news 2020

Religious and faith followers are being invited to take part in a new UCL study, which aims to understand how the practice of worship has changed during Covid-19. Researchers will also ask a subset of participants to sing, chant or hum as part of an aerosol droplet test, to establish the risk of transmitting Covid-19 when singing hymns or prayers in a place of worship or similar faith setting.

The vast majority of skin disease patients feel their condition affects their mental health and many struggle to access appropriate treatment, a new report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Skin has found. Five hundred patients with a range of skin conditions were surveyed in March and April of this year, along with 100 clinicians and 16 organisations in the field of dermatology.

A collaborative study led by the Oxford Parkinson's Disease Centre's Dr Nora Bengoa-Vergniory has shown that compounds known as molecular tweezers could become a promising disease modifying therapy for Parkinson's. A team of researchers has shown that tiny compounds known as molecular "tweezers" could become a promising therapy to slow Parkinson's.

Four out of five people with sudden loss of smell or taste tested positive for Covid-19 antibodies, finds a new study by researchers at UCL and UCLH (University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust). Scientists say the findings, published in  PLOS Medicine , show that an acute loss of smell or taste is a 'highly reliable' virus indicator and should now be considered globally as a criterion for self-isolation, testing, and contact tracing.

From capturing your breath to guiding biological cell movements, 3D printing of tiny, transparent conducting fibres could be used to make devices which can 'smell, hear and touch' - making it particularly useful for health monitoring, Internet of Things and biosensing applications.

Older people who were instructed to shield and self-isolate at the beginning of the pandemic experienced higher levels of depression, anxiety and loneliness compared with those who were not shielding, according to a new study co-led by UCL. The research shows that the increase in poor mental health was not related to reductions in social contacts, but due to higher levels of worry about obtaining food and other essentials, and less physical activity and sleep.

As the UK's second largest city, Birmingham has a higher proportion of children subject to child protection plans than the UK as a whole, with 35% of children living in poverty. The closure of schools as a result of COVID-19 lockdown measures may have harmed children as child abuse was not reported, a new study examining the numbers of child protection referrals made in the first few months of 2020 has found.

Smoking declined, but adverse alcohol use generally increased during the UK's coronavirus 'lockdown', according to new research. The study , published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health and led by the University of Glasgow's Institute of Health and Wellbeing, found the proportion of people drinking four or more times per week increased, as did binge drinking.

Higher numbers of people with coughs and fevers in the coming months will place a significant strain on the UK's COVID-19 testing system and capacity must be 'immediately scaled up', finds a new modelling study led by UCL and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. The study, currently published by Wellcome Open, quantified baseline cough or fever cases in the UK and looked at the impact this will have on COVID-19 laboratory testing services.

Ventilation systems in many modern office buildings, which are designed to keep temperatures comfortable and increase energy efficiency, may increase the risk of exposure to the coronavirus, particularly during the coming winter, according to research published in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics .

Digital technology can present both opportunities and harms to young people and their mental health. A new research project is asking for young adults to take part in a UK-wide online survey to identify the importance of adolescents' digital technology use to consultations about mental health.

Children and young people are around 40% per cent less likely to be infected than adults when exposed to someone with the virus, finds a new study of global Covid-19 transmission data, co-led by UCL researchers. In this study, published in JAMA Pediatrics , the researchers have updated their previous systematic review* and meta-analysis, published as a preprint in May**, to encompass more than 13,900 studies, to understand how likely it is that children catch Covid-19 (known as susceptibility) and whether they pass it on to others (known as transmission or infectiousness).

New research shows that, in a head-to-head comparison of five tests used to detect COVID-19 antibodies (known as 'immunoassays'), an assay manufactured by Siemens and one developed by an academic partnership led by the University of Oxford had the most accurate results. The study is published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

Scientists from the University of Oxford's Nuffield Department of Medicine have today published their evaluation of LamPORE , a novel diagnostic platform for detecting SARS-CoV-2 RNA. It combines loop-mediated isothermal amplification with nanopore sequencing. This technology has the potential to analyse thousands of samples per day on a single instrument.

Measures introduced to protect homeless people from COVID-19 infection, including the use of hotel accommodation and increased hostel hygiene, are estimated to have prevented hundreds of deaths in this vulnerable population, finds a new study led by UCL researchers. The research team, whose modelling study is published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine , also find that relaxing these infection control measures could lead to outbreaks and potentially hundreds of deaths among homeless people, whether there is a second wave or not.

Using dried blood spot samples (DBS) is an accurate alternative to venous blood in detecting SARS-CoV-2 antibody tests, a new study by immunology experts at the University of Birmingham has found. Currently antibody testing for COVID-19 uses serum or plasma, which requires a full intravenous blood sample, collected by a trained phlebotomist.

Being held by a parent with skin-to-skin contact reduces how strongly a newborn baby's brain responds to a painful medical jab, finds a new study led by researchers at UCL and York University, Canada. The scientists report in the European Journal of Pain that there was more activity in the brains of newborn babies in reaction to the pain when a parent was holding them through clothing, than without clothing.

A fifth (22%) of people have said that when a Covid-19 vaccine is approved, they're unlikely to get it, with 10% of people saying they were 'very unlikely' to get vaccinated, find UCL researchers as part of the Covid-19 Social Study. Only half (49%) of people reported being 'very likely' to get vaccinated.

An international team of scientists, including from Cardiff University, has identified genetic evidence that suggests both smoking and obesity can increase the risk of severe Covid-19. The researchers also found the same was true for the risk of developing sepsis, a dangerous inflammatory response faced by many patients with other infections.

The COVID-19 pandemic is the greatest global healthcare crisis of our generation, presenting enormous challenges to medical research, including clinical trials. Advances in machine learning are providing an opportunity to adapt clinical trials and lay the groundwork for smarter, faster and more flexible clinical trials in the future.