University News

Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership's Chief Innovation Officer, James Cole, looks back at what happened at COP16, and asks what comes next in this article. 

After two weeks of negotiations last week in Cali, Colombia, the COP16 biodiversity summit was suspended with no overall agreement on a path forward on “resource mobilisation."

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

Yes

Researchers in the UK Dementia Research Institute at the University of Cambridge screened more than 1,400 clinically-approved drug compounds using zebrafish genetically engineered to make them mimic so-called tauopathies. They discovered that drugs known as carbonic anhydrase inhibitors – of which the glaucoma drug methazolamide is one – clear tau build-up and reduce signs of the disease in zebrafish and mice carrying the mutant forms of tau that cause human dementias.

Tauopathies are neurodegenerative diseases characterised by the build-up in the brain of tau protein ‘aggregates’ within nerve cells. These include forms of dementia, Pick's disease and progressive supranuclear palsy, where tau is believed to be the primary disease driver, and Alzheimer’s disease and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (neurodegeneration caused by repeated head trauma, as has been reported in football and rugby players), where tau build-up is one consequence of disease but results in degeneration of brain tissue.

There has been little progress in finding effective drugs to treat these conditions. One option is to repurpose existing drugs. However, drug screening – where compounds are tested against disease models – usually takes place in cell cultures, but these do not capture many of the characteristics of tau build-up in a living organism.

To work around this, the Cambridge team turned to zebrafish models they had previously developed. Zebrafish grow to maturity and are able to breed within two to three months and produce large numbers of offspring. Using genetic manipulation, it is possible to mimic human diseases as many genes responsible for human diseases often have equivalents in the zebrafish.

In a study published today in Nature Chemical Biology, Professor David Rubinsztein, Dr Angeleen Fleming and colleagues modelled tauopathy in zebrafish and screened 1,437 drug compounds. Each of these compounds has been clinically approved for other diseases.

Dr Ana Lopez Ramirez from the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience and the UK Dementia Research Institute at the University of Cambridge, joint first author, said: “Zebrafish provide a much more effective and realistic way of screening drug compounds than using cell cultures, which function quite differently to living organisms. They also enable us to do so at scale, something that it not feasible or ethical in larger animals such as mice.”  

Using this approach, the team showed that inhibiting an enzyme known as carbonic anhydrase – which is important for regulating acidity levels in cells – helped the cell rid itself of the tau protein build-up. It did this by causing the lysosomes – the ‘cell’s incinerators’ – to move to the surface of the cell, where they fused with the cell membrane and ‘spat out’ the tau.

When the team tested methazolamide on mice that had been genetically engineered to carry the P301S human disease-causing mutation in tau, which leads to the progressive accumulation of tau aggregates in the brain, they found that those treated with the drug performed better at memory tasks and showed improved cognitive performance compared with untreated mice.

Analysis of the mouse brains showed that they indeed had fewer tau aggregates, and consequently a lesser reduction in brain cells, compared with the untreated mice.

Fellow joint author Dr Farah Siddiqi, also from the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research and the UK Dementia Research Institute, said: “We were excited to see in our mouse studies that methazolamide reduces levels of tau in the brain and protects against its further build-up. This confirms what we had shown when screening carbonic anhydrase inhibitors using zebrafish models of tauopathies.”

Professor Rubinsztein from the UK Dementia Research Institute and Cambridge Institute for Medical Research at the University of Cambridge, said: “Methazolamide shows promise as a much-needed drug to help prevent the build-up of dangerous tau proteins in the brain. Although we’ve only looked at its effects in zebrafish and mice, so it is still early days, we at least know about this drug’s safety profile in patients. This will enable us to move to clinical trials much faster than we might normally expect if we were starting from scratch with an unknown drug compound.

“This shows how we can use zebrafish to test whether existing drugs might be repurposed to tackle different diseases, potentially speeding up significantly the drug discovery process.”

The team hopes to test methazolamide on different disease models, including more common diseases characterised by the build-up of aggregate-prone proteins, such as Huntington’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

The research was supported by the UK Dementia Research Institute (through UK DRI Ltd, principally funded through the Medical Research Council), Tau Consortium and Wellcome.

Reference
Lopez, A & Siddiqi, FH et al. Carbonic anhydrase inhibition ameliorates tau toxicity via enhanced tau secretion. Nat Chem Bio; 31 Oct 2024; DOI: 10.1038/s41589-024-01762-7
 

A drug commonly used to treat glaucoma has been shown in zebrafish and mice to protect against the build-up in the brain of the protein tau, which causes various forms of dementia and is implicated in Alzheimer’s disease.

Zebrafish provide a much more effective and realistic way of screening drug compounds than using cell cultures, which function quite differently to living organismsAna Lopez RamirezKuznetsov_PeterZebrafish

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

YesLicence type: Public Domain

The research team, led by the University of Cambridge, adapted an algorithm originally designed for humans and found it could automatically detect and grade heart murmurs in dogs, based on audio recordings from digital stethoscopes. In tests, the algorithm detected heart murmurs with a sensitivity of 90%, a similar accuracy to expert cardiologists.

Heart murmurs are a key indicator of mitral valve disease, the most common heart condition in adult dogs. Roughly one in 30 dogs seen by a veterinarian has a heart murmur, although the prevalence is higher in small breed dogs and older dogs.

Since mitral valve disease and other heart conditions are so common in dogs, early detection is crucial as timely medication can extend their lives. The technology developed by the Cambridge team could offer an affordable and effective screening tool for primary care veterinarians, and improve quality of life for dogs. The results are reported in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine.

“Heart disease in humans is a huge health issue, but in dogs it’s an even bigger problem,” said first author Dr Andrew McDonald from Cambridge’s Department of Engineering. “Most smaller dog breeds will have heart disease when they get older, but obviously dogs can’t communicate in the same way that humans can, so it’s up to primary care vets to detect heart disease early enough so it can be treated.”

Professor Anurag Agarwal, who led the research, is a specialist in acoustics and bioengineering. “As far as we’re aware, there are no existing databases of heart sounds in dogs, which is why we started out with a database of heart sounds in humans,” he said. “Mammalian hearts are fairly similar, and when things go wrong, they tend to go wrong in similar ways.”

The researchers started with a database of heart sounds from about 1000 human patients and developed a machine learning algorithm to replicate whether a heart murmur had been detected by a cardiologist. They then adapted the algorithm so it could be used with heart sounds from dogs.

The researchers gathered data from almost 800 dogs who were undergoing routine heart examination at four veterinary specialist centres in the UK. All dogs received a full physical examination and heart scan (echocardiogram) by a cardiologist to grade any heart murmurs and identify cardiac disease, and heart sounds were recorded using an electronic stethoscope. By an order of magnitude, this is the largest dataset of dog heart sounds ever created.

“Mitral valve disease mainly affects smaller dogs, but to test and improve our algorithm, we wanted to get data from dogs of all shapes, sizes and ages,” said co-author Professor Jose Novo Matos from Cambridge’s Department of Veterinary Medicine, a specialist in small animal cardiology. “The more data we have to train it, the more useful our algorithm will be, both for vets and for dog owners.”

The researchers fine-tuned the algorithm so it could both detect and grade heart murmurs based on the audio recordings, and differentiate between murmurs associated with mild disease and those reflecting advanced heart disease that required further treatment.  

“Grading a heart murmur and determining whether the heart disease needs treatment requires a lot of experience, referral to a veterinary cardiologist, and expensive specialised heart scans,” said Novo Matos. “We want to empower general practitioners to detect heart disease and assess its severity to help owners make the best decisions for their dogs.”

Analysis of the algorithm’s performance found it agreed with the cardiologist’s assessment in over half of cases, and in 90% of cases, it was within a single grade of the cardiologist’s assessment. The researchers say this is a promising result, as it is common for there to be significant variability in how different vets grade heart murmurs.

“The grade of heart murmur is a useful differentiator for determining next steps and treatments, and we’ve automated that process,” said McDonald. “For vets and nurses without as much stethoscope skill, and even those who are incredibly skilled with a stethoscope, we believe this algorithm could be a highly valuable tool.”

In humans with valve disease, the only treatment is surgery, but for dogs, effective medication is available. “Knowing when to medicate is so important, in order to give dogs the best quality of life possible for as long as possible,” said Agarwal. “We want to empower vets to help make those decisions.”

“So many people talk about AI as a threat to jobs, but for me, I see it as a tool that will make me a better cardiologist,” said Novo Matos. “We can’t perform heart scans on every dog in this country  – we just don’t have enough time or specialists to screen every dog with a murmur. But tools like these could help vets and owners, so we can quickly identify those dogs who are most in need of treatment.”

The research was supported in part by the Kennel Club Charitable Trust, the Medical Research Council, and Emmanuel College Cambridge.

Reference:
Andrew McDonald et al. ‘A machine learning algorithm to grade canine heart murmurs and stage preclinical myxomatous mitral valve disease.’ Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine (2024). DOI: 10.1111/jvim.17224

Researchers have developed a machine learning algorithm to accurately detect heart murmurs in dogs, one of the main indicators of cardiac disease, which affects a large proportion of some smaller breeds such as King Charles Spaniels.

Jacqueline GargetHuxley, a healthy volunteer Havanese, undergoes a physical examination at the Queen's Veterinary School Hospital, Cambridge.

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

Yes

The research team, led by the University of Cambridge, adapted an algorithm originally designed for humans and found it could automatically detect and grade heart murmurs in dogs, based on audio recordings from digital stethoscopes. In tests, the algorithm detected heart murmurs with a sensitivity of 90%, a similar accuracy to expert cardiologists.

Heart murmurs are a key indicator of mitral valve disease, the most common heart condition in adult dogs. Roughly one in 30 dogs seen by a veterinarian has a heart murmur, although the prevalence is higher in small breed dogs and older dogs.

Since mitral valve disease and other heart conditions are so common in dogs, early detection is crucial as timely medication can extend their lives. The technology developed by the Cambridge team could offer an affordable and effective screening tool for primary care veterinarians, and improve quality of life for dogs. The results are reported in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine.

“Heart disease in humans is a huge health issue, but in dogs it’s an even bigger problem,” said first author Dr Andrew McDonald from Cambridge’s Department of Engineering. “Most smaller dog breeds will have heart disease when they get older, but obviously dogs can’t communicate in the same way that humans can, so it’s up to primary care vets to detect heart disease early enough so it can be treated.”

Professor Anurag Agarwal, who led the research, is a specialist in acoustics and bioengineering. “As far as we’re aware, there are no existing databases of heart sounds in dogs, which is why we started out with a database of heart sounds in humans,” he said. “Mammalian hearts are fairly similar, and when things go wrong, they tend to go wrong in similar ways.”

The researchers started with a database of heart sounds from about 1000 human patients and developed a machine learning algorithm to replicate whether a heart murmur had been detected by a cardiologist. They then adapted the algorithm so it could be used with heart sounds from dogs.

The researchers gathered data from almost 800 dogs who were undergoing routine heart examination at four veterinary specialist centres in the UK. All dogs received a full physical examination and heart scan (echocardiogram) by a cardiologist to grade any heart murmurs and identify cardiac disease, and heart sounds were recorded using an electronic stethoscope. By an order of magnitude, this is the largest dataset of dog heart sounds ever created.

“Mitral valve disease mainly affects smaller dogs, but to test and improve our algorithm, we wanted to get data from dogs of all shapes, sizes and ages,” said co-author Professor Jose Novo Matos from Cambridge’s Department of Veterinary Medicine, a specialist in small animal cardiology. “The more data we have to train it, the more useful our algorithm will be, both for vets and for dog owners.”

The researchers fine-tuned the algorithm so it could both detect and grade heart murmurs based on the audio recordings, and differentiate between murmurs associated with mild disease and those reflecting advanced heart disease that required further treatment.  

“Grading a heart murmur and determining whether the heart disease needs treatment requires a lot of experience, referral to a veterinary cardiologist, and expensive specialised heart scans,” said Novo Matos. “We want to empower general practitioners to detect heart disease and assess its severity to help owners make the best decisions for their dogs.”

Analysis of the algorithm’s performance found it agreed with the cardiologist’s assessment in over half of cases, and in 90% of cases, it was within a single grade of the cardiologist’s assessment. The researchers say this is a promising result, as it is common for there to be significant variability in how different vets grade heart murmurs.

“The grade of heart murmur is a useful differentiator for determining next steps and treatments, and we’ve automated that process,” said McDonald. “For vets and nurses without as much stethoscope skill, and even those who are incredibly skilled with a stethoscope, we believe this algorithm could be a highly valuable tool.”

In humans with valve disease, the only treatment is surgery, but for dogs, effective medication is available. “Knowing when to medicate is so important, in order to give dogs the best quality of life possible for as long as possible,” said Agarwal. “We want to empower vets to help make those decisions.”

“So many people talk about AI as a threat to jobs, but for me, I see it as a tool that will make me a better cardiologist,” said Novo Matos. “We can’t perform heart scans on every dog in this country  – we just don’t have enough time or specialists to screen every dog with a murmur. But tools like these could help vets and owners, so we can quickly identify those dogs who are most in need of treatment.”

The research was supported in part by the Kennel Club Charitable Trust, the Medical Research Council, and Emmanuel College Cambridge.

Reference:
Andrew McDonald et al. ‘A machine learning algorithm to grade canine heart murmurs and stage preclinical myxomatous mitral valve disease.’ Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine (2024). DOI: 10.1111/jvim.17224

Researchers have developed a machine learning algorithm to accurately detect heart murmurs in dogs, one of the main indicators of cardiac disease, which affects a large proportion of some smaller breeds such as King Charles Spaniels.

Jacqueline GargetHuxley, a healthy volunteer Havanese, undergoes a physical examination at the Queen's Veterinary School Hospital, Cambridge.

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

Yes

The treatment – known as repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) – involves placing an electromagnetic coil against the scalp to relay a high-frequency magnetic field to the brain.

Around one in 20 adults is estimated to suffer from depression. Although treatments exist, such as anti-depressant medication and cognitive behavioural therapy (‘talking therapy’), they are ineffective for just under one in three patients.

One of the key characteristics of depression is under-activity of some regions (such as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) and over-activity of others (such as the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC)).

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation applied to the left side of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (an area at the upper front area of the brain) is approved for treatment of depression in the UK by NICE and in the US by the FDA. It has previously been shown to lead to considerable improvements among patients after a course of 20 sessions, but because the sessions usually take place over 20-30 days, the treatment is not ideal for everyone, particularly in acute cases or where a person is suicidal.

In research published in Psychological Medicine, scientists from Cambridge, UK, and Guiyang, China, tested how effective an accelerated form of TMS is. In this approach, the treatment is given over 20 sessions, but with four sessions per day over a period of five consecutive days.

The researchers also tested a ‘dual’ approach, whereby a magnetic field was additionally applied to the right-hand side of the OFC (which sits below the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex).

Seventy-five patients were recruited to the trial from the Second People’s Hospital of Guizhou Province in China. The severity of their depression was measured on a scale known as the Hamilton Rating Scale of Depression.

Participants were split randomly into three groups: a ‘dual’ group receiving TMS applied first to the right- and then to the left-hand sides of the brain; a ‘single’ group receiving sham TMS to the right-side followed by active TMS applied to the left-side; and a control group receiving a sham treatment to both sides. Each session lasted in total 22 minutes.

There was a significant improvement in scores assessed immediately after the final treatment in the dual treatment group compared to the other two groups. When the researchers looked for clinically-relevant responses – that is, where an individual’s score fell by at least 50% – they found that almost half (48%) of the patients in the dual treatment group saw such a reduction, compared to just under one in five (18%) in the single treatment group and fewer than one in 20 (4%) in the control group.

Four weeks later, around six in 10 participants in both the dual and single treatment groups (61% and 59% respectively) showed clinically relevant responses, compared to just over one in five (22%) in the control group.

Professor Valerie Voon from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, who led the UK side of the study, said: “Our accelerated approach means we can do all of the sessions in just five days, rapidly reducing an individual’s symptoms of depression. This means it could be particularly useful in severe cases of depression, including when someone is experiencing suicidal thoughts. It may also help people be discharged from hospital more rapidly or even avoid admission in the first place.

“The treatment works faster because, by targeting two areas of the brain implicated in depression, we’re effectively correcting imbalances in two import processes, getting brain regions ‘talking’ to each other correctly.”

The treatment was most effective in those patients who at the start of the trial showed greater connectivity between the OFC and the thalamus (an area in the middle of the brain responsible for, among other things, regulation of consciousness, sleep, and alertness). The OFC is important for helping us make decisions, particularly in choosing rewards and avoiding punishment. Its over-activity in depression, particularly in relation to its role in anti-reward or punishment, might help explain why people with depression show a bias towards negative expectations and ruminations.

Dr Yanping Shu from the Guizhou Mental Health Centre, Guiyang, China, said: “This new treatment has demonstrated a more pronounced – and faster – improvement in response rates for patients with major depressive disorder. It represents a significant step forward in improving outcomes, enabling rapid discharge from hospitals for individuals with treatment-resistant depression, and we are hopeful it will lead to new possibilities in mental health care.”

Dr Hailun Cui from Fudan University, a PhD student in Professor Voon’s lab at the time of the study, added: “The management of treatment-resistant depression remains one of the most challenging areas in mental health care. These patients often fail to respond to standard treatments, including medication and psychotherapy, leaving them in a prolonged state of severe distress, functional impairment, and increased risk of suicide.

“This new TMS approach offers a beacon of hope in this difficult landscape. Patients frequently reported experiencing ‘lighter and brighter’ feelings as early as the second day of treatment. The rapid improvements, coupled with a higher response rate that could benefit a broader depressed population, mark a significant breakthrough in the field.”

Just under a half (48%) of participants in the dual treatment group reported local pain where the dual treatment was applied, compared to just under one in 10 (9%) of participants in the single treatment group. However, despite this, there were no dropouts.

For some individuals, this treatment may be sufficient, but for others ‘maintenance therapy’ may be necessary, with an additional day session if their symptoms appear to be worsening over time. It may also be possible to re-administer standard therapy as patients can then become more able to engage in psychotherapy. Other options include using transcranial direct current stimulation, a non-invasive form of stimulation using weak electrical impulses that can be delivered at home.

The researchers are now exploring exactly which part of the orbitofrontal cortex is most effective to target and for which types of depression.

The research was supported by in the UK by the Medical Research Council and by the National Institute for Health and Care Research Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.*

Reference
Cui, H, Ding, H & Hu, L et al. A novel dual-site OFC-dlPFC accelerated repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation for depression: a pilot randomized controlled study. Psychological Medicine; 23 Oct 2024; DOI: 10.1017/S0033291724002289

*A full list of funders is available in the journal paper.

A type of therapy that involves applying a magnetic field to both sides of the brain has been shown to be effective at rapidly treating depression in patients for whom standard treatments have been ineffective.

Our accelerated approach means we can do all of the sessions in just five days, rapidly reducing an individual’s symptoms of depressionValerie VoonTheDigitalArtistDigital image of a brain

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

YesLicence type: Public Domain

Latest research has revealed a “positive association” between the number of properties listed as Airbnb rentals and police-reported robberies and violent crimes in thousands of London neighbourhoods between 2015 and 2018.

In fact, the study led by the University of Cambridge suggests that a 10% increase in active Airbnb rentals in the city would correspond to an additional 1,000 robberies per year across London.*

Urban sociologists say the rapid pace at which crime rises in conjunction with new rentals suggests that the link is related more to opportunities for crime, rather than loss of cohesion within communities – although both are likely contributing factors.  

“We tested for the most plausible alternative explanations, from changes in police patrols to tourist hotspots and even football matches,” said Dr Charles Lanfear from Cambridge’s Institute of Criminology, co-author of the study published today in the journal Criminology.

“Nothing changed the core finding that Airbnb rentals are related to higher crime rates in London neighbourhoods.”

“While Airbnb offers benefits to tourists and hosts in terms of ease and financial reward, there may be social consequences to turning large swathes of city neighbourhoods into hotels with little regulation,” Lanfear said.

Founded in 2008, Airbnb is a giant of the digital economy, with more than five million property hosts now active on the platform in some 100,000 cities worldwide.

However, concerns that Airbnb is contributing to unaffordable housing costs has led to a backlash among residents of cities such as Barcelona, and calls for greater regulation.

London is one of the most popular Airbnb markets in the world. An estimated 4.5 million guests stayed in a London Airbnb during the period covered by the study.

Lanfear and his University of Pennsylvania co-author Prof David Kirk used masses of data from AirDNA: a site that scrapes Airbnb to provide figures, trends and approximate geolocations for the short-term letting market.

They mapped AirDNA data from 13 calendar quarters (January 2015 to March 2018) onto “Lower Layer Super Output Areas”, or LSOAs.

These are designated areas of a few streets containing around two thousand residents, used primarily for UK census purposes. There are 4,835 LSOAs in London, and all were included in the study.

Crime statistics from the UK Home Office and Greater London Authority for six categories – robbery, burglary, theft, anti-social behaviour, any violence, and bodily harm – were then mapped onto LSOAs populated with AirDNA data. 

The researchers analysed all forms of Airbnb lets, but found the link between active Airbnbs and crime is primarily down to entire properties for rent, rather than spare or shared rooms.

The association between active Airbnb rentals and crime was most significant for robbery and burglary, followed by theft and any violence. No link was found for anti-social behaviour and bodily harm.

On average across London, an additional Airbnb property was associated with a 2% increase in the robbery rate within an LSOA. This association was 1% for thefts, 0.9% for burglaries, and 0.5% for violence.

“While the potential criminogenic effect for each Airbnb rental is small, the accumulative effect of dozens in a neighbourhood, or tens of thousands across the city, is potentially huge,” Lanfear said.

He points out that London had an average of 53,000 active lettings in each calendar-quarter of the study period, and an average of 11 lettings per LSOA.

At its most extreme, one neighbourhood in Soho, an area famed for nightlife, had a high of 318 dedicated Airbnbs – some 30% of all households in the LSOA.  

The data models suggest that a 3.2% increase in all types of Airbnb rentals per LSOA would correspond to a 1% increase in robberies city-wide: 325 additional robberies based on the figure of 32,500 recorded robberies in London in 2018.

Lanfear and Kirk extensively stress-tested the association between Airbnb listings and London crime rates.

This included factoring in “criminogenic variables” such as property prices, police stops, the regularity of police patrols, and even English Premier League football games (by both incorporating attendance into data modelling, and removing all LSOAs within a kilometre of major games).

The duo re-ran their data models excluding all the 259 LSOAs in central London’s Zone One, to see if the association was limited to high tourism areas with lots of Airbnb listings. The data models even incorporated the seasonal “ebb and flow” of London tourism. Nothing changed the overall trends. 

Prior to crunching the numbers, the researchers speculated that any link might be down to Airbnbs affecting “collective efficacy”: the social cohesion within a community, combined with a willingness to intervene for the public good.

The study measured levels of ‘collective efficacy’ across the city using data from both the Metropolitan Police and the Mayor of London’s Office, who conduct surveys on public perceptions of criminal activity and the likely responses of their community.    

Collective efficacy across London is not only consistently high, but did not explain the association between Airbnbs and crime in the data models.

Moreover, when Airbnb listings rise, the effect on crime is more immediate than one caused by a slow erosion of collective efficacy. “Crime seems to go up as soon as Airbnbs appear, and stays elevated for as long as they are active,” said Lanfear.

The researchers conclude it is likely driven by criminal opportunity. “A single Airbnb rental can create different types of criminal opportunity,” said Lanfear.

“An Airbnb rental can provide an easy potential victim such as a tourist unfamiliar with the area, or a property that is regularly vacant and so easier to burgle. A very temporary occupant may be more likely to cause criminal damage.”

“Offenders may learn to return to areas with more Airbnbs to find unguarded targets,” said Lanfear. “More dedicated Airbnb properties may mean fewer long-term residents with a personal stake in the area who are willing to report potential criminal activity.”

Airbnb has taken steps to prevent crime, including some background checks as well as requirements for extended bookings on occasions popular for one-night parties, such as New Year’s Eve. “The fact that we still find an increase in crime despite Airbnb’s efforts to curtail it reveals the severity of the predicament,” said Kirk.

Added Lanfear: “Short-term letting sites such as Airbnb create incentives for landlords that lead to property speculation, and we can see the effect on urban housing markets. We can now see that the expansion of Airbnb may contribute to city crime rates.”

“It is not the company or even the property owners who experience the criminogenic side effects of Airbnb, it is the local residents building their lives in the neighbourhood.”   

Notes:

*Above 2018 levels, which is when the study data ends. 

Rising numbers of houses and flats listed as short-term lets on Airbnb are associated with higher rates of crimes such as burglaries and street robberies right across London, according to the most detailed study of its kind.

There may be social consequences to turning large swathes of city neighbourhoods into hotels with little regulationCharles LanfearKarl Hendon/GettyLondon townhouses in Greenwich

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

Yes

Latest research has revealed a “positive association” between the number of properties listed as Airbnb rentals and police-reported robberies and violent crimes in thousands of London neighbourhoods between 2015 and 2018.

In fact, the study led by the University of Cambridge suggests that a 10% increase in active Airbnb rentals in the city would correspond to an additional 1,000 robberies per year across London.*

Urban sociologists say the rapid pace at which crime rises in conjunction with new rentals suggests that the link is related more to opportunities for crime, rather than loss of cohesion within communities – although both are likely contributing factors.  

“We tested for the most plausible alternative explanations, from changes in police patrols to tourist hotspots and even football matches,” said Dr Charles Lanfear from Cambridge’s Institute of Criminology, co-author of the study published today in the journal Criminology.

“Nothing changed the core finding that Airbnb rentals are related to higher crime rates in London neighbourhoods.”

“While Airbnb offers benefits to tourists and hosts in terms of ease and financial reward, there may be social consequences to turning large swathes of city neighbourhoods into hotels with little regulation,” Lanfear said.

Founded in 2008, Airbnb is a giant of the digital economy, with more than five million property hosts now active on the platform in some 100,000 cities worldwide.

However, concerns that Airbnb is contributing to unaffordable housing costs has led to a backlash among residents of cities such as Barcelona, and calls for greater regulation.

London is one of the most popular Airbnb markets in the world. An estimated 4.5 million guests stayed in a London Airbnb during the period covered by the study.

Lanfear and his University of Pennsylvania co-author Prof David Kirk used masses of data from AirDNA: a site that scrapes Airbnb to provide figures, trends and approximate geolocations for the short-term letting market.

They mapped AirDNA data from 13 calendar quarters (January 2015 to March 2018) onto “Lower Layer Super Output Areas”, or LSOAs.

These are designated areas of a few streets containing around two thousand residents, used primarily for UK census purposes. There are 4,835 LSOAs in London, and all were included in the study.

Crime statistics from the UK Home Office and Greater London Authority for six categories – robbery, burglary, theft, anti-social behaviour, any violence, and bodily harm – were then mapped onto LSOAs populated with AirDNA data. 

The researchers analysed all forms of Airbnb lets, but found the link between active Airbnbs and crime is primarily down to entire properties for rent, rather than spare or shared rooms.

The association between active Airbnb rentals and crime was most significant for robbery and burglary, followed by theft and any violence. No link was found for anti-social behaviour and bodily harm.

On average across London, an additional Airbnb property was associated with a 2% increase in the robbery rate within an LSOA. This association was 1% for thefts, 0.9% for burglaries, and 0.5% for violence.

“While the potential criminogenic effect for each Airbnb rental is small, the accumulative effect of dozens in a neighbourhood, or tens of thousands across the city, is potentially huge,” Lanfear said.

He points out that London had an average of 53,000 active lettings in each calendar-quarter of the study period, and an average of 11 lettings per LSOA.

At its most extreme, one neighbourhood in Soho, an area famed for nightlife, had a high of 318 dedicated Airbnbs – some 30% of all households in the LSOA.  

The data models suggest that a 3.2% increase in all types of Airbnb rentals per LSOA would correspond to a 1% increase in robberies city-wide: 325 additional robberies based on the figure of 32,500 recorded robberies in London in 2018.

Lanfear and Kirk extensively stress-tested the association between Airbnb listings and London crime rates.

This included factoring in “criminogenic variables” such as property prices, police stops, the regularity of police patrols, and even English Premier League football games (by both incorporating attendance into data modelling, and removing all LSOAs within a kilometre of major games).

The duo re-ran their data models excluding all the 259 LSOAs in central London’s Zone One, to see if the association was limited to high tourism areas with lots of Airbnb listings. The data models even incorporated the seasonal “ebb and flow” of London tourism. Nothing changed the overall trends. 

Prior to crunching the numbers, the researchers speculated that any link might be down to Airbnbs affecting “collective efficacy”: the social cohesion within a community, combined with a willingness to intervene for the public good.

The study measured levels of ‘collective efficacy’ across the city using data from both the Metropolitan Police and the Mayor of London’s Office, who conduct surveys on public perceptions of criminal activity and the likely responses of their community.    

Collective efficacy across London is not only consistently high, but did not explain the association between Airbnbs and crime in the data models.

Moreover, when Airbnb listings rise, the effect on crime is more immediate than one caused by a slow erosion of collective efficacy. “Crime seems to go up as soon as Airbnbs appear, and stays elevated for as long as they are active,” said Lanfear.

The researchers conclude it is likely driven by criminal opportunity. “A single Airbnb rental can create different types of criminal opportunity,” said Lanfear.

“An Airbnb rental can provide an easy potential victim such as a tourist unfamiliar with the area, or a property that is regularly vacant and so easier to burgle. A very temporary occupant may be more likely to cause criminal damage.”

“Offenders may learn to return to areas with more Airbnbs to find unguarded targets,” said Lanfear. “More dedicated Airbnb properties may mean fewer long-term residents with a personal stake in the area who are willing to report potential criminal activity.”

Airbnb has taken steps to prevent crime, including some background checks as well as requirements for extended bookings on occasions popular for one-night parties, such as New Year’s Eve. “The fact that we still find an increase in crime despite Airbnb’s efforts to curtail it reveals the severity of the predicament,” said Kirk.

Added Lanfear: “Short-term letting sites such as Airbnb create incentives for landlords that lead to property speculation, and we can see the effect on urban housing markets. We can now see that the expansion of Airbnb may contribute to city crime rates.”

“It is not the company or even the property owners who experience the criminogenic side effects of Airbnb, it is the local residents building their lives in the neighbourhood.”   

Notes:

*Above 2018 levels, which is when the study data ends. 

Rising numbers of houses and flats listed as short-term lets on Airbnb are associated with higher rates of crimes such as burglaries and street robberies right across London, according to the most detailed study of its kind.

There may be social consequences to turning large swathes of city neighbourhoods into hotels with little regulationCharles LanfearKarl Hendon/GettyLondon townhouses in Greenwich

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Yes

Writing in the journal Science Robotics, the research team, led by the University of Cambridge, outline how ‘palaeo-inspired robotics’ could provide a valuable experimental approach to studying how the pectoral and pelvic fins of ancient fish evolved to support weight on land.

“Since fossil evidence is limited, we have an incomplete picture of how ancient life made the transition to land,” said lead author Dr Michael Ishida from Cambridge’s Department of Engineering. “Palaeontologists examine ancient fossils for clues about the structure of hip and pelvic joints, but there are limits to what we can learn from fossils alone. That’s where robots can come in, helping us fill gaps in the research, particularly when studying major shifts in how vertebrates moved.”

Ishida is a member of Cambridge’s Bio-Inspired Robotics Laboratory, led by Professor Fumiya Iida. The team is developing energy-efficient robots for a variety of applications, which take their inspiration from the efficient ways that animals and humans move.

With funding from the Human Frontier Science Program, the team is developing palaeo-inspired robots, in part by taking their inspiration from modern-day ‘walking fish’ such as mudskippers, and from fossils of extinct fish. “In the lab, we can’t make a living fish walk differently, and we certainly can’t get a fossil to move, so we’re using robots to simulate their anatomy and behaviour,” said Ishida.

The team is creating robotic analogues of ancient fish skeletons, complete with mechanical joints that mimic muscles and ligaments. Once complete, the team will perform experiments on these robots to determine how these ancient creatures might have moved.

“We want to know things like how much energy different walking patterns would have required, or which movements were most efficient,” said Ishida. “This data can help confirm or challenge existing theories about how these early animals evolved.”

One of the biggest challenges in this field is the lack of comprehensive fossil records. Many of the ancient species from this period in Earth’s history are known only from partial skeletons, making it difficult to reconstruct their full range of movement.

“In some cases, we’re just guessing how certain bones connected or functioned,” said Ishida. “That’s why robots are so useful—they help us confirm these guesses and provide new evidence to support or rebut them.”

While robots are commonly used to study movement in living animals, very few research groups are using them to study extinct species. “There are only a few groups doing this kind of work,” said Ishida. “But we think it’s a natural fit – robots can provide insights into ancient animals that we simply can’t get from fossils or modern species alone.”

The team hopes that their work will encourage other researchers to explore the potential of robotics to study the biomechanics of long-extinct animals. “We’re trying to close the loop between fossil evidence and real-world mechanics,” said Ishida. “Computer models are obviously incredibly important in this area of research, but since robots are interacting with the real world, they can help us test theories about how these creatures moved, and maybe even why they moved the way they did.”

The team is currently in the early stages of building their palaeo-robots, but they hope to have some results within the next year. The researchers say they hope their robot models will not only deepen understanding of evolutionary biology, but could also open up new avenues of collaboration between engineers and researchers in other fields.

The research was supported by the Human Frontier Science Program. Fumiya Iida is a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Michael Ishida a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.

Reference:
Michael Ishida et al. ‘Paleo-inspired robotics as an experimental approach to the history of life.’ Science Robotics (2024). DOI: 10.1126/scirobotics.adn1125

The transition from water to land is one of the most significant events in the history of life on Earth. Now, a team of roboticists, palaeontologists and biologists is using robots to study how the ancestors of modern land animals transitioned from swimming to walking, about 390 million years ago.

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

Yes

Writing in the journal Science Robotics, the research team, led by the University of Cambridge, outline how ‘palaeo-inspired robotics’ could provide a valuable experimental approach to studying how the pectoral and pelvic fins of ancient fish evolved to support weight on land.

“Since fossil evidence is limited, we have an incomplete picture of how ancient life made the transition to land,” said lead author Dr Michael Ishida from Cambridge’s Department of Engineering. “Palaeontologists examine ancient fossils for clues about the structure of hip and pelvic joints, but there are limits to what we can learn from fossils alone. That’s where robots can come in, helping us fill gaps in the research, particularly when studying major shifts in how vertebrates moved.”

Ishida is a member of Cambridge’s Bio-Inspired Robotics Laboratory, led by Professor Fumiya Iida. The team is developing energy-efficient robots for a variety of applications, which take their inspiration from the efficient ways that animals and humans move.

With funding from the Human Frontier Science Program, the team is developing palaeo-inspired robots, in part by taking their inspiration from modern-day ‘walking fish’ such as mudskippers, and from fossils of extinct fish. “In the lab, we can’t make a living fish walk differently, and we certainly can’t get a fossil to move, so we’re using robots to simulate their anatomy and behaviour,” said Ishida.

The team is creating robotic analogues of ancient fish skeletons, complete with mechanical joints that mimic muscles and ligaments. Once complete, the team will perform experiments on these robots to determine how these ancient creatures might have moved.

“We want to know things like how much energy different walking patterns would have required, or which movements were most efficient,” said Ishida. “This data can help confirm or challenge existing theories about how these early animals evolved.”

One of the biggest challenges in this field is the lack of comprehensive fossil records. Many of the ancient species from this period in Earth’s history are known only from partial skeletons, making it difficult to reconstruct their full range of movement.

“In some cases, we’re just guessing how certain bones connected or functioned,” said Ishida. “That’s why robots are so useful—they help us confirm these guesses and provide new evidence to support or rebut them.”

While robots are commonly used to study movement in living animals, very few research groups are using them to study extinct species. “There are only a few groups doing this kind of work,” said Ishida. “But we think it’s a natural fit – robots can provide insights into ancient animals that we simply can’t get from fossils or modern species alone.”

The team hopes that their work will encourage other researchers to explore the potential of robotics to study the biomechanics of long-extinct animals. “We’re trying to close the loop between fossil evidence and real-world mechanics,” said Ishida. “Computer models are obviously incredibly important in this area of research, but since robots are interacting with the real world, they can help us test theories about how these creatures moved, and maybe even why they moved the way they did.”

The team is currently in the early stages of building their palaeo-robots, but they hope to have some results within the next year. The researchers say they hope their robot models will not only deepen understanding of evolutionary biology, but could also open up new avenues of collaboration between engineers and researchers in other fields.

The research was supported by the Human Frontier Science Program. Fumiya Iida is a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Michael Ishida a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.

Reference:
Michael Ishida et al. ‘Paleo-inspired robotics as an experimental approach to the history of life.’ Science Robotics (2024). DOI: 10.1126/scirobotics.adn1125

The transition from water to land is one of the most significant events in the history of life on Earth. Now, a team of roboticists, palaeontologists and biologists is using robots to study how the ancestors of modern land animals transitioned from swimming to walking, about 390 million years ago.

Bio-Inspired Robotics LaboratoryIllustration of palaeo-robots

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Yes

Cambridge University Boat Club (CUBC) student and alumni crews took part in the race, which is held on the Charles River over a 3-mile course comprising several bends that require skilled coxing. Cambridge walked away with gold in the Men’s Championship Eights, Women’s Master’s Double, Men’s Alumni Fours, and Men’s Senior Master’s Fours against top international crews, with an impressive set of results across the board.

Read the full story on the CUBC website.

Cambridge have claimed four golds at one of the biggest events in the global rowing calendar, the Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

The Cambridge Men’s ‘A’ boat en route to victory

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Yes

Election to the Academy is considered one of the highest honours in the fields of health and medicine and recognises individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service.

“It is a great honour to have been elected to the National Academy of Medicine,”  said Professor Rowitch.

Professor Rowitch obtained his PhD from the University of Cambridge. His research in the field of developmental neurobiology has focused on glial cells that comprise the ‘white matter’ of the human brain. It has furthered understanding human neonatal brain development as well as white matter injury in premature infants, multiple sclerosis and leukodystrophy. Amongst numerous awards, he was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2018 and Fellow of the Royal Society in 2021.

Professor Rowitch’s current interest focuses on functional genomic technologies to better diagnose and treat rare neurogenetic disorders in children. He is academic lead for the new Cambridge Children’s Hospital, developing integrated paediatric physical-mental healthcare and research within the NHS and University of Cambridge.

NAM President Victor J. Dzau said: “This class of new members represents the most exceptional researchers and leaders in health and medicine, who have made significant breakthroughs, led the response to major public health challenges, and advanced health equity.

“Their expertise will be necessary to supporting NAM’s work to address the pressing health and scientific challenges we face today. It is my privilege to welcome these esteemed individuals to the National Academy of Medicine.”

Professor Rowitch is one of 90 regular members and 10 international members announced during the Academy’s annual meeting. New members are elected by current members through a process that recognises individuals who have made major contributions to the advancement of the medical sciences, health care, and public health. 

Professor David Rowitch, Head of the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Cambridge, has been elected to the prestigious National Academy of Medicine in the USA.

Professor David Rowitch

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Yes

• The Cambridge-GSK Translational Immunology Collaboration (CG-TIC) combines University and GSK expertise in the science of the immune system, AI and clinical development with access to patients and their data provided by Cambridge University Hospitals.
• GSK is investing more than £50 million in CG-TIC, further strengthening Cambridge’s position as Europe’s leading life sciences cluster.

GSK plc is making this investment to establish the Cambridge-GSK Translational Immunology Collaboration (CG-TIC), a five-year collaboration with the University of Cambridge and Cambridge University Hospitals. The collaboration is focused on understanding the onset of a disease, its progression, how patients respond to therapies and on developing biomarkers for rapid diagnosis. Ultimately, the goal is to trial more effective, personalised medicines.

The collaboration will focus on kidney and respiratory diseases, both of which affect large numbers of people worldwide. Kidney disease is estimated to affect 850 million people (roughly 10% of the world’s population) (International Society of Nephrology) and chronic respiratory diseases around 545 million (The Lancet).

Many types of kidney disease remain poorly understood and treatments, where they exist, tend to have limited efficacy. Chronic kidney disease is particularly unpleasant and debilitating for patients, often leading to end-stage disease. Treatments such as transplant and dialysis involve complex medical regimes and frequent hospital visits, making effective prevention and treatment the aim.

To make progress in treating these challenging disease areas, CG-TIC will apply an array of new techniques, including the use of cutting-edge single cell technologies to characterise how genes are expressed in individual cells. AI and machine learning have a critical role to play in transforming how data is combined and interrogated.

Using these techniques, the ambition is to be able to initiate new studies and early phase trials of new therapies for a number of hard-to-treat diseases which affect the kidneys. The same techniques will be applied to respiratory diseases and findings will be shared across the disease areas potentially to help identify and share better treatments across these different targets.

Peter Kyle, Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, welcomed the collaboration: "The UK's life sciences industry is thriving, driving innovation and improving lives. This collaboration between GSK and the University of Cambridge demonstrates our country's leading research and development capabilities.

“By focusing on cutting-edge research and harnessing the power of AI, this partnership has the potential to advance the treatment of immune-related diseases, which could benefit patients both here in the UK and internationally. It's a clear example of how collaboration between industry, academia, and healthcare can deliver tangible results and strengthen the UK's position in healthcare innovation."

Tony Wood, Chief Scientific Officer, GSK, added: “Collaboration is at the heart of scientific progress and is fundamental to how we do R&D at GSK. We’re excited to build on our existing work with the University of Cambridge to further this world-leading scientific and technological capability in the UK. By bringing together Cambridge’s expertise and our own internal capabilities, including understanding of the immune system and the use of AI to accelerate drug development, we have an opportunity to help patients struggling with complex disease.”

The aim of CG-TIC is to improve outcomes for patients and Cambridge provides a unique environment in which to involve them, with Cambridge University Hospitals playing a pivotal role in the collaboration and Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, the UK’s leading heart and lung hospital, a likely future partner.

Home to the hospitals and to much of the collaboration’s research activity, the Cambridge Biomedical Campus provides a unique environment where academia, industry and healthcare can come together and where human translational research is supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.

Professor Deborah Prentice, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, said: “The University sits at the heart of Europe’s leading life sciences cluster, where excellent research and the NHS’s clinical resources combine with the talent generated by the many innovative bioscience companies that call Cambridge home. Through this very important collaboration with GSK, Cambridge will be able to drive economic growth for the UK while improving the health of people in this country and around the world.”

Roland Sinker, CEO of Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, also welcomed the collaboration, saying: “We are very excited to be part of this important partnership, which is another example of Cambridge experts working together to develop transformational new therapies, and use existing ones more precisely, to improve outcomes for patients with chronic and debilitating conditions.”

The Cambridge-GSK Translational Immunology Collaboration will be co-led by Nicolas Wisniacki, VP, Clinical Research Head, GSK (above left) and David Thomas, Professor of Renal Medicine, University of Cambridge and principal investigator at the Cambridge Institute for Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Diseases.

 

 

The ambition of the partnership is to treat immune-related diseases more precisely with existing therapies and to rapidly develop new ones.

The UK's life sciences industry is thriving, driving innovation and improving lives. This collaboration between GSK and the University of Cambridge demonstrates our country's leading research and development capabilities. Peter Kyle, Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and TechnologyStillVisionDavid Thomas, Professor of Renal Medicine, University of Cambridge and Dr Nicolas Wisniacki, VP, Clinical Research Head, GSK

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

YesLicence type: Public Domain

It is Nobel prize-giving season and last week alumni of Cambridge University were awarded four of them for their brilliant work. In a leading article last week, The Times pointed out that if it were a country, Cambridge’s total of 125 would place it third for Nobel laureates behind only the UK and the US. This is a tribute to outstanding work which changes lives.

As an American who took over the role of vice-chancellor a little over a year ago, I am struck by how often the value of world-class research universities — to our economy, and to society and our daily lives — is underestimated here in Britain. Two of the top five in the world are British and in higher education terms this country punches well above its weight. This week we will announce a huge new investment in transformative research focused on a common foe: cancer. It will bring global benefits.

Our world-class, research-intensive universities are national assets. They can be genuine drivers of economic growth. Cambridge research contributes a staggering £30 billion to the UK economy each year. By contrast, no single US university plays such a national role.

And yet some UK research universities are in a precarious financial state. They are vital to their local and regional communities, as well as to Britain as a whole. They need more than just recognition if they are to drive future sustainable growth: they need investment, yes, but also support to innovate so they can continue to break new research frontiers and to serve their communities.

In Cambridge, we plan to launch an innovation hub that attracts and hosts the best researchers from around the world, plus entrepreneurs, funders and philanthropists. Under one roof, ideas will be driven forward, before they are spun out. The US and France have successfully pointed the way in these hothouses for innovation, in Boston and Paris. The UK must catch up — and fast.

With the budget looming, even — or perhaps especially — in tough times, the government must see our research universities as key allies and partners in its mission to drive economic growth. They are one of the main advantages this country enjoys in the global race for economic success.

At the start of a new academic year, thousands of students and researchers have arrived in Cambridge and at other British universities. We should invest in our world-class institutions and their contributions to tackling society’s greatest challenges so that in the decades to come we will have more Nobel laureates to celebrate.

This article first appeared in The Times on 14 October 2024.

 

Professor Deborah Prentice, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, writes in The Times about how universities can drive UK growth - but they need more than just recognition.

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Yes

The significant funding commitment will enable world-class discovery science, unlocking new insights into how cancers develop, grow and spread, as well as examining how the immune system can be harnessed to combat the disease.  

Research at the CRUK Cambridge Institute focuses on understanding every stage of the cancer life cycle – how tumours grow and spread and how this is impacted by the characteristics of each individual patient.  By studying how tumours develop, adapt, and interact with their surroundings, scientists aim to uncover crucial insights into their behaviour. 

Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, Professor Deborah Prentice, said: “From understanding and detecting cancer at its very earliest stages, to developing kinder treatments to building Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital, a transformative new cancer research hospital for the region, Cambridge is changing the story of cancer. For many years now, Cancer Research UK has played a vital role in enabling this world-leading work. Today’s announcement will ensure our researchers continue to find new ways to transform the lives of patients locally, nationally and internationally.”

Today’s £173 million announcement further boosts CRUK’s unwavering commitment towards its mission to beat cancer. The charity is investing in exciting new research programmes, forging new partnerships and is on track to invest more than £1.5bn on research over the five-year period 2021/22 to 2025/26.   

Director of the CRUK Cambridge Institute, Professor Greg Hannon, said: “In a golden era for life sciences, this funding bolsters Cambridge as a major global hub for cancer research on an increasingly competitive worldwide stage and will greatly aid the recruitment of top-tier international talent.   

“Research from the Institute has already made a positive impact for patients and their families, from the development of innovative technologies, diagnostic tests, and advanced imaging methods to the roll out of personalised medicine programmes for those with brain, breast, pancreatic, and ovarian cancers. We believe that only by embracing the complexity of cancer and how the disease interacts with the normal cells of patients can we move the needle on the hardest to treat cancers.” 

The Institute is dedicated to improving cancer patients’ lives through discovery science and clinical translational research and has over 300 scientists working on groundbreaking discoveries taking research from laboratory bench to bedside.  

Established in 2007, it was the first major new cancer research centre in the UK for over 50 years. In 2013, it became a department of the University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine, strengthening links with researchers across the University and at Addenbrooke's Hospital,  and further enhancing its position as a world leader with research transitioning into clinical trials, and ultimately new and better cancer treatments. 

Professor Hannon added: "The Institute serves as a foundation for the entire Cambridge cancer research community through access to cutting-edge equipment and technical expertise. Only through understanding all aspects of the disease can we prevent, detect and treat cancer so that everybody can lead longer, better lives, free from fear of cancer.

“With this new funding, the Institute aims to accelerate its impact for patients, with new schemes to integrate clinicians into every aspect of our research and to embrace new technologies, including the promise of machine learning and artificial intelligence to enhance our discovery portfolio.”  

The award, which will support the Institute over the next seven years, follows a comprehensive review of the facility led by an independent panel of international cancer experts who recognised research innovation.  

CRUK Chief Executive, Michelle Mitchell, said: “We are delighted to confirm this incredible investment which is a reflection of  the world-leading research community at the CRUK Cambridge Institute. The funding will underpin long-term cutting-edge discovery research, as well as supporting researchers to find new ways to improve cancer prevention and treatment, while creating innovative solutions to diagnose the disease earlier. 

“This kind of funding would not be possible without the generosity of Cancer Research UK supporters and philanthropists."

Work undertaken at the Institute includes: 

• Understanding cancer: By gaining a deeper understanding of how tumours grow, adapt, and interact with their surroundings, scientists hope to uncover why some cells become cancerous and learn how each tumour's lifecycle can affect a patient’s response to treatment and prognosis.  Professor Greg Hannon's team developed a diagnostic tool using virtual reality to explore every cell and aspect of breast tumours in unprecedented detail.
• Unravelling tumour interactions: Researchers are investigating a tumours’ ‘microenvironment' – which includes the surrounding cells, blood vessels, and immune cells and how they interact. This is helping scientists to predict how well immunotherapy treatments will work.
• Cancer detection: Scientists are finding new ways to detect cancer earlier, predict the best course of treatments and tailor therapies to individual needs, to improve survival.  Using tumour DNA, scientists can monitor the effectiveness of treatments and catch signs of cancer returning.  Cambridge scientists are also working on a simple at-home test for future patients to regularly monitor their progress. 
• Personalised medicine: Looking at the unique genetic mutations of a person’s tumour, including how it behaves and responds to treatment, allows treatments to be developed and matched to the specific genetic change.  For example, Professor James Brenton's team discovered a specific mutation in the most common form of ovarian cancer which is now used across the NHS as a cancer marker to measure treatment response for the disease. 

Thanks to research, cancer death rates have fallen by 10% percent in the UK over the past decade. But in the East of England, around 37,400 people are still diagnosed, and around 15,700 lose their lives to the disease every year - underlining the vital need for new and better treatments. 

Major studies seeking more accurate treatments for the deadliest cancers like ovarian and oesophageal cancer will also be supported at the Institute.  Research undertaken by Professor Florian Markowetz and his team includes predicting cancer weaknesses to treatment, and spotting cancers as early as possible using AI technology. 

There are 17 research groups based at the Institute – based on the largest biomedical campus in Europe - studying a range of cancer and technologies to support improved cancer treatments. 

Find out how Cambridge is changing the story of cancer

Adapted from a press release from Cancer Research UK

Cancer Research UK (CRUK) has today announced a £173 million investment in its institute at the University of Cambridge - the largest single grant ever awarded by the charity outside of London.  

Today’s announcement will ensure our researchers continue to find new ways to transform the lives of patients locally, nationally and internationallyDeborah Prentice, Vice-ChancellorCancer Research UKCancer Research UK Cambridge Institute

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Yes

From Tuesday 15 October the University of Cambridge’s Museum of Zoology is offering visitors a unique experience: the chance to chat with the animals on display – whether skeletal, taxidermy, or extinct.

In a collaboration with the company Nature Perspectives, the Museum’s Assistant Director Jack Ashby has chosen a range of animal specimens to bring back to life using generative Artificial Intelligence.

Visitors can pose their questions to thirteen specimens - including dodo and whale skeletons, a taxidermied red panda, and a preserved cockroach - by scanning QR codes that open a chat-box on their mobile phone. In two-way conversations, which can be voice- or text-based, the specimens will answer as if they are still alive.

This is believed to be the first time a museum has used generative Artificial Intelligence to enable visitors to chat with objects on display in this way.

By analysing data from the conversations, the team hopes that the month-long experiment will help them learn more about how AI can help the public to better engage with nature, and about the potential for AI in museums. It will also provide the museum with new insights into what visitors really want to know about the specimens on display.

Nature Perspectives uses AI to enable cultural institutions like the Museum of Zoology to engage the public through these unique conversational experiences. The company aims to reverse a growing apathy towards biodiversity loss by enabling new ways to engage with the natural world.

“This is an amazing opportunity for people to test out an emerging technology in our inspiring Museum setting, and we also hope to learn something about how our visitors see the animals on display,” said Jack Ashby, Assistant Director of the University of Cambridge’s Museum of Zoology.

He added: “Our whole purpose is to get people engaged with the natural world. So we're curious to see whether this will work, and whether chatting to the animals will change people’s attitudes towards them - will the cockroach be better liked, for example, as a result of having its voice heard?”

“By using AI to simulate non-human perspectives, our technology offers a novel way for audiences to connect with the natural world,” said Gal Zanir, co-founder of the company Nature Perspectives, which developed the AI technology for the experience.

He added: “One of the most magical aspects of the simulations is that they’re age-adaptive. For the first time, visitors of all ages will be able to ask the specimens anything they like.”

The technology brings together all available information on each animal involved – including details particular to the individual specimens such as where they came from and how they were prepared for display in the museum. This is all repackaged from a first-person perspective, so that visitors can experience realistic, meaningful conversations.

The animals will adjust their tone and language to suit the age of the person they’re talking to. And they’re multi-lingual - speaking over 20 languages including Spanish and Japanese so that visitors can chat in their native languages.

The team has chosen a range of specimens that include skeletons, taxidermy, models, and whole preserved animals. The specimens are: dodo skeleton, narwhal skeleton, brain coral, red admiral butterfly, fin whale skeleton, American cockroach, huia taxidermy (a recently extinct bird from New Zealand), red panda taxidermy, freeze-dried platypus, giant sloth fossil skeleton, giant deer skull and antlers, mallard taxidermy, and Ichthyostega model (an extinct ancestor of all animals with four legs).

Nature Perspectives was created by a team of graduates from the University of Cambridge’s Masters in Conservation Leadership programme, who noticed that people seem to feel more connected to machines when they can talk to them. This inspired the team to apply the same principle to nature - giving nature a voice to promote its agency and foster deeper, more personal connections between people and the natural world.

“Artificial Intelligence is opening up exciting new opportunities to connect people with non-human life, but the impacts need to be carefully studied. I’m delighted to be involved in exploring how the Nature Perspectives pilot affects the way people feel about and understand the species they ‘meet’ in the Museum of Zoology,” said Professor Chris Sandbrook, Director of the University of Cambridge’s Masters in Conservation Leadership programme.

“Enabling museums to engage visitors with the simulated perspectives of exhibits is only the first step for Nature Perspectives. We aim to apply this transformative approach widely, from public engagement and education to scientific research, to representing nature in legal processes, policy-making and beyond," said Zanir.

The Nature Perspectives AI experiment runs for one month, from 15th October to 15th of November 2024. For visiting times see www.museum.zoo.cam.ac.uk/visit-us 

Specimens in a Cambridge museum will be brought to life through the power of Artificial Intelligence, by a team aiming to strengthen our connection with the natural world and reverse apathy towards biodiversity loss.

This is an amazing opportunity for people to test out an emerging technology in our inspiring Museum setting.Jack AshbyJack Ashby talking to the Museum's fin whale

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Yes

Volatiles are elements or compounds that change into vapour at relatively low temperatures. They include the six most common elements found in living organisms, as well as water. The zinc found in meteorites has a unique composition, which can be used to identify the sources of Earth’s volatiles.

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London, have previously found that Earth’s zinc came from different parts of our Solar System: about half came from beyond Jupiter and half originated closer to Earth.

“One of the most fundamental questions on the origin of life is where the materials we need for life to evolve came from,” said Dr Rayssa Martins from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences. “If we can understand how these materials came to be on Earth, it might give us clues to how life originated here, and how it might emerge elsewhere.”

Planetesimals are the main building blocks of rocky planets, such as Earth. These small bodies are formed through a process called accretion, where particles around a young star start to stick together, and form progressively larger bodies.

But not all planetesimals are made equal. The earliest planetesimals that formed in the Solar System were exposed to high levels of radioactivity, which caused them to melt and lose their volatiles. But some planetesimals formed after these sources of radioactivity were mostly extinct, which helped them survive the melting process and preserved more of their volatiles.

In a study published in the journal Science Advances, Martins and her colleagues looked at the different forms of zinc that arrived on Earth from these planetesimals. The researchers measured the zinc from a large sample of meteorites originating from different planetesimals and used this data to model how Earth got its zinc, by tracing the entire period of the Earth’s accretion, which took tens of millions of years.

Their results show that while these ‘melted’ planetesimals contributed about 70% of Earth’s overall mass, they only provided around 10% of its zinc.

According to the model, the rest of Earth’s zinc came from materials that didn’t melt and lose their volatile elements. Their findings suggest that unmelted, or ‘primitive’ materials were an essential source of volatiles for Earth.

“We know that the distance between a planet and its star is a determining factor in establishing the necessary conditions for that planet to sustain liquid water on its surface,” said Martins, the study’s lead author. “But our results show there’s no guarantee that planets incorporate the right materials to have enough water and other volatiles in the first place – regardless of their physical state.”

The ability to trace elements through millions or even billions of years of evolution could be a vital tool in the search for life elsewhere, such as on Mars, or on planets outside our Solar System.

“Similar conditions and processes are also likely in other young planetary systems,” said Martins. “The roles these different materials play in supplying volatiles is something we should keep in mind when looking for habitable planets elsewhere.”

The research was supported in part by Imperial College London, the European Research Council, and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

 

Reference:
Rayssa Martins et al. ‘Primitive asteroids as a major source of terrestrial volatiles.’ Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.ado4121

Researchers have used the chemical fingerprints of zinc contained in meteorites to determine the origin of volatile elements on Earth. The results suggest that without ‘unmelted’ asteroids, there may not have been enough of these compounds on Earth for life to emerge.

Rayssa Martins/Ross FindlayAn iron meteorite from the core of a melted planetesimal (left) and a chondrite meteorite, derived from a ‘primitive’, unmelted planetesimal (right).

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Yes

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The Cambridge Conservation Initiative and the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) co-hosted a panel discussion featuring key industry leaders in the run-up to the 16th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP16). Please read more about the panel here

CISLPanel members from CCI and CISL discuss the upcoming COP16

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Yes

This galaxy is one hundred times smaller than the Milky Way, but is surprisingly mature for so early in the universe. Like a large city, this galaxy has a dense collection of stars at its core but becomes less dense in the galactic ‘suburbs’. And like a large city, this galaxy is starting to sprawl, with star formation accelerating in the outskirts.

This is the earliest-ever detection of inside-out galactic growth. Until Webb, it had not been possible to study galaxy growth so early in the universe’s history. Although the images obtained with Webb represent a snapshot in time, the researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, say that studying similar galaxies could help us understand how they transform from clouds of gas into the complex structures we observe today. The results are reported in the journal Nature Astronomy.

“The question of how galaxies evolve over cosmic time is an important one in astrophysics,” said co-lead author Dr Sandro Tacchella from Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory. “We’ve had lots of excellent data for the last ten million years and for galaxies in our corner of the universe, but now with Webb, we can get observational data from billions of years back in time, probing the first billion years of cosmic history, which opens up all kinds of new questions.”

The galaxies we observe today grow via two main mechanisms: either they pull in, or accrete, gas to form new stars, or they grow by merging with smaller galaxies. Whether different mechanisms were at work in the early universe is an open question which astronomers are hoping to address with Webb.

“You expect galaxies to start small as gas clouds collapse under their own gravity, forming very dense cores of stars and possibly black holes,” said Tacchella. “As the galaxy grows and star formation increases, it’s sort of like a spinning figure skater: as the skater pulls in their arms, they gather momentum, and they spin faster and faster. Galaxies are somewhat similar, with gas accreting later from larger and larger distances spinning the galaxy up, which is why they often form spiral or disc shapes.”

This galaxy, observed as part of the JADES (JWST Advanced Extragalactic Survey) collaboration, is actively forming stars in the early universe. It has a highly dense core, which despite its relatively young age, is of a similar density to present-day massive elliptical galaxies, which have 1000 times more stars. Most of the star formation is happening further away from the core, with a star-forming ‘clump’ even further out.

The star formation activity is strongly rising toward the outskirts, as the star formation spreads out and the galaxy grows. This type of growth had been predicted with theoretical models, but with Webb, it is now possible to observe it.

“One of the many reasons that Webb is so transformational to us as astronomers is that we’re now able to observe what had previously been predicted through modelling,” said co-author William Baker, a PhD student at the Cavendish. “It’s like being able to check your homework.”

Using Webb, the researchers extracted information from the light emitted by the galaxy at different wavelengths, which they then used to estimate the number of younger stars versus older stars, which is converted into an estimate of the stellar mass and star formation rate.

Because the galaxy is so compact, the individual images of the galaxy were ‘forward modelled’ to take into account instrumental effects. Using stellar population modelling that includes prescriptions for gas emission and dust absorption, the researchers found older stars in the core, while the surrounding disc component is undergoing very active star formation. This galaxy doubles its stellar mass in the outskirts roughly every 10 million years, which is very rapid: the Milky Way galaxy doubles its mass only every 10 billion years.

The density of the galactic core, as well as the high star formation rate, suggest that this young galaxy is rich with the gas it needs to form new stars, which may reflect different conditions in the early universe.

“Of course, this is only one galaxy, so we need to know what other galaxies at the time were doing,” said Tacchella. “Were all galaxies like this one? We’re now analysing similar data from other galaxies. By looking at different galaxies across cosmic time, we may be able to reconstruct the growth cycle and demonstrate how galaxies grow to their eventual size today.”

 

Reference:
William M. Baker, Sandro Tacchella, et al. ‘A core in a star-forming disc as evidence of inside-out growth in the early Universe.’ Nature Astronomy (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-024-02384-8

Astronomers have used the NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to observe the ‘inside-out’ growth of a galaxy in the early universe, only 700 million years after the Big Bang.

William M. Baker, Sandro TacchellaGalaxy NGC 1549, seen today and 13 billion years ago

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Yes

The collaboration, which includes researchers from the University of Cambridge, aims to accelerate progress on new neuro-technologies, including miniaturised brain implants designed to treat depression, dementia, chronic pain, epilepsy and injuries to the nervous system.

Neurological and mental health disorders will affect four in every five people in their lifetimes, and present a greater overall health burden than cancer and cardiovascular disease combined. For example, 28 million people in the UK are living with chronic pain and 1.3 million people with traumatic brain injury.

Neuro-technology – where technology is used to control the nervous system - has the potential to deliver new treatments for these disorders, in much the same way that heart pacemakers, cochlear implants and spinal implants have transformed medicine in recent decades.

The technology can be in the form of electronic brain implants that reset abnormal brain activity or help deliver targeted drugs more effectively, brain-computer interfaces that control prosthetic limbs, or technologies that train the patient’s own cells to fight disease. ARIA’s Scalable Neural Interfaces opportunity space is exploring ways to make the technology more precise, less invasive, and applicable to a broader range of diseases.

Currently, an implant can only interact with large groups of neurons, the cells that transmit information around the brain. Building devices that interact with single neurons will mean a more accurate treatment. Neuro-technologies also have the potential to treat autoimmune disorders, including rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease and type-1 diabetes.

The science of building technology small enough, precise enough and cheap enough to make a global impact requires an environment where the best minds from across the UK can collaborate, dream up radical, risky ideas and test them without fear of failure.

Professor George Malliarias from the University of Cambridge’s Department of Engineering is one of the project leaders. “Miniaturised devices have the potential to change the lives of millions of people currently suffering from neurological conditions and diseases where drugs have no effect,” he said. “But we are working at the very edge of what is possible in medicine, and it is hard to find the support and funding to try radical, new things. That is why the partnership with ARIA is so exhilarating, because it is giving brilliant people the tools to turn their original ideas into commercially viable devices that are cheap enough to have a global impact.”

Cambridge’s partnership with ARIA will create a home for original thinkers who are struggling to find the funding, space and mentoring needed to stress-test their radical ideas. The three-year partnership is made up of two programmes:

The Fellowship Programme (up to 18 fellowships)

Blue Sky Fellows – a UK-wide offer - we will search the UK for people from any background, with a radical idea in this field and the plan and personal skills to develop it. The best people will be offered a fellowship with the funding to test their ideas in Cambridge rapidly. These Blue Sky Fellows will receive mentorship from our best medical, scientific and business experts and potentially be offered accommodation at a Cambridge college. We will be looking for a specific type of person to be a Blue Sky Fellow. They must be the kind of character who thinks at the very edge of the possible, who doesn’t fear failure, and whose ideas have the potential to change billions of lives, yet would struggle to find funding from existing sources. Not people who think outside the box, more people who don’t see a box at all.

Activator Fellows - a UK-wide offer - those who have already proved that their idea can work, yet need support to turn it into a business, will be invited to become Activator Fellows. They will be offered training in entrepreneurial skills including grant writing, IP management and clinical validation, so their innovation can be ready for investment.

The Ecosystem Programme

The Ecosystem Programme is about creating a vibrant, UK-wide neurotechnology community where leaders from business, science, engineering, academia and the NHS can meet, spark ideas and form collaborations. This will involve quarterly events in Cambridge, road trip events across the UK and access to the thriving online Cambridge network, Connect: Health Tech.

“This unique partnership is all about turning radical ideas into practical, low-cost solutions that change lives,” said Kristin-Anne Rutter, Executive Director of Cambridge University Health Partners. “Cambridge is fielding its best team to make this work and using its networks to bring in the best people from all over the UK. From brilliant scientists to world-leading institutes, hospitals and business experts, everyone in this collaboration is committed to the ARIA partnership because, by working together, we all see an unprecedented opportunity to make a real difference in the world.”

“Physical and mental illnesses and diseases that affect the brain such as dementia are some of the biggest challenges we face both as individuals and as a society,” said Dr Ben Underwood, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust. “This funding will bring together different experts doing things at the very limits of science and developing new technology to improve healthcare. We hope this new partnership with the NHS will lead to better care and treatment for people experiencing health conditions.”

Cambridge partners in the project include the Departments of Engineering and Psychiatry, Cambridge Neuroscience, the Milner Therapeutics Institute, the Maxwell Centre, Cambridge University Health Partners (CUHP), Cambridge Network, the Babraham Research Campus, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, and Vellos. 

A team from across the Cambridge life sciences, technology and business worlds has announced a multi-million-pound, three-year collaboration with the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), the UK government’s new research funding agency.

Science Photo Library via Getty ImagesIllustration of human brain

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Yes

In 2020, Hassabis and Jumper of Google DeepMind presented an AI model called AlphaFold2. With its help, they have been able to predict the structure of virtually all the 200 million proteins that researchers have identified.

Since their breakthrough, AlphaFold2 has been used by more than two million people from 190 countries. Among a myriad of scientific applications, researchers can now better understand antibiotic resistance and create images of enzymes that can decompose plastic.

Sir Demis Hassabis read Computer Science as an undergraduate at Queens' College, Cambridge, matriculating in 1994. He went on to complete a PhD in cognitive neuroscience at University College London and create the videogame company Elixir Studios.

Hassabis co-founded DeepMind in 2010, a company that devel­oped masterful AI models for popular boardgames. The company was sold to Google in 2014 and, two years later, DeepMind came to global attention when the company achieved what many then believed to be the holy grail of AI: beating the champion player of one of the world’s oldest board­games, Go.

In 2014, Hassabis was elected as a Fellow Benefactor and, later, as an Honorary Fellow of Queens' College. In 2024, he was knighted by the King for services to artificial intelligence.

In 2018, the University announced the establishment of a DeepMind Chair of Machine Learning, thanks to a benefaction from Hassabis’s company, and appointed Prof Neil Lawrence to the position the following year.

“I have many happy memories from my time as an undergraduate at Cambridge, so it’s now a real honour for DeepMind to be able to contribute back to the Department of Computer Science and Technology and support others through their studies,” said Hassabis in 2018.    

Dr John Jumper completed an MPhil in theoretical condensed matter physics at Cambridge's famous Cavendish Laboratory in 2011, during which time he was a member of St Edmund’s College, before receiving his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Chicago.  

The duo received the Nobel along with Prof David Baker of the University of Washington, who succeeded in using amino acids to design a new protein in 2003.

Two University alumni, Sir Demis Hassabis and Dr John Jumper, have been jointly awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developed an AI model to solve a 50-year-old problem: predicting proteins’ complex structures.

I have many happy memories from my time as an undergraduate at CambridgeSir Demis Hassabis Left: Demis Hassabis; Right: John Jumper

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Yes