news

Scientists, including UCL experts, have found new insights into why some children have a longer remission than others after receiving CAR T-cell therapy for leukaemia. The collaborative research project, published in Nature Medicine , used clinical expertise and state-of-the-art computational analysis to identify a genetic signature of CAR T-cells that will be the most effective in the long term.

The number of people reporting feelings of severe distress in England has steadily risen since the beginning of the pandemic, according to a new study led by researchers at UCL, King's College London and the SPECTRUM Consortium. The research, published in JAMA Network Open , establishes that rising levels of severe distress are being reported in all age groups and population subgroups outside of older adults aged over 65, with young adults aged 18-24 showing the most striking rise.

Research from UCL, UCLH and Great Ormond Street Hospital has confirmed that the risk of a mother passing on Covid to her unborn baby is very low. The research, published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology , should reassure women that if they have Covid - even if it is severe - it is unlikely their baby will be affected, and they should still give birth to a healthy baby.

Writing in The Conversation, Dr Michael Collins (UCL History) shares the report he co-led which recommended ways to address the ongoing and historic racism, elitism and sexism prevalent in English and Welsh cricket. After more than two years of research, interviews and evidence gathering, a landmark report by the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC) was published on June 27 2023.

Professor Francois Balloux, PhD candidate Cedric Tan and Dr Lucy van Dorp (all UCL Biosciences) share their new research in The Conversation on RNA viruses, generally considered the most worrying infectious threats, circulating in UK bats and their zoonotic potential. Most emerging infectious diseases are caused by zoonotic pathogens - viruses and bacteria which circulate in wild and domestic animals but are also capable of infecting humans.

According to new research shared in The Conversation, Dr Marjan Biria (UCL Psychiatry) and researchers from Cambridge University have discovered an imbalance in brain chemicals in OCD that could lead to radically different and improved treatments. People often jokingly say they've "got a bit of OCD" (obsessive-compulsive disorder) if they are overly organised or tidy.

UCL researchers have uncovered the process in the brain that supports our understanding of ongoing experiences. The study, published in Nature Neuroscience, has found that daily experiences require us to process a continuous stream of information. This is shown when watching a movie, as although the film is continuous, our brains break it down into discrete events, such as scenes.

Governments and companies planning to pursue the circular economy need to involve scientists more directly, states a new report published by the International Society for Industrial Ecology, and led by UCL's Dr Stijn van Ewijk. The report, published today, draws attention to the weight of relevant expertise found in the field of industrial ecology, a discipline that has been focusing on the minimisation of waste, predicting the impacts of new products, and designing environmentally friendly systems for decades.

About one in ten NHS healthcare workers experienced suicidal thoughts during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a new study involving UCL researchers. Concerns were raised about the risk of suicide among healthcare workers during the pandemic after a number of high-profile cases were reported in the media.

Daytime napping may help to preserve brain health by slowing the rate at which our brains shrink as we age, suggests a new study led by researchers at UCL and the University of the Republic in Uruguay. The study, published in the journal Sleep Health , analysed data from people aged 40 to 69 and found a causal link between habitual napping and larger total brain volume - a marker of good brain health linked to a lower risk of dementia and other diseases.

Mortality in patients with kidney failure has been found to be 23% lower among those treated with high dose haemodiafiltration compared to those treated with high flux haemodialysis, according to new research from the CONVINCE consortium led by University Medical Center Utrecht. The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine , is the first international, randomised trial to compare the two treatments.

A multi-centre team led by UCL, the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the University of Oslo and Imperial College London have shown how targeting the bacterium's protective capsule could help to prevent and treat bloodstream infections. The new study, published in Nature Communications , is the first to map the evolutionary timeline and population distribution of Escherichia coli's protective outer capsule, which is responsible for the bacterium's virulence.

Dr Henry Goodfellow (UCL Institute of Epidemiology & Health) explains how Long Covid is continuing to impact the lives of patients both in the UK and globally following the pandemic, in The Conversation. As of March 2023, the Office for National Statistics estimated that 1.7 million people in the UK were living with self-reported long COVID.

Across Europe, depression and anxiety disorders became more common following the onset of the pandemic, reports a major review of evidence led by UCL researchers. Later in 2020, depression and anxiety rates reduced again, but fluctuated over the following year. The systematic review, published in The Lancet Psychiatry , pulls together evidence from 177 studies in 20 European countries to assess how the Covid-19 pandemic affected mental health across the continent for the first two years after lockdowns began.

The first image of the structures that power human cilia - the tiny, hairlike projections that line our airways - has been produced by a team involving UCL researchers and could lead to much-needed treatments for people with rare cilial diseases. The study, published in Nature , combined advanced microscopy and artificial intelligence techniques to create a detailed snapshot of the structure of human cilia.

The tiny tubes and thread-like structures that give cells their shape and help determine their function have been artificially re-created using strands of DNA in a study led by UCL researchers. The research, published in Nature Communications , represents a key step towards synthetic "smart cells" that could be used to sense diseases, deliver drugs or repair damaged cells inside the body.

Lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people are more than twice as likely than their straight peers to experience suicidal thoughts or self-harming behaviours, finds a new study led by UCL researchers. The study, published in Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology , is the first ever to analyse nationally representative data on sexual orientation and suicidality in England whilst being able to compare individual sexual minority groups.

A global observational study co-led by UCL, which involved more than 3,200 newborn babies suffering from sepsis in 19 hospitals in 11 countries, has shown that many newborns are dying because the antibiotics used to treat sepsis are losing their effectiveness. The study, conducted from 2018 to 2020, found there was high mortality among infants with culture-positive* sepsis (almost 1 in 5 across the hospital sites), and a significant burden of antibiotic resistance.

The Campi Flegrei volcano in southern Italy has become weaker and more prone to rupturing, making an eruption more likely, according to a new study by researchers at UCL and Italy's National Research Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV). The volcano, which last erupted in 1538, has been restless for more than 70 years, with two-year spikes of unrest in the 1950s, 1970s and 1980s, and a slower phase of unrest over the last decade.

The Campi Flegrei volcano in southern Italy has become weaker and more prone to rupturing, making an eruption more likely, according to a new study by researchers at UCL and Italy's National Research Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV). The volcano, which last erupted in 1538, has been restless for more than 70 years, with two-year spikes of unrest in the 1950s, 1970s and 1980s, and a slower phase of unrest over the last decade.