Hear from some of the scientists behind the UK’s nationwide sequencing effort to track SARS-CoV-2. Sir Patrick Vallance (the government’s Chief Scientific Adviser) also describes how the expertise that came together during the pandemic is now recognised across the world – and why it’s crucially important to continue to sequence to be ready for future […]
Farmed carnivores may become ‘disease reservoirs’ posing human health risk
Farming large numbers of carnivores, like mink, could allow the formation of undetected ‘disease reservoirs’, in which a pathogen could spread to many animals and mutate to become a risk to human health. Research led by the University of Cambridge has discovered that carnivores have a defective immune system, which makes them likely to be […]
Hospital-acquired COVID-19 tends to be picked up from other patients, not from healthcare workers
The study provides previously unprecedented detail on how infections might spread in a hospital context, showing that a minority of individuals can cause most of the transmission. The researchers analysed data from the first wave of the pandemic, between March and June 2020. While a great deal of effort is made to prevent the spread […]
The virologist helping us to stay one step ahead of infectious diseases
An established virologist specialising in the field of HIV drug-resistance, Ravi Gupta pivoted his expertise to address the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the last 18 months his pioneering research has helped us to stay one step ahead of emerging variants. He talks about his career as an infectious disease specialist and, in celebration of South Asian […]
Lab-grown beating heart cells identify potential drug to prevent COVID-19-related heart damage
The heart is one the major organs damaged by infection with SARS-CoV-2, particularly the heart cells, or ‘cardiomyocytes’, which contract and circulate blood. It is also thought that damage to heart cells may contribute to the symptoms of long COVID. Patients with underlying heart problems are more than four times as likely to die from […]
Llama ‘nanobodies’ could hold key to preventing deadly post-transplant infection
Around four out of five people in the UK are thought to be infected with HCMV, and in developing countries this can be as high as 95%. For the majority of people, the virus remains dormant, hidden away inside white blood cells, where it can remain undisturbed and undetected for decades. If the virus reactivates […]
Biological ‘fingerprints’ of long COVID in blood could lead to diagnostic test, say Cambridge scientists
The team has received funding from the National Institute for Health Research to develop a test that could complement existing antibody tests. They also aim to use similar biological signatures to develop a test and monitor for long COVID. While most people recover from COVID-19 in a matter of days or weeks, around one in […]
Upgrading PPE for staff working on COVID-19 wards cut hospital-acquired infections dramatically
The findings are reported by a team at the University of Cambridge and Cambridge University Hospitals (CUH) NHS Foundation Trust. The research has not yet been peer-reviewed, but is being released early because of the urgent need to share information relating to the pandemic. Until recently UK Infection Protection Control guidance recommended that healthcare workers […]
Key mutations in Alpha variant enable SARS-CoV-2 to overcome evolutionary weak points
SARS-CoV-2 is a coronavirus, so named because spike proteins on its surface give it the appearance of a crown (‘corona’). The spike proteins bind to ACE2, a protein receptor found on the surface of cells in our body. Both the spike protein and ACE2 are then cleaved, allowing genetic material from the virus to enter […]
How mass testing helped limit the spread of COVID-19 at the University of Cambridge
A combination of testing programmes for staff and students, infection control measures and genomic surveillance helped reduce the number of cases of COVID-19 at the University and keep the wider community safe.
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