres where oxygen or ozone may not be as abundant.

“Essentially, when we’ve been looking for these various molecular signatures, we have been focusing on planets similar to Earth, which is a reasonable place to start,” said Madhusudhan. “But we think Hycean planets offer a better chance of finding several trace biosignatures.”

“It's exciting that habitable conditions could exist on planets so different from Earth,” said co-author Anjali Piette, also from Cambridge.

Madhusudhan and his team found that a number of trace terrestrial biomarkers expected to be present in Hycean atmospheres would be readily detectable with spectroscopic observations in the near future. The larger sizes, higher temperatures and hydrogen-rich atmospheres of Hycean planets make their atmospheric signatures much more detectable than Earth-like planets.

The Cambridge team identified a sizeable sample of potential Hycean worlds which are prime candidates for detailed study with next-generation telescopes, such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which is due to be launched later this year. These planets all orbit red dwarf stars between 35-150 light years away: close by astronomical standards. Already planned JWST observations of the most promising candidate, K2-18b, could lead to the detection of one or more biosignature molecules.

“A biosignature detection would transform our understanding of life in the universe,” said Madhusudhan. “We need to be open about where we expect to find life and what form that life could take, as nature continues to surprise us in often unimaginable ways.”

Reference:
Nikku Madhusudhan, Anjali A. A. Piette, and Savvas Constantinou. ‘Habitability and Biosignatures of Hycean Worlds.’ The Astrophysical Journal (2021). DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/abfd9c

(The paper can also be viewed on arXiv.)

The Institute is an independent, non-profit educational institution made up of leading international public lawyers. It is dedicated to the development of international law, including the technical assistance of developing countries and emerging economies, and is independent of governmental influence.

Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1904, and nominated on 59 occasions, the organisation is made up of Honorary Members, Members, and Associates. There can be no more than a total of 132 Members and Associates under the age of 80.

Members of the University previously elected to the Institute include Eyal Benvenisti; Sir Christopher Greenwood, Master of Magdalene College; the late James Crawford, and Dame Rosalyn Higgins, former President of the International Court of Justice.

Professor Toope said: “I am deeply honoured to have been elected to such a prestigious body. For more than a hundred years the Institute has brought together eminent international lawyers from around the world to search for solutions to seemingly intractable challenges.”

More information about the Institute of International Law here.

Intelligent Decarbonisation– a new book bringing together experts from the fields of science, law, finance, industry, and government – shows that a combination of digital technologies with AI can help curb humanity’s CO2 emissions. This is the key to mitigating climate change and the existential threat it poses. By acknowledging such digital technologies and AI could also pose existential threats to humanity, the book also shows how to maximise their economic and environmental use, while minimising the risks they introduce.

The book is edited and co-authored by Professor Markus Kraft and Dr Oliver Inderwildi, from the University of Cambridge Centre for Advanced Research and Education in Singapore (Cambridge CARES).

“Intelligent Decarbonisation aims to get to the bottom of two critically important fields, using an innovative approach with original research, expert comments from academia, industry and think tanks,” said Inderwildi.

The core idea of the book is to assess how AI and cyber-physical systems (CPS) – digital technologies where the physical and software components are deeply intertwined – can help humankind to overcome its most complex and most pressing challenge: climate change.

“The transformational potential of cyber-physical systems, especially when combined with artificial intelligence, is difficult to predict,” said Kraft. “Cambridge CARES is dedicated to developing technology that directs economic development onto a sustainable pathway. Our latest book critically assesses the associated threats and opportunities.”

The book is divided into four parts – Technology, Impact, Implications and Incubation – moving from the theoretical and technical to the real-world effects and areas for future development. It brings together work from private and public sector professionals, academics and think tank experts, and comprehensively examines the topic, highlighting new information to policymakers, researchers and industry professionals alike.

Case studies from Singapore are given prominence in the book as the city-state is at particular risk from the effects of climate change. Sea level rise and unpredictable weather could easily impact Singapore’s water resources, food supplies, and public health in the future.

To help address these threats, Singapore has invested heavily in scientific research, including the international research collaboration model seen in CREATE (Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise). CREATE gathers the world’s best research institutions and universities to work together on problems that affect Singapore and the world, at a scale that has the potential to deliver impact.

“The climate change crisis is real. The critical role of decarbonisation is indisputable. Finding sustainable paths to decarbonisation is urgent,” said Dr Lim Khiang Wee, Executive Director of Academic Research at CREATE. “There have been dramatic advancements in the Digital Age and AI, with the Covid pandemic acting as an accelerator of digitalisation, and AI, a yet to be fully exploited tool. It is timely that the CREATE community led by Cambridge CARES is examining how AI and digitalisation can support the decarbonisation process, which could point the way towards globally impactful work on intelligent decarbonisation strategies.”

Intelligent Decarbonisation illustrates the potential of digitalisation not just through scientific articles but also through interviews with experts in the areas of decarbonisation and artificial intelligence.

Challenges of cybersecurity, legal, and governance issues are also addressed to accompany the technologies described. For the first time, Intelligent Decarbonisation brings these perspectives and projects together in a comprehensive and accessible format.

Intelligent Decarbonisation is published by Springer.

Adapted from a Cambridge CARES press release.

In a new study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, researchers at Public Health England and the MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge, found that the estimated risk of hospital admission was two times higher for individuals diagnosed with the Delta variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, compared to those with the Alpha variant, after adjusting for differences in age, sex, ethnicity, deprivation, region of residence, date of positive test and vaccination status. When broadening the scope to look at the risk of either hospital admission or emergency care attendance, the risk was 1.45 times higher for Delta than Alpha.

This is the largest study to date to report on the risk of hospitalisation outcomes for cases with the Delta compared to the Alpha variant, using 43,338 Alpha and Delta cases confirmed through whole-genome sequencing who tested positive for COVID-19 between 29th March and 23rd May 2021. It is crucial to note that most of the Alpha and Delta cases in the study were unvaccinated or only partially vaccinated: 74% were unvaccinated, 24% were partially vaccinated, and only 2% were fully vaccinated. The results from this study therefore primarily tell us about the risk of hospital admission for those who are unvaccinated or partially vaccinated. Given the small number of hospitalised vaccinated cases, it has not been possible to estimate reliably if the hospitalisation risk differed between Delta and Alpha cases who had been fully vaccinated.

The Delta variant is now the most common SARS-CoV-2 lineage in several higher-income and lower-income countries on all continents, currently accounting for more than 99% of new cases in England [2]. The evidence provided in this study therefore has implications for healthcare practice, planning and response in countries with ongoing or future Delta variant outbreaks, particularly in unvaccinated or partially vaccinated populations. As previous studies have shown Delta and Alpha spread more rapidly than previous variants [2–4], the combination of faster transmission and the current study’s finding of higher risk of severe disease requiring hospital admission in unvaccinated populations implies a more severe burden on healthcare of Delta outbreaks than of Alpha epidemics.

Previous studies have shown the available COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective against symptomatic infections with the Alpha variant [5], and are effective against symptomatic infections with the Delta variant, particularly after a full vaccination cycle with two doses [6,7]. For those who despite vaccination become infected, the vaccination protects against admission to hospital [8].

Dr Anne Presanis, Senior Statistician at the MRC Biostatistics Unit said:

"Our analysis highlights that in the absence of vaccination, any Delta outbreaks will impose a greater burden on healthcare than an Alpha epidemic. Getting fully vaccinated is crucial for reducing an individual’s risk of symptomatic infection with Delta in the first place, and, importantly, of reducing a Delta patient’s risk of severe illness and hospital admission.”

Dr Gavin Dabrera, Consultant Epidemiologist at Public Health England, said:

“This study confirms previous findings that people infected with Delta are significantly more likely to require hospitalisation than those with Alpha, although most cases included in the analysis were unvaccinated.

We already know that vaccination offers excellent protection against Delta and as this variant accounts for over 99% of COVID-19 cases in the UK, it is vital that those who have not received two doses of vaccine do so as soon as possible.

It is still important that if you have COVID-19 symptoms, stay home and get a PCR test as soon as possible.”

Reference:
Katherine A Twohig et al. 'Hospital admission and emergency care attendance risk for SARS-CoV-2 delta (B.1.617.2) compared with alpha (B.1.1.7) variants of concern: a cohort study.' The Lancet Infectious Diseases (2021). DOI: 10.1016/S1473-3099(21)00475-8

The 17-month STEM SMART programme will support talented students’ classroom studies in maths and science throughout their final year-and-a-half at school - from the second term of Year 12 to their Year 13 A-level examinations. It is being launched to help bridge attainment gaps, mitigate educational disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and address the UK’s skills shortage in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects.

Beginning in January 2022 - following its launch today - the programme also aims to build confidence in students who in addition to disruption caused by COVID-19 have experienced wider educational disadvantage, and encourage them to apply to study Engineering or physical sciences (such as Physics, Chemistry, and Materials Science) at top universities, including Cambridge. It is expected that many joining the programme will be at schools with little or no experience of sending students to Cambridge, so those who actively take part will be invited to attend a 4-day residential in Cambridge, when they will stay at a College, experience life as a Cambridge student, and consider whether to apply.

The programme will support teaching already taking place in schools, providing extra resources including weekly online tutorials by Cambridge academics who will mark work and give students individual feedback, small group supervisions, and live online motivational lectures. In addition, students will be assigned a Cambridge student as a mentor, to speak to about university life and help support their continued engagement with the programme. 

STEM SMART will also help students who do not wish to apply for undergraduate study at Cambridge to make competitive applications to STEM courses at other universities, with sustained engagement on the programme leading to an award that can be included in their UCAS personal statement as an example of super-curricular activity.

The initiative is open to Maths, Physics and Chemistry A-level (or equivalent) students at non-fee-paying schools from widening participation backgrounds. This will include students who live in areas of high deprivation, those who have been eligible for free school meals at any point during their secondary schooling, those who are care-experienced, those at schools unable to offer Further Mathematics as an A-level, and mature students who are self-studying, among others.

The University is in contact with around 3,000 state schools across the UK about STEM SMART, and aims to enrol around 750 A-level students for the start of the pilot, much of which will be delivered through the Isaac Physics online platform. It will be free to all students taking part, following generous support and funding from the University, Colleges and the Department for Education England. 

Physics lecturer Dr Lisa Jardine-Wright, who is co-directing the STEM SMART programme, said she herself would have benefited from a similar initiative during her own education. “By providing extra subject specific resources that just aren’t available in every school, this pilot will complement students’ classroom learning, improve their problem-solving skills, and help them get the best possible grades. 

“It’s also about motivational support and building confidence, and while helping students to maximise their attainment the programme aims to encourage those who take part successfully to apply to study at Cambridge, or another higher-tariff university. Small group supervisions and a 4-day residential ‘boot camp’ will offer students a taste of life as a Cambridge student, and advice and guidance on applying to Cambridge, if they choose to, including preparing for admissions assessments and interviews.”

David Buckley, Head of Physics at Mayflower High School, an academy in Billericay, Essex, said: “Our students have had an unprecedented, difficult, time in their education, so this additional tuition – the extra time and detail that teachers want to give but because of the demands of the job sometimes can’t – is hugely welcome, particularly now. 

“Being able to meet and work with Cambridge University experts and current Cambridge undergraduates, to see how they approach particular problems, and find out about life around their courses, really is a unique opportunity for our students. All teachers want their students to do as well as possible and achieve their potential, whether that’s at Cambridge or another top university.”

Dr Michael Sutherland, co-director of STEM SMART, and Director of Studies in Natural Sciences at Corpus Christi College, said: “Building on Cambridge’s work to find innovative new ways to further diversify our student body, the programme will offer enhanced additional learning to support the vital work of teachers, give students the specific skills they need to prepare for university, and boost innovation and technology in the UK by helping to address the skills shortage in STEM.” 

Professor Stephen Toope, Vice-Chancellor, said: “COVID continues to exacerbate existing inequalities in education, and many schools face an unprecedented challenge dealing with the legacy of the pandemic. As part of the University’s mission to contribute to society through the pursuit of learning, the STEM SMART programme will bolster the studies of A-level students at non-fee-paying schools, from their first year all the way through to their exams. This is support for those talented students who need it most, at a time when it is needed more than ever.”

The programme continues widening participation progress made by the University in recent years, including the launch of a Foundation Year for Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, which from 2022 will offer talented students from backgrounds of educational and social disadvantage a new route to undergraduate study, and the use of UCAS Adjustment to reconsider candidates who exceed expectations in examinations.

For more information about applying for STEM SMART here. 

Researchers say the breakthrough study, published in Cell Reports, could lead to much needed therapies for the rare genetic disease, which is currently incurable.  

Huntington's disease is a progressive and devastating neurodegenerative disorder that affects about 1 in 10,000 people in the UK.

The disease is caused by the accumulation of toxic repetitive expansions of three DNA blocks called nucleotides (C, A and G) in the huntingtin (HTT) gene and is often termed a repeat expansion disorder. These CAG tri-nucleotide repeats are expanding by misuse of a cellular machinery that usually promotes DNA repair called ‘mismatch repair’. This overuse in mismatch repair drives Huntington's disease onset and progression.

In this study researchers investigated the role of FAN1 - a DNA repair protein that has been identified as a modifier of Huntington’s disease in several genetic studies; however, the mechanism affecting disease onset has remained elusive.

Using human cells and techniques that can read DNA repeat expansions, the researchers found that FAN1 can block the accumulation of the DNA mismatch repair factors to stop repeat expansion thus alleviating toxicity in cells derived from patients.

Co-lead authors Dr Rob Goold and PhD researcher Joseph Hamilton, both UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology and UK Dementia Research Institute at UCL, said: “Evidence for DNA repair genes modifying Huntington's disease has been mounting for years. We show that new mechanisms are still waiting to be discovered, which is good news for patients.”

Medicines that could mimic or potentiate (increase the power of) FAN1 inhibition of mismatch repair would alter disease course. The team is now working with the biotechnology company Adrestia Therapeutics, based at the Babraham Research Campus near Cambridge, to translate these discoveries into therapies for substantial numbers of patients in the UK and worldwide.

Senior author of the study, Professor Sarah Tabrizi, director of the UCL Huntington’s Disease Centre, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology and UK Dementia Research Institute at UCL, stated: “Our next step is to determine how important this interaction is in more physiological models and examine if it is therapeutically tractable. We are now working with key pharma partners to try and develop therapies that target this mechanism and might one day reach the clinic.”

Joint senior author, Dr Gabriel Balmus from the UK Dementia Research Institute at the University of Cambridge, said: "There are currently more than fifty CAG repeat expansion disorders that are incurable. If viable, the field suggests that resulting therapies could be applied not only to Huntington's disease but to all the other repeat expansion disorders.”

Professor Steve Jackson, CSO and Interim CEO of Adrestia, said: “My colleagues and I are delighted to be working with Professor Tabrizi, Dr Balmus and the UK Dementia Research Institute to seek ways to translate their exciting science towards new medicines for Huntington's disease and potentially also other DNA-repeat expansion disorders.”

The study was funded by the CHDI Foundation and UK Dementia Research Institute.

Reference
Goold, R et al. FAN1 controls mismatch repair complex assembly via MLH1 retention to stabilize CAG repeat expansion in Huntington’s disease. Cell Reports; 31 August 2021; DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2021.109649

Adapted from a press release by UCL

The device, made by a team from the University of Cambridge, combines tiny semiconductor nanocrystals called quantum dots and gold nanoparticles using molecular glue called cucurbituril (CB). When added to water with the molecule to be studied, the components self-assemble in seconds into a stable, powerful tool that allows the real-time monitoring of chemical reactions.

The camera harvests light within the semiconductors, inducing electron transfer processes like those that occur in photosynthesis, which can be monitored using incorporated gold nanoparticle sensors and spectroscopic techniques. They were able to use the camera to observe chemical species which had been previously theorised but not directly observed.

The platform could be used to study a wide range of molecules for a variety of potential applications, such as the improvement of photocatalysis and photovoltaics for renewable energy. The results are reported in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

Nature controls the assemblies of complex structures at the molecular scale through self-limiting processes. However, mimicking these processes in the lab is usually time-consuming, expensive and reliant on complex procedures.

“In order to develop new materials with superior properties, we often combine different chemical species together to come up with a hybrid material that has the properties we want,” said Professor Oren Scherman from Cambridge’s Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, who led the research. “But making these hybrid nanostructures is difficult, and you often end up with uncontrolled growth or materials that are unstable.”

The new method that Scherman and his colleagues from Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory and University College London developed uses cucurbituril – a molecular glue which interacts strongly with both semiconductor quantum dots and gold nanoparticles. The researchers used small semiconductor nanocrystals to control the assembly of larger nanoparticles through a process they coined interfacial self-limiting aggregation. The process leads to permeable and stable hybrid materials that interact with light. The camera was used to observe photocatalysis and track light-induced electron transfer.

“We were surprised how powerful this new tool is, considering how straightforward it is to assemble,” said first author Dr Kamil Sokołowski, also from the Department of Chemistry.

To make their nano camera, the team added the individual components, along with the molecule they wanted to observe, to water at room temperature. Previously, when gold nanoparticles were mixed with the molecular glue in the absence of quantum dots, the components underwent unlimited aggregation and fell out of solution. However, with the strategy developed by the researchers, quantum dots mediate the assembly of these nanostructures so that the semiconductor-metal hybrids control and limit their own size and shape. In addition, these structures stay stable for weeks.

“This self-limiting property was surprising, it wasn’t anything we expected to see,” said co-author Dr Jade McCune, also from the Department of Chemistry. “We found that the aggregation of one nanoparticulate component could be controlled through the addition of another nanoparticle component.”

When the researchers mixed the components together, the team used spectroscopy to observe chemical reactions in real time. Using the camera, they were able to observe the formation of radical species – a molecule with an unpaired electron – and products of their assembly such as sigma dimeric viologen species, where two radicals form a reversible carbon-carbon bond. The latter species had been theorised but never observed.

“People have spent their whole careers getting pieces of matter to come together in a controlled way,” said Scherman, who is also Director of the Melville Laboratory. “This platform will unlock a wide range of processes, including many materials and chemistries that are important for sustainable technologies. The full potential of semiconductor and plasmonic nanocrystals can now be explored, providing an opportunity to simultaneously induce and observe photochemical reactions.”

“This platform is a really big toolbox considering the number of metal and semiconductor building blocks that can be now coupled together using this chemistry– it opens up lots of new possibilities for imaging chemical reactions and sensing through taking snapshots of monitored chemical systems,” said Sokołowski. “The simplicity of the setup means that researchers no longer need complex, expensive methods to get the same results.”

Researchers from the Scherman lab are currently working to further develop these hybrids towards artificial photosynthetic systems and (photo)catalysis where electron-transfer processes can be observed directly in real time. The team is also looking at mechanisms of carbon-carbon bond formation as well as electrode interfaces for battery applications.

The research was carried out in collaboration with Professor Jeremy Baumberg at Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory and Dr Edina Rosta at University College London. It was funded in part by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Reference:
Kamil Sokołowski et al. ‘Nanoparticle surfactants for kinetically arrested photoactive assemblies to track light-induced electron transfer.’ Nature Nanotechnology (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41565-021-00949-6

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have combined reconstructions of the Earth’s changing surface elevations over the past three million years with data on climate change over this timeframe, and with bird and mammal species’ locations. Their results reveal how species evolved into new ones as land elevation changed - and disentangle the effects of elevation from the effects of climate.

The study found that the effect of elevation increase is greater than that of historical climate change, and of present-day elevation and temperature, in driving the formation of new species – ‘or speciation’.

In contrast to areas where land elevation is increasing, elevation loss was not found to be an important predictor of where speciation happens. Instead, present-day temperature is a better indicator of speciation in these areas.

The results are published today in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

“Often at the tops of mountains there are many more unique species that aren’t found elsewhere. Whereas previously the formation of new species was thought to be driven by climate, we’ve found that elevation change has a greater effect at a global scale,” said Dr Andrew Tanentzap in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Plant Sciences, senior author of the paper.

As land elevation increases, temperature generally decreases and habitat complexity increases. In some cases, for example where mountains form, increasing elevation creates a barrier that prevents species moving and mixing, so populations become reproductively isolated. This is the first step towards the formation of new species.

The effect of increasing elevation on that rate of new species formation over time was more pronounced for mammals than for birds; the researchers think this is because birds can fly across barriers to find mates in other areas. Birds were affected more by present-day temperatures; in birds, variation in temperature creates differences in the timing and extent of mating, risking reproductive isolation from populations of the same species elsewhere.

Until now, most large-scale studies into the importance of topography in generating new species have only considered present-day land elevation, or elevation changes in specific mountain ranges.

“It’s surprising just how much effect historical elevation change had on generating the world’s biodiversity – it has been much more important than traditionally studied variables like temperature. The rate at which species evolved in different places on Earth is tightly linked to topography changes over millions of years,” said Dr Javier Igea in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Plant Sciences, first author of the paper.

He added: “This work highlights important arenas for evolution to play out. From a conservation perspective these are the places we might want to protect, especially given climate change. Although climate change is happening over decades, not millions of years, our study points to areas that can harbour species with greater potential to evolve.”

The researchers say that as the Earth’s surface continues to rise and fall, topography will remain an important driver of evolutionary change.

This research was funded by Wellcome, the Gatsby Charitable Foundation and the Isaac Newton Trust.

Reference

Igea, J. & Tanentzap, A.J.: ‘Global topographic uplift has elevated speciation in mammals and birds over the last 3 million years.’ Nature Ecology & Evolution, September 2021. DOI: 10.1038/s41559-021-01545-6

The application deadline is 26 January 2022 – not 15 October 2021 as for other Cambridge undergraduate courses. In addition to the information provided on the Foundation Year’s dedicated website, the University is running a free online support programme to guide applicants through each stage of the application process (information below).

The Cambridge Foundation Year - which officially launched in January – offers a new route into Cambridge to students whose education has been disrupted or disadvantaged and are therefore less likely to be able to make a competitive application to undergraduate study at Cambridge through the University’s standard admissions process. It will prepare students for further learning and offer them the chance to progress straight to an undergraduate degree at the University. 

Up to 50 Foundation Year students will arrive in Cambridge in the programme’s first intake in October 2022. Those who have been in care, those estranged from their families, and those who have missed significant periods of learning because of health issues are among the groups the Foundation Year aims to reach. Other potential candidates include students who have been unable to access suitable qualifications, those from low-income backgrounds, and those from schools that send few students to university. 

The Foundation Year is free to students; a cornerstone gift from philanthropists Christina and Peter Dawson is funding the launch of the programme and full one-year scholarships for all students who are accepted. 

The students will study at one of the 13 Cambridge colleges participating in the pilot scheme and will benefit from the community, support and academic stimulation this offers. They will study an engaging and challenging multi-disciplinary curriculum in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences that will prepare them for further study in these subjects. 

On successful completion of the programme, they will receive a recognised CertHE Level 4 qualification from the University of Cambridge, and with suitable attainment can progress to one of 18 degrees in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Cambridge without the need to apply to the University again. Students will also be supported during the programme in finding alternative university places if they do not wish to continue to undergraduate study at Cambridge, or do not meet the required level of attainment.

As with all courses at Cambridge, there is a rigorous admissions process designed to help us admit students who will thrive on the Foundation Year and be able to progress to a degree at Cambridge – including interviews and assessment. Students will also have to prove their eligibility to receive the generous scholarship given to all students on the course.

To help applicants understand more about the Foundation Year and its admissions process, the University has launched a new website specifically for the course at https://www.foundationyear.cam.ac.uk/ . 

The University is also running a free online applicant support programme to help Foundation Year applicants make the strongest possible application. This will include webinars, Q&As and newsletter content specific to the Foundation Year. Students can sign up by selecting the Foundation Year as their first subject of interest at https://www.cam.ac.uk/student-newsletter . This programme will launch with a Foundation Year Open Evening on Wednesday, 29 September 2021 from 4.30pm. Sign up for this event here: https://www.foundationyear.cam.ac.uk/events . 

Dr Alex Pryce, Foundation Year Course Director, said: “The Cambridge Foundation Year is a truly transformative opportunity and we’re very much looking forward to receiving our first applications soon. However, for those who haven’t considered applying to Cambridge before we appreciate that the admissions process might be daunting. We hope our new website and online applicant support will help all applicants to make their best possible application to the Cambridge Foundation Year.”

The Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, which has become the dominant variant in countries including India and the UK, has most likely spread through its ability to evade neutralising antibodies and its increased infectivity, say an international team of researchers.

The findings are reported today in Nature.

As SARS-CoV-2 replicates, errors in its genetic makeup cause it to mutate. Some mutations make the virus more transmissible or more infectious, some help it evade the immune response, potentially making vaccines less effective, while others have little effect. One such variant, labelled the B.1.617.2 Delta variant, was first observed in India in late 2020. It has since spread around the globe – in the UK, it is responsible nearly all new cases of coronavirus infection.

Professor Ravi Gupta from the Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease at the University of Cambridge, one of the study’s senior authors, said: “By combining lab-based experiments and epidemiology of vaccine breakthrough infections, we’ve shown that the Delta variant is better at replicating and spreading than other commonly-observed variants. There’s also evidence that neutralising antibodies produced as a result of previous infection or vaccination are less effective at stopping this variant.

“These factors are likely to have contributed to the devastating epidemic wave in India during the first quarter of 2021, where as many as half of the cases were individuals who had previously been infected with an earlier variant.”

To examine how well the Delta variant was able to evade the immune response, the team extracted serum from blood samples collected as part of the COVID-19 cohort of the NIHR BioResource. The samples came from individuals who had previously been infected with the coronavirus or who had been vaccinated with either the Oxford/AstraZeneca or Pfizer vaccines. Serum contains antibodies raised in response to infection or vaccination. The team found that the Delta variant virus was 5.7-fold less sensitive to the sera from previously-infected individuals, and as much as eight-fold less sensitive to vaccine sera, compared with the Alpha variant - in other words, it takes eight times as many antibodies from a vaccinated individual to block the virus.

Consistent with this, an analysis of over 100 infected healthcare workers at three Delhi hospitals, nearly all of whom had been vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2, found the Delta variant to be transmitted between vaccinated staff to a greater extent than the alpha variant.

SARS-CoV-2 is a coronavirus, so named because spike proteins on its surface give it the appearance of a crown (‘corona’). The spike proteins bind to ACE2, a protein receptor found on the surface of cells in our body. Both the spike protein and ACE2 are then cleaved, allowing genetic material from the virus to enter the host cell. The virus manipulates the host cell’s machinery to allow the virus to replicate and spread.

Using 3D airway organoids – ‘mini-organs’ grown from cells from the airway, which mimic its behaviour – the team studied what happens when the virus reaches the respiratory tract. Working under secure conditions, the team used both a live virus and a ‘pseudotyped virus’ – a synthetic form of the virus that mimicked key mutations on the Delta variant – and used this to infect the organoids. They found that the Delta variant was more efficient at breaking into the cells compared with other variants as it carried a larger number of cleaved spikes on its surface. Once inside the cells, the variant was also better able to replicate. Both of these factors give the virus a selection advantage compared to other variants, helping explain why it has become so dominant.

Dr Partha Rakshit from the National Centre for Disease Control, Delhi, India, joint senior author, said: “The Delta variant has spread widely to become the dominant variants worldwide because it is faster to spread and better at infecting individuals than most other variants we’ve seen. It is also better at getting around existing immunity – either through previous exposure to the virus or to vaccination – though the risk of moderate to severe disease is reduced in such cases.”

Professor Anurag Agrawal from the CSIR Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Delhi, India , joint senior author, added: “Infection of vaccinated healthcare workers with the Delta variant is a significant problem. Although they themselves may only experience mild COVID, they risk infecting individuals who have suboptimal immune responses to vaccination due to underlying health conditions – and these patients could then be at risk of severe disease. We urgently need to consider ways of boosting vaccine responses against variants among healthcare workers. It also suggests infection control measures will need to continue in the post-vaccine era.”

The research was largely supported in India by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, and the Department of Biotechnology; and in the UK by Wellcome, the Medical Research Council and the National Institute of Health Research.

Reference:
Micochova, P & Kemp, S et al. SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617.2 Delta variant emergence and vaccine breakthrough. Nature; 6 Sept 2021; DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03944-y

These interactions - seen for many drugs including those used to treat depression, diabetes, and asthma - could help researchers to better understand how drug effectiveness and side-effects differ between individuals. The study is published today in the journal Nature. 

It is known that bacteria can chemically modify some drugs, a process known as biotransformation. This study, led by researchers from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Toxicology Unit at the University of Cambridge and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Germany, is the first to show that certain species of gut bacteria accumulate human drugs, altering the types of bacteria in the gut and their activity.

This could change the effectiveness of the drug both directly, as the accumulation could reduce the availability of the drug to the body, and indirectly, as altered bacterial function and composition could be linked to side-effects. 

The human gut naturally contains communities of hundreds of different species of bacteria, which are important in health and disease, called the gut microbiome. The composition of bacterial species varies significantly between people and has previously been shown to be associated with a wide range of conditions including obesity, immune response, and mental health.

In this study, the researchers grew 25 common gut bacteria and studied how they interacted with 15 drugs that are taken orally. The drugs were chosen to represent a range of different types of common drugs, including antidepressant medications, which are known to affect individuals dissimilarly and cause side effects such as gut problems and weight gain.

The researchers tested how each of the 15 drugs interacted with the selected bacterial strains – a total of 375 bacteria-drug tests. They found 70 interactions between the bacteria and the drugs studied, of which 29 had not been previously reported.

While earlier research has shown bacteria can chemically modify drugs, when the scientists studied these interactions further they found that for 17 of the 29 new interactions the drug accumulated within the bacteria without being modified.

Dr Kiran Patil at the University of Cambridge’s MRC Toxicology Unit, who co-led the study, said: “It was surprising that the majority of the new interactions we saw between bacteria and drugs were the drugs accumulating in the bacteria. Until now, biotransformation was thought to be the main way that bacteria affect the availability of drugs to the body.”

“These will likely be very personal differences between individuals, depending on the composition of their gut microbiota. We saw differences even between different strains of the same species of bacteria.”

Examples of drugs that accumulated in bacteria include antidepressant duloxetine and anti-diabetic rosiglitazone. For some drugs, such as montelukast (an asthma drug) and roflumilast (for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), both changes happened in different bacteria - they were accumulated by some species of bacteria and modified by others.

The researchers also found the bioaccumulation of drugs alters the metabolism of the accumulating bacteria. For example, the antidepressant drug duloxetine bound to several metabolic enzymes within the bacteria and altered their secreted metabolites. 

The researchers grew a small community of several bacterial species together and found the antidepressant duloxetine dramatically altered the balance of bacterial species. The drug altered the molecules produced by the drug-accumulating bacteria, which other bacteria feed on, so the consuming bacteria grew much more and unbalanced the community composition.

The researchers tested the effects further using C. elegans, a nematode worm commonly used to study gut bacteria. They studied duloxetine, which had been shown to accumulate in certain bacteria but not others. In worms grown with the species of bacteria that had been shown to accumulate the drug, the behavior of the worms was altered after being exposed to duloxetine, compared with worms that were grown with bacteria that did not accumulate duloxetine.

Dr Athanasios Typas at EMBL, who co-led the study, said: “Only now are people recognising that drugs and our microbiome impact each other with a critical consequence to our health.” 

Dr Peer Bork at EMBL, and a co-lead of the study, said: “This calls for us to start treating the microbiome as one of our organs.” 

Dr Patil said: “The next steps for us will be to take forward this basic molecular research and investigate how an individual’s gut bacteria tie with the differing individual responses to drugs such as antidepressants – differences in whether you respond, the drug dose needed, and side effects like weight gain. If we can characterise how people respond depending on the composition of their microbiome, then drug treatments could be individualised.”

The researchers caution that the study findings are only on bacteria grown in the lab, and more research is needed to understand how bioaccumulation of medications by gut bacteria manifests inside the human body.

The study started as a collaborative project at EMBL Heidelberg and was concluded in the group of Kiran Patil after his move to Cambridge. 

This study was funded by the European Commission Horizon 2020, MRC and EMBL.

Reference

Klunemann, M. et al: 'Bioaccumulation of therapeutic drugs by human gut bacteria’, Nature, Sept 2021. 

Adapted from a press release by EMBL.

Professors Shankar Balasubramanian and David Klenerman, from Cambridge’s Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, have been awarded the 2022 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences – the world’s largest science prize – for the development of next-generation DNA sequencing. They share the award with Pascal Mayer, from the French company Alphanosos.

In addition, Professor Suchitra Sebastian, from the Cavendish Laboratory, and Professor Jack Thorne, from the Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics, have been recognised with the New Horizons Prize, awarded to outstanding early-career researchers.

Professor Suchitra Sebastian has been awarded the 2022 New Horizons in Physics Prize for high precision electronic and magnetic measurements that have profoundly changed our understanding of high temperature superconductors and unconventional insulators.

Professor Jack Thorne has been awarded the 2022 New Horizons in Mathematics Prize, for transformative contributions to diverse areas of algebraic number theory, and in particular for the proof, in collaboration with James Newton, of the automorphy of all symmetric powers of a holomorphic modular newform.

Professors Balasubramanian and Klenerman co-invented Solexa-Illumina Next Generation DNA Sequencing (NGS), technology that has enhanced our basic understanding of life, converting biosciences into ‘big science’ by enabling fast, accurate, low-cost and large-scale genome sequencing – the process of determining the complete DNA sequence of an organism’s make-up. They co-founded the company Solexa to make the technology available to the world.

The benefits to society of rapid genome sequencing are huge. The almost immediate identification and characterisation of the virus which causes COVID-19, rapid development of vaccines, and real-time monitoring of new genetic variants would have been impossible without the technique Balasubramanian and Klenerman developed.

The technology has had – and continues to have – a transformative impact in the fields of genomics, medicine and biology. One measure of the scale of change is that it has allowed a million-fold improvement in speed and cost when compared to the first sequencing of the human genome. In 2000, sequencing of one human genome took over 10 years and cost more than a billion dollars: today, the human genome can be sequenced in a single day at a cost of less than $1,000. More than a million human genomes are sequenced at scale each year, thanks to the technology co-invented by Professors Balasubramanian and Klenerman, meaning we can understand diseases much better and much more quickly. Earlier this year, they were awarded the Millennium Technology Prize. Balasubramanian is also based at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, and is a Fellow of Trinity College. Klenerman is a Fellow of Christ's College. 

Professor Sebastian’s research seeks to discover exotic quantum phases of matter in complex materials. Her group’s experiments involve tuning the co-operative behaviour of electrons within these materials by subjecting them to extreme conditions including low temperature, high applied pressure, and intense magnetic field.

Under these conditions, her group can take materials that are quite close to behaving like a superconductor – perfect, lossless conductors of electricity – and ‘nudge’ them, transforming their behaviour.

“I like to call it quantum alchemy – like turning soot into gold,” Sebastian said. “You can start with a material that doesn’t even conduct electricity, squeeze it under pressure, and discover that it transforms into a superconductor. Going forward, we may also discover new quantum phases of matter that we haven’t even imagined.”

In addition to her physics research, Sebastian is also involved in theatre and the arts. She is Director of the Cavendish Arts-Science Project, which she founded in 2016. The programme has been conceived to question and explore material and immaterial universes through a dialogue between the arts and sciences.

“Being awarded the New Horizons Prize is incredibly encouraging, uplifting and joyous,” said Sebastian. “It recognises a discovery made by our team of electrons doing what they're not supposed to do. It's gone from the moment of elation and disbelief at the discovery, and then trying to follow it through, when no one else quite thinks it’s possible or that it could be happening. It’s been an incredible journey, and having it recognised in this way is incredibly rewarding.”

Professor Jack Thorne is a number theorist in the Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics. One of the most significant open problems in mathematics is the Riemann Hypothesis, which concerns Riemann’s zeta function. Today we know that the zeta function is intimately tied up with questions concerning the statistical distribution of prime numbers, such as how many prime numbers there are, how closely they can be found on the number line. A famous episode in the history of the Riemann Hypothesis is Freeman Dyson’s observation that the zeroes of the zeta function appear to obey statistical laws arising from the theory of random matrices, which had first been studied in theoretical physics. 

In 1916, during his time in Cambridge, Ramanujan wrote down an analogue of the Riemann zeta function, inspired by his work on the number of ways of expressing a given number as a sum of squares (a problem with a rich classical history), and made some conjectures as to its properties, which have turned out to be related to many of the most exciting developments in number theory in the last century. Actually, there are a whole family of zeta functions, the properties of which control the statistics of the sums of squares problem. Thorne's work, recognised in the prize citation, essentially shows for Ramanujan’s zeta functions what Riemann proved for his zeta function in 1859.

Taking a broader view, Ramanujan’s zeta functions are now seen to fit into the framework of the Langlands Program. This is a series of conjectures, made by Langlands in the 1960’s, which have been described as a “grand unified theory of mathematics”, and which can be used to explain any number of phenomena in number theory. Another famous example is Wiles proof, in 1994, of Fermat’s Last Theorem. Nowadays the essential piece of Wiles’ work is seen as progress towards a small part of the Langlands program. Thorne's work establishes part of Langlands’ conjectures for a class of objects including Ramanujan’s Delta function.

"I am deeply honoured to be awarded the New Horizons Prize for my work in number theory," said Thorne. "Number theory is a subject with a rich history in Cambridge and I feel very fortunate to be able to make my own contribution to this tradition." 

For the tenth year, the Breakthrough Prize recognises the world’s top scientists. Each prize is US $3 million and presented in the fields of Life Sciences, Fundamental Physics (one per year) and Mathematics (one per year). In addition, up to three New Horizons in Physics Prizes, up to three New Horizons in Mathematics Prizes and up to three Maryam Mirzakhani New Frontiers Prizes are given out to early-career researchers each year, each worth US $100,000. The Breakthrough Prizes were founded by Sergey Brin, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, Yuri and Julia Milner, and Anne Wojcicki.

More than half of people across England (53%) think the government’s ‘levelling up’ strategy will either make no difference locally or result in less money for their area, according to a new survey study conducted by the University of Cambridge and YouGov. 

While more than two-thirds of English people (68%) are behind the idea of reducing regional inequalities, believing it should be a “high or medium priority” for the government, one in two respondents across England suspect that levelling up will either not affect their local economy or actively harm it.

The research suggests major regional splits. Almost half (47%) of people in London and the South East think ‘levelling up’ will mean less government investment in their area, and only 18% think it should be one of government’s top four priorities.

However, in the Midlands and the North – regions with more post-industrial areas that could benefit from this policy programme – support for ‘levelling up’ is much higher, but not overwhelming: 40% think it should be a high priority, and 41% believe their local area will see more money as a result.

The research, conducted in May of this year and published today by the Bennett Institute for Public Policy and YouGov-Cambridge Centre for Public Opinion Research, also gathered data on national identity along with English attitudes to Brexit and Scottish independence.

“Those Conservatives raising concerns over how a focus on levelling up might affect party support in the Home Counties are right to be worried,” said report co-author Prof Michael Kenny, Director of Cambridge’s Bennett Institute.

“Johnson insists that levelling up will not mean ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’, but residents of south east England appear to suspect the agenda will involve some redistribution, and that they will be on the losing end of it.”

“However, large numbers of voters in historically Labour seats across the Midlands and North appear willing to buy the Prime Minister’s rhetoric, for the time being at least – underlying the depth of the challenge facing Keir Starmer in these areas,” Kenny said.

The research follows a recent Bennett Institute report calling for 25% of both the Levelling Up and Towns funds to go towards spending on “social infrastructure”: the amenities and businesses that plug people into their local communities – from pubs and parks to libraries and sports clubs.

“A focus on services such as cinemas, museums and leisure centres may be a fast way of boosting local employment and pride, helping to assuage cynicism towards the levelling up agenda,” said Kenny.

“Government has an ingrained bias towards large-scale infrastructure projects such as HS2. Interventions that seek to restore dilapidated town centres or support local initiatives are far more socially and economically beneficial than many in government appreciate.”

The previous report, part of the Institute’s Townscapes project, highlights the fact that social infrastructure-related services account for almost half the jobs in some “left behind” towns, such as Skegness (46% of total employment).

British vs. English

The latest study also investigated feelings of national identity across England. The largest share (37%) of people see themselves as equally British and English, while 30% class themselves as English – either ahead of, or instead of, British – compared to 21% who consider themselves entirely or predominantly British.

The outlooks of English-leaning and British-leaning groups differ on some key issues. A majority of British identifiers (56%) think levels of immigration should be maintained or increased, but just 22% of English identifiers agree, while 66% of English-leaning respondents think the UK was right to leave the EU compared to 30% of the British group.

However, both groups share a broadly positive outlook towards globalisation. In fact, over a third (36%) of those identifying as English – sometimes characterised as anti-cosmopolitan nationalists – think globalisation has been good for the UK economy, compared to just 23% who think it has been bad.

Moreover, 29% of English identifiers feel globalisation has benefitted their own standard of living, almost double those who think the opposite (16%). More English identifiers also feel it has been good (33%) rather than bad (29%) for UK cultural life.

“While some in metropolitan areas may fear a resurgent English nationalism in the hinterlands, our results suggest a need to avoid easy assumptions about those who feel more proud of their English national identity,” said Kenny.

Overall, the survey failed to detect any Brexit-related “buyer’s remorse” in England, with 46% stating that the UK was right to leave the EU, compared to 39% saying it was wrong to do so. On Scottish independence, the English appear to be somewhat ambivalent: over a quarter (26%) don’t yet know what they think, almost the same proportion that support it (27%), while 48% oppose it.   

When asked if Scotland currently receives its “fair share” from Westminster, some 22% said it does, while 36% said it gets more than what’s fair, but a full third (33%) said they didn’t know – suggesting “low levels of awareness and understanding of devolution among the English” according to the researchers.