News

Researchers have identified the driving force behind a cellular process linked to neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s and motor neurone disease.There is still so much to learn about this system, which is incredibly important to fundamental biomedical scienceClemens KaminskiIn a study published today in Science Advances, researchers from…

Doctors at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge aim to drastically cut cancer waiting times by using artificial intelligence (AI) to automate lengthy radiotherapy preparations.As clinicians we want to start radiotherapy promptly to improve survival rates and reduce anxiety. Using machine learning tools can save time for busy clinicians and help get …

Scientists have used gene therapy to regenerate damaged nerve fibres in the eye, in a discovery that could aid the development of new treatments for glaucoma, one of the leading causes of blindness worldwide.It’s possible our treatment could be further developed as a way of protecting retinal neurons from death, as well as stimulating their axons t…

The brain is uniquely protected against invading bacteria and viruses, but its defence mechanism has long remained a mystery. Now, a study in mice, confirmed in human samples, has shown that the brain has a surprising ally in its protection: the gut.The exact way in which the brain protects itself from infection, beyond the physical barrier of the …

The University is saddened to announce that Professor Chris Abell, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research, Professor of Biological Chemistry and Todd-Hamied Fellow of Christ’s College, has died suddenly at the age of 62.A biological chemist, he was a pioneer in the field of fragment-based drug discovery, a successful entrepreneur, a founding director of …

World-leading AI technology developed by the Cambridge Centre for AI in Medicine and their colleagues – some of which is being showcased this week at the North American Cystic Fibrosis Conference 2020 – offers a glimpse of the future of precision medicine, and unprecedented predictive power to clinicians caring for individuals with the life-limitin…

The University of Cambridge and Royal Papworth Hospital have secured £1.5million of funding as part of the national effort by UK immunologists to understand immune responses to SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.The study is one of three new UK-wide studies receiving a share of £8.4 million from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and t…

A Cambridge hospital has piloted the use of combined rapid point-of-care nucleic acid and antibody testing for SARS-CoV-2 infection after researchers at the University of Cambridge showed that this approach was superior to virus detection alone for diagnosing COVID-19 disease.PCR and antibody tests both have limitations because of the nature of cor…

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) failure and drug resistance are extremely common in patients living with HIV who are admitted to hospital in Malawi, according to new research published in Lancet HIV.These important findings highlight the threat posed by drug resistant HIV and call for rapid tests for drug resistant virus that could aid in determining …

Women who experience high blood pressure during pregnancy are more likely to develop heart disease and heart failure in later life, according to an international team of researchers.When we looked at all the available research, the answer was clear: women who develop high blood pressure during pregnancy – even when it doesn’t develop into pre-eclam…

An algorithm that analyses MRI images and automatically detects small changes in knee joints over time could be used in the development of new treatments for arthritis.Thanks to the engineering expertise of our team, we now have a better way of looking at the jointJames MacKayA team of engineers, radiologists and physicians, led by the University o…

Repurposing existing medicines focused on known drug targets is likely to offer a more rapid hope of tackling COVID-19 than developing and manufacturing a vaccine, argue an international team of scientists in the British Journal of Pharmacology."[Repurposed drugs] will have already been shown to be safe and so, if they can now be shown to be effect…

A new rapid diagnostic test for COVID-19, developed by a University of Cambridge spinout company and capable of diagnosing the infection in under 90 minutes, is being deployed at Cambridge hospitals, ahead of being launched in hospitals nationwide.This is a game changerSir Chris HohnThe SAMBA II machines, developed by Diagnostics for the Real World…

A new multinational study has shown how the process of distinguishing viruses and bacteria could be accelerated through the use of computational methods.The researchers, led by the University of Edinburgh, with colleagues from Cambridge, London, Slovenia and China, used a combination of theoretical and experimental methods to develop a strategy to …

The race is on to find a vaccine against the new COVID-19 coronavirus. Professor Jonathan Heeney explains why a cautious approach is needed and how his team is using new technology developed for influenza and Ebola viruses to target the new infection.A vaccine strategy needs to be laser specific, targeting those domains of the virus’s structure tha…