Latest news with #MedicalResearchCouncil
New York Times
12 hours ago
- Science
- New York Times
Scientists Are Learning to Rewrite the Code of Life
At the heart of all life is a code. Our cells use it to turn the information in our DNA into proteins. So do maple trees. So do hammerhead sharks. So do shiitake mushrooms. Except for some minor variations, the genetic code is universal. It's also redundant. DNA can code for the same building block of proteins in more than one way. Researchers have long debated what purpose this redundancy serves — or whether it's just an accident of history. Thanks to advances in genetic engineering, they can now do more than just argue. Over the past decade, scientists have built microbes with smaller codes that lack some of that redundancy. A new study, published Thursday in the journal Science, describes a microbe with the most streamlined genetic code yet. Remarkably, the engineered bacteria can run on an abridged code, making it clear that a full genetic code isn't required for life. 'Life still works,' said Wesley Robertson, a synthetic biologist at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, and an author of the new study. Our DNA is built from four different molecular building blocks, called bases: adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine. A sequence of hundreds or thousands of these bases — known in brief as A, T, C and G — forms a gene. Our cells translate the sequence of bases in genes to make proteins. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The Guardian
7 days ago
- Health
- The Guardian
The Gaza students with scholarships to UK unable to take up their places
Time is running out for 40 students in Gaza who have been awarded full scholarships to study at some of the UK's leading universities this September, but have been unable to fulfil visa requirements due to the war. Campaigners have called on the British government to intervene to ensure their safe passage. Here are some of the students' stories. Abdallah, 27, has been awarded a Chevening scholarship, part of a UK government-funded global scholarship programme, and has a place to study for an MSc in data science and artificial intelligence (AI) at Queen Mary University of London. 'Just two weeks after earning my medical licence in 2023, the war broke out. I chose not to flee. Instead, I volunteered in local hospitals, treating the wounded while my own family suffered nearby. 'I soon realised that bandages and medicine cannot heal a nation so deeply traumatised. We need more than emergency care – we need innovation. That is why I applied to study data science and AI in the UK. 'I am driven by desperation and hope. Gaza is facing an unprecedented mental health catastrophe. Nearly every child and adult has been exposed to intense trauma, displacement, or loss. Yet Gaza's mental health infrastructure has been completely shattered. 'To fight a crisis this massive, I need world-class training. Once I complete my degree, I will return to Gaza to lead the creation of data-driven health systems that prioritise mental wellbeing.' Israa, 31, is a Palestinian doctor who has been awarded a Medical Research Council doctoral training partnership to do a PhD in sexual and reproductive health at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, where she previously completed a master's in international public health. She said: '[Studying in the UK was] a transformative experience that gave me a global perspective and strengthened my resolve to serve the most vulnerable people. I returned to Gaza by choice to serve, to heal and to uplift. A few months later, the brutal war started. 'I now work supporting women, girls, adolescents and displaced communities. I was supposed to start my [PhD] studies in October 2024, but the award was deferred to this October. I am calling for immediate action to evacuate UK scholars and professionals from Gaza, not only for my safety, but for the future I represent. 'My work, my voice, and my life matter. I am not only a doctor or a student, but I am also a survivor, a woman, a wife, and a human being who has dedicated her life to health equity and justice.' Israa added: 'It is not easy to guarantee we will be alive next week. The more we accelerate the efforts [to evacuate the students] the better for us.' Khulud, 28, is another Chevening scholar with a place at University College London to study for a master's degree in dental health. After completing her dental degree at the University of Palestine in 2020, she worked in clinical dentistry while training others. When the war began, Khulud opened a clinic with her brother, offering free dentistry, general medicine, paediatrics, nutrition, and psycho-social care to over 20,000 displaced people. 'These experiences didn't just shape me – they saved me,' she said. 'Even in the darkest moments, there is light in service, and hope in community. 'The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. There are continuous attacks, mass displacement, and severe shortages of food and medical supplies. Thousands have died, and many more are at risk. I cannot say with certainty that I'll still be alive in 2026. 'Losing this scholarship and the resources I've secured would be devastating. Emotionally, it would extinguish one of the few hopes that keep me resilient. Academically, the programme might not be available again. Most importantly, it would deny Gaza a health professional determined to return and help rebuild.' Majd, 24, a mechanical engineer from Gaza, has a full scholarship to pursue a master's degree in advanced manufacturing systems and technology at the University of Liverpool. He said: 'Life during the war has been extremely difficult. I've been displaced, with no stable electricity, internet, or basic services. Every day is full of uncertainty and worry. 'Most industrial facilities in Gaza have been destroyed, which means there's almost no equipment or resources left to work with. The lack of electricity, fuel, and basic infrastructure has made it nearly impossible to continue any kind of engineering work. 'The UK offers world-class education with excellent research and teaching. Studying there will give me access to resources that will improve my knowledge in advanced technologies. This international experience is vital for me to develop the skills needed to contribute meaningfully to Gaza's future reconstruction. 'I want to use what I learn to create job opportunities, empower youth, and help rebuild infrastructure that supports long-term stability and growth in Gaza after the war. 'I fully understand that the UK has visa systems in place for important reasons, and we are not asking for special treatment. However, this is an extraordinary situation. We ask for consideration and support to enable us to continue our studies, as education will be key to rebuilding Gaza.' Abeer, 28, has a place to study for an MA in data and health science at the University of St Andrews. 'After our home was destroyed in the winter of 2023 we moved into an Unrwa school. After three days there the school was heavily shelled. 'The bombing was violent and horrific. My brother Mohamed was badly injured, his feet caught underneath the falling rubble. He could not walk or move. We had to carry him south to Khan Younis, where we lived in a tent. 'It was here that we lost Mohamed. He never recovered from the injury at the Unrwa school. His loss caused our whole family to collapse. I felt my heart had stopped pumping. I lost my will to live, life lost its meaning. 'It was not long after that my older brother reached out, and reminded me that I had wanted to apply for a scholarship at St Andrews. 'Hardship should not stop you,' he told me. 'This is what you wanted before, you must persist.' 'Coming from Gaza I have seen the need for better health care solutions, and this programme and its modules offer the knowledge I need to make a real impact on health care.' Samah, 25, a medical laboratory specialist at al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza, has been accepted to study for an MSc in genomic medicine at the University of Oxford. She did not wish to share any photos of herself. 'From the first day of the ongoing war in Gaza, I have been on the frontline, working under extremely difficult and life-threatening conditions. Our hospital, like many others, faced mass casualties on a daily basis. We lost most of our laboratory equipment due to targeted attacks and destruction, yet we continued to serve patients. 'As the war progressed, I witnessed families resorting to burning hazardous materials just to cook food for their children. This prolonged exposure to potentially carcinogenic agents made me realise the urgent need to understand the long-term biological and genetic impacts of such conditions. 'Motivated by this experience, I decided to pursue advanced study in the field of medical genetics and cancer research. 'This opportunity is not just an academic pursuit for me, it is a mission to bring hope and healing back to a devastated community.' These accounts were compiled with the help of the UK Coalition for Students in Gaza
The Guardian
24-07-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Air pollution raises risk of dementia, say Cambridge scientists
Exposure to certain forms of air pollution is linked to an increased risk of developing dementia, according to the most comprehensive study of its kind. The illness is estimated to affect about 57 million people worldwide, with the number expected to increase to at least 150m cases by 2050. The report, which was produced by researchers at the Medical Research Council's epidemiology unit at the University of Cambridge involved a systematic review of 51 studies. It drew on data from more than 29 million participants who had been exposed to air pollutants for at least a year. Although air pollution has already been identified as a risk factor for dementia, the research, which is the most comprehensive study of its kind to date, found there to be a positive and statistically-significant association between three types of air pollutant and dementia. The pollutants were: PM2.5, which comes from vehicle emissions, power plants and woodburning stoves and fireplaces; nitrogen dioxide, which arises from the burning of fossil fuels; and soot, which comes from sources such as vehicle exhaust emissions and burning wood. When inhaled, these pollutants can penetrate deep into the lungs and are associated with various respiratory diseases and an increased risk of certain heart problems. More specifically, the study found that for every 10 micrograms per cubic metre of PM2.5, an individual's relative risk of dementia would increase by 17%. Using equivalent figures for soot, the risk rose by 13%. Soot and PM2.5 levels approached or exceeded these levels in 2023 at roadside locations in central London, Birmingham and Glasgow. The most common cause of dementia is Alzheimer's disease and in the UK about 982,000 people have the illness. Symptoms include memory loss, difficulty concentrating and mood changes. Dr Haneen Khreis, the senior author of the study, said it provided 'further evidence to support the observation that long-term exposure to outdoor air pollution is a risk factor for the onset of dementia in previously healthy adults'. She added: 'Tackling air pollution can deliver long-term health, social, climate and economic benefits. It can reduce the immense burden on patients, families, and caregivers, while easing pressure on overstretched healthcare systems.' Air pollution may cause dementia through causing inflammation in the brain and oxidative stress, which is a chemical process within the body that can cause damage to cells, proteins and DNA. The researchers acknowledged that the report was limited because the majority of studies analysed included participants who were white and living in high income countries. They said future studies on air pollution should include more participants from marginalised backgrounds. Dr Isolde Radford, senior policy manager at Alzheimer's Research UK, said: 'This rigorous review adds to mounting evidence that exposure to air pollution – from traffic fumes to wood burners – increases the risk of developing dementia. 'Air pollution is one of the major modifiable risk factors for dementia – but it's not something individuals can solve alone. That's where government leadership is vital. 'While the 10-year health plan acknowledges the health harms of air pollution, far more needs to be done to tackle this invisible threat. 'Alzheimer's Research UK is calling for a bold, cross-government approach to health prevention – one that brings together departments beyond health, including Defra, to take coordinated action on the drivers of dementia risk.' The report was published in The Lancet Planetary Health.
NZ Herald
21-07-2025
- Health
- NZ Herald
Database of medical images offers window into how diseases take hold years before symptoms appear
Since it launched in 2006, UK Biobank, a government-backed effort to transform medical research, has been building a vast database on the health and lifestyles of 500,000 people aged 40 to 69 when they enrolled. Blood and other biological samples are taken and physical measurements recorded. Participants provide key information such as their education level, location, ethnic background, and living circumstances. Crucially, they also consent to long-term tracking of their healthcare records. Since 2014 the project has also carried out a series of full-body scans on participants, which generate more than 12,000 images per person. The five-hour process, which scientists aim to repeat two or more years later, includes MRIs of the brain, heart, liver and abdomen; DEXA scans to assess bone density and body fat; and ultrasounds of the carotid arteries. With 100,000 participants scanned so far - and more still being invited - the study is offering scientists an unprecedented window into how diseases take hold, slowly and silently, years before symptoms appear. Its cloud-based platform is now used by more than 21,000 researchers across 60 countries, including early career scientists and those in low-resource settings, who receive free computer time. To date, the data have fuelled more than 16,000 scientific publications. 'This massive imaging project is making the invisible visible,' says Rory Collins, principal investigator and chief executive officer of UK Biobank. 'This is a study of the interaction of genes, environment, and lifestyle', all of which are 'determinants of disease'. The project has produced more than one billion images - more than 10 times the size of any previous undertaking - fuelling breakthroughs in everything from AI-driven diagnostics to early disease prediction. One of the most striking demonstrations of UK Biobank's potential came during the Covid-19 pandemic. Thousands of participants had undergone brain imaging before and after the outbreak - allowing researchers to study the impact of infection. They found measurable brain changes even among people with mild Covid, including shrinkage in areas linked to smell, memory and emotion. The findings reshaped scientists' understanding of the virus' neurological toll and showed the unique value of repeat imaging, which allows scientists to observe how a disease unfolds. Funded by the government's Medical Research Council and charities including the Wellcome Trust, UK Biobank grew out of a realisation at the turn of the century that understanding heart attacks or diseases such as dementia requires studying not just sick patients but huge numbers of healthy people over time. Collins and others had seen how smaller studies could give misleading results, especially for risk factors such as blood pressure. They saw huge value in pairing genetic data with long-term health tracking. The approach has already paid off with a better understanding of diagnosing and treating diabetes. Type one diabetes was long thought to affect only children, and doctors assumed that people who got the disease in middle or old age had Type two, Collins says. But UK Biobank research has showed that Type one occurs at the same rate throughout life. With clearer data, scientists realised that many older adults had been misclassified and given the wrong treatment. When combined with genetic, lifestyle, and clinical data, the scans are also helping scientists detect diseases earlier, understand how they develop and, in some cases, rethink what health risk looks like. Take body fat. A person's body mass index, or BMI, has long been used as a rough proxy for health. UK Biobank imaging shows that two people with the same BMI can carry fat in radically different ways - some in places that raise the risk of diabetes and heart disease, others in ways that may be protective. 'Body mass index is a very crude measure,' Collins says. 'The risk associated with different distributions is likely to be massively different.' Studies have used UK Biobank scans to spot early signs of heart damage, liver disease and even brain shrinkage linked to mild alcohol use. Another study found that one in 10 middle-aged people, with no symptoms, had a build-up of calcium deposits in their abdominal aorta - the abdomen's largest artery - a dangerous condition linked to heart disease that often goes undiagnosed. Researchers are using AI to mine the vast trove of data, training models to predict diseases like Alzheimer's or to build a 'digital twin' of a patient - so researchers can establish a benchmark and compare how sick or healthy a person is. As the number of disease cases among the participants grows and more repeat scans come online, researchers say the most transformative discoveries are still to come. As Collins put it: 'We ain't seen nothing yet'. Alison says taking part in the research is one of the most meaningful things she's ever done. 'They are connecting things that people haven't previously even considered,' she says. 'It's laying the foundation for us to start seeing the deeper connections in the body and in our lives.' What UK Biobank is revealing, scan by scan and layer by layer, is that disease doesn't arrive out of nowhere. It accumulates quietly, shaped by genes, environment, and habits. By making those changes visible long before symptoms appear, researchers hope to catch illness in the act - and eventually, to stop it. It's a shift not just in medicine, but in mindset: from treating disease after it strikes, to understanding, and potentially interrupting, how it takes shape in the first place.
Saudi Gazette
15-07-2025
- Health
- Saudi Gazette
Biggest human imaging study scans 100,000th person
LONDON — Scientists say they can study our bodies as we age in greater detail than ever before, thanks to more than a billion scans of UK volunteers. The world's biggest human imaging project says it has now hit its target of scanning the brains, hearts and other organs of 100,000 people - the culmination of an ambitious 11-year study. "Researchers are already starting to use the imaging data, along with other data we have, to identify disease early and then target treatment at an earlier stage," says Prof Naomi Allen, chief scientist at UK Biobank. The data is made available at low cost to teams around the world to find new ways of preventing common health conditions from heart disease to cancer. The 100,000th volunteer to be scanned was Steve, who recently retired from a job in sales and now helps out at a charity run by his daughter. The BBC watched as he entered a full-body MRI scanner in an industrial park outside Reading, and detailed images of brain cells, blood vessels, bones and joints appeared on the screens."My mum was diagnosed with early-stage dementia a few years ago and has not been well," he says."So with that in mind I want to give more back to research so the next generation can learn from people like me."The giant medical imaging project has been running for 13 hours a day, seven-days-a-week across four sites in are given a five-hour appointment to be scanned using five different types of MRI, X-ray and ultrasound data gathered is anonymized and volunteers like Steve receive no individual feedback unless the radiographers happen to spot a potentially serious health project does not allow personal data, such as a volunteer's surname or the precise area where they live, to be in 2003, UK Biobank is one of the largest collections of biological samples and health data in the total, half a million people – all middle-aged volunteers – have been asked to complete physical tests, answer regular health and lifestyle questions, and provide DNA and other biological blood, urine and saliva are frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored at temperatures of -80C (-112F) in huge refrigerators in Stockport, Greater imaging part of the project began in 2014, and involves taking detailed scans of 100,000 of those same of that group will be invited back to repeat the process every few years to see how their bodies and organs change as they grow combining those scans with the other data collected by UK Biobank, scientists can test whether early changes to the make-up of the brain or body then lead to diseases or other health problems in later whole UK Biobank project, which is non-profit making, was set up by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Wellcome Trust charity, along with the Department of Health and the Scottish decades later it is now reaching 30 petabytes, or 30,000 terabytes, of anonymised health data is already available to researchers working for universities, charities, governments and the private in the UK and the rest of the world can apply for access and most are charged between £3,000 and £9,000 to help cover running Thomas, professor of metabolic imaging at the University of Westminster, says it is "completely transforming" how she and other researchers do their jobs."We thought it was a crazy idea, there was absolutely no way anybody could scan this number of people," she says."To analyse these images manually would have taken us thousands of years but now... we can extract all the information automatically, so we can measure everything in the body in a matter of minutes."Researchers are increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI) to process the huge amounts of data generated by the 17,000 peer-reviewed papers have been written using all types of Biobank data since work started in 2003, with dozens more now published every scans and images taken so far have already been used to show that:The early onset of 38 common diseases can be predicted by combining MRI scans with other health data and an artificial intelligence (AI) modelConsumption of just small amounts of alcohol each day can be linked to an increased risk of memory loss and dementiaA detailed MRI scan can replace surgery to diagnose and monitor a common form of liver diseaseChanges to the structure of the heart may lead to an increased risk of psychiatric disorders including depressionUK Biobank is one of the 10 largest stores of personal health data in the world alongside similar initiatives in Germany, China and the United States, although those projects don't all make their data available to scientists globally in the same imaging element of the project is funded by the MRC, the Wellcome Trust and the British Heart backing for repeat scans is paid for by Calico, a subsidiary of Alphabet which also owns Google, and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, established by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan. — BBC
