News

A prescription drug to treat high blood pressure has shown promise against conditions such as Parkinson’s, Huntington’s and forms of dementia in studies carried out in mice and zebrafish at the University of Cambridge.The drug will need to be tested in patients to see if it has the same effects in humans as it does in mice. We need to be cautious, …

A new tool to predict an individual’s prognosis following a prostate cancer diagnosis could help prevent unnecessary treatment and related side effects, say researchers at the University of Cambridge.We believe this tool could significantly reduce the number of unnecessary – and potentially harmful – treatments that patients receive and save the NH…

A second person has experienced sustained remission from HIV-1 after ceasing treatment, according to a study published today in Nature.At the moment the only way to treat HIV is with medications that suppress the virus, which people need to take for their entire lives, posing a particular challenge in developing countriesRavindra GuptaThe case repo…

Wren Therapeutics secures £18 million in funding to tackle protein misfolding diseasesA biopharmaceutical company set-up by Cambridge academics from St John's College to develop drugs to treat illnesses such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson’s and more than 50 other related diseases has won £18 million in a Series A financing round.Wren Therapeutics raised…

Scientists devise method using genetic data and lifestyle to work out who should be screened.Women may be able to go to their GP to find out their risk of getting breast cancer and choose whether or not to be screened, if a new online calculator devised by scientists is successful.Cancer Research UK scientists have worked out a way to assess women’…

Automated phone calls may help patients to take medicines as prescribed, pilot study suggests Remembering to take medication is vital for managing long term health conditions such as high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, or multiple conditions. Latest research from the University of Cambridge suggests that using interactive voice response (IVR) tec…

The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Matt Hancock, has announced up to £100 million of public capital for an innovative children’s hospital for the east of England. This will be a new facility that is purpose-built to meet the needs of the region’s youngest patients, integrating mental and physical health and combining the highest qua…

“Placental organoids” could be the future of pregnancy and conception research say researchersResearchers have successfully managed to develop “mini placentas” or placenta organoids in the laboratories that could transform research of pregnancy, conception, stillbirth, miscarriages and pregnancy diseases and disorders.The results of the study devel…

AI system may accelerate search for cancer discoveriesSearching through the mountains of published cancer research could be made easier for scientists, thanks to a new AI system.The system, called LION LBD and developed by computer scientists and cancer researchers at the University of Cambridge, has been designed to assist scientists in the search…

The University of Cambridge is teaming up with Microsoft to tackle the problem of 'brain drain' in AI and machine learning research. The software giant will help increase AI research capacity and capability at Cambridge by supporting visiting researchers, postdoctoral researchers, PhD students and interns from the UK, EU and beyond. The Microsoft R…

Researchers have developed a three-dimensional ‘organ on a chip’ which enables real-time continuous monitoring of cells, and could be used to develop new treatments for disease while reducing the number of animals used in research. Two-dimensional cell models have served the scientific community well, but we now need to move to three-dimensional ce…

Many cases of dementia may arise from non-inherited DNA ‘spelling mistakes’ Only a small proportion of cases of dementia are thought to be inherited – the cause of the vast majority is unknown. Now, in a study published today in the journal Nature Communications, a team of scientists led by researchers at the University of Cambridge believe they ma…

Cambridge leads a £10 million interdisciplinary collaboration to target the most challenging of cancers.We are going to pierce through the body’s natural barriers and deliver anti-cancer drugs to the heart of the tumour.George MalliarasWhile the survival rate for most cancers has doubled over the past 40 years, some cancers such as those of the pan…

Professor Sir Greg Winter, of the University of Cambridge, has been jointly awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Frances Arnold and George Smith for his pioneering work in using phage display for the directed evolution of antibodies, with the aim of producing new pharmaceuticals.It came as a bit of a shock, and I felt a bit numb for…

Mitochondrial diseases could be treated with gene therapy, study suggests Researchers have developed a genome-editing tool for the potential treatment of mitochondrial diseases: serious and often fatal conditions which affect 1 in 5,000 people.One idea for treating these devastating diseases is to reduce the amount of mutated mitochondrial DNA by s…