A study, led by Nazima Pathan (Paediatrics) and colleagues, describes how metabolites produced by healthy bacteria could be used to assess the health of the gut microbiome.   In critical illness, the gut microbiome may be damaged by the use of antibiotics and lack of feeding. This may inadvertently cause the loss of many healthy […]

A paper co-authored by Sam Chamberlain (Psychiatry) suggests that excessive use of mobile phones by students could be related to lower grades, drinking problems and more sexual partners.   The collaborative project with the Universities of Chicago and Minnesota in the USA, and Cambridge, looked at 3,425 US university students who were asked to complete […]

The PERSEPHONE trial, led by Helena Earl (Oncology, CRUK Cambridge Centre), a £2.6 million study funded by the NIHR with translational research funded by Cancer Research UK, recruited over 4,000 women with HER2 positive early breast cancer to establish the outcomes of shortening the duration of treatment.                                                                                The results, published in The Lancet, show that women […]

A study by Kimberley Wiggins, a former BHF PhD student in Murray Clarke’s lab (Medicine), in collaboration with the Narita (CRUK) lab, reveals how senescent cells utilise inflammatory caspases to drive the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP).   The immune system works tirelessly to prevent infection by microorganisms, but also removes trillions of our own damaged […]

A study by Xueqing Zou from Serena Nik-Zainal’s group (Medical Genetics and MRC Cancer Unit), in collaboration with David Phillips (King’s College London) systematically explored mutational signatures associated with environmental agents that are either known or suspected to be linked to cancer. Mutational signatures are mutations in cancer cells, arising through cell-intrinsic and exogenous processes […]

Daniela De Angelis (MRC Biostatistics Unit) is part of a multi-institutional study that has improved the UK preparedness in the event of an influenza pandemic, by creating an innovative network of research studies ‘hibernating’ on standby ready to be activated if an outbreak strikes.   During the 2009 influenza A H1N1 pandemic several research studies […]

A study by Laura Burzynski, a former BHF PhD student and now postdoc in Murray Clarke’s lab (Medicine), reveals a fundamental and unappreciated direct link between the coagulation and immune systems. Although links between inflammation and haemostasis exist in mammals, they are indirect and relatively slow to act. Laura and colleagues discovered that the coagulation […]

A study from Sakari Vanharanta’s group (MRC Cancer Unit) elucidates previously uncharacterised molecular mechanisms underlying clear cell Renal Cell Carcinoma (ccRCC) pathogenesis.   ccRCC is the most common subtype of kidney cancer and is characterised by biallelic inactivation of von Hippel Lindau tumour suppressor gene (VHL), mTORC1 signalling pathway activation and accumulation of cytoplasmic lipid. […]

A study by Golam Khandaker (Psychiatry) and Stephen Burgess (MRC Biostatistics Unit) has identified potential reasons behind the comorbidity between depression and heart disease. It is known that it is not only people with heart disease that are more likely to suffer from depression but also that people with depression have an increased risk of […]