̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - ̽��ֱ�� of Edinburgh

Significant gaps in COVID-19 vaccine uptake may have led to over 7,000 hospitalisations and deaths

cjb250 — Mon, 15 Jan 2024 23:30:03 +0000

̽��ֱ��findings, published today in ̽��ֱ��Lancet, suggest that more than 7,000 hospitalisations and deaths might have been averted in summer 2022 if the UK had had better vaccine coverage.

With COVID-19 cases on the rise and a new variant strain recently identified, this research provides a timely insight into vaccine uptake and hesitancy and could inform policy-makers.

̽��ֱ��research relied on secure access to anonymised health data for everyone in all four nations of the UK, an advance which has only become possible during the pandemic.

Co-author Angela Wood, Professor of Health Data Science at the Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Heart & Lung Research Institute, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and Associate Director of the British Heart Foundation Data Science Centre said: “This is the first epidemiological study to use individual-level anonymised health data covering the entire UK population. We have created a detailed, UK-wide picture of who is under-vaccinated against COVID-19 and the associated risks of under-vaccination.

“These results can be used to help create health policy and public health interventions to improve vaccine uptake. This approach could be extended to many other areas of medicine with great potential for new discoveries in the understanding and treatment of disease.”

Early COVID-19 vaccine rollout began strongly in the UK, with over 90% of the population over the age of 12 vaccinated with at least one dose by January 2022. However, rates of subsequent booster doses across the UK were not fully understood until now.

Scientists from England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales – led by Health Data Research UK (HDR UK) and the ̽��ֱ�� of Edinburgh – studied securely-held, routinely collected NHS data from everyone over five years of age during 1 June to 30 September 2022. All data was de-identified and available only to approved researchers.

Data from across the four countries was then pooled and harmonised, a feat that was not possible until now. People were grouped by vaccine status, with under-vaccination defined as not having had all doses of a vaccine for which that a person was eligible.

̽��ֱ��findings reveal that the proportion of people who were under-vaccinated on 1 June 2022 ranged between one third and one half of the population – 45.7% for England, 49.8% for Northern Ireland, 34.2% for Scotland and 32.8% Wales.

Mathematical modelling indicated that 7,180 hospitalisations and deaths out of around 40,400 severe COVID-19 outcomes during four months in summer 2022 might have been averted, if the UK population was fully vaccinated.

Under-vaccination was related to significantly more hospitalisations and deaths across all age groups studied, with under-vaccinated people over 75 more than twice as likely to have a severe COVID-19 outcome than those who were fully protected.

̽��ֱ��highest rates of under-vaccination were found in younger people, men, people in areas of higher deprivation, and people of non-white ethnicity.

Researchers say the study – the largest ever study carried out in the UK – also ushers in a new era for UK science by overcoming challenges in uniting NHS data that is gathered and stored in different ways between devolved nations.

Professor Cathie Sudlow, Chief Scientist at Health Data Research UK and Director of the British Heart Foundation (BHF) Data Science Centre, said: “ ̽��ֱ��infrastructure now exists to make full use of the potential of routinely collected data in the NHS across the four nations of the UK. We believe that we could and should extend these approaches to many other areas of medicine, such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes to search for better understanding, prevention and treatment of disease."

Professor Sir Aziz Sheikh, Director of the Usher Institute at the ̽��ֱ�� of Edinburgh, HDR UK Research Director and study co-lead, said: “Large-scale data studies have been critical to pandemic management, allowing scientists to make policy-relevant findings at speed. COVID-19 vaccines save lives. As new variants emerge, this study will help to pinpoint groups of our society and areas of the country where public health campaigns should be focused and tailored for those communities.”

Reference
HDR UK COALESCE Consortium. Undervaccination and severe COVID-19 outcomes: meta-analysis of national cohort studies in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Lancet; 16 Jan 2024; DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(23)02467-4

Adapted from a release from HDR-UK

Between a third and a half of the populations of the four UK nations had not had the recommended number of COVID vaccinations and boosters by summer 2022, according to the first research study to look at COVID-19 vaccine coverage of the entire UK population.

These results can be used to help create health policy and public health interventions to improve vaccine uptake

Angela Wood

KoldoyChris (Getty Images)

Girl being injected with COVID-19 vaccine

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Obesity accelerates loss of COVID-19 vaccination immunity, study finds

ta385 — Thu, 11 May 2023 14:59:00 +0000

Clinical trials have shown that COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective at reducing symptoms, hospitalisation and deaths caused by the virus, including for people with obesity. Previous studies have suggested that antibody levels may be lower in vaccinated people who have obesity and that they may remain at higher risk of severe disease than vaccinated people with normal weight. ̽��ֱ��reasons for this have, however, remained unclear.

This study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, shows that the ability of antibodies to neutralise the virus declines faster in vaccinated people who have obesity. ̽��ֱ��findings have important implications for vaccine prioritisation policies around the world.

During the pandemic, people with obesity were more likely to be hospitalised, require ventilators and to die from COVID-19. In this study, supported by the NIHR Bioresource and funded by UKRI, the researchers set out to investigate how far two of the most extensively used vaccines protect people with obesity compared to those with a normal weight, over time.

A team from the ̽��ֱ�� of Edinburgh, led by Prof Sir Aziz Sheikh, looked at real-time data tracking the health of 3.5 million people in the Scottish population as part of the EAVE II study. They looked at hospitalisation and mortality from COVID-19 in adults who received two doses of COVID-19 vaccine (either Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 mRNA or AstraZeneca ChAdOx1).

They found that people with severe obesity (a BMI greater than 40 kg/m2) had a 76% higher risk of severe COVID-19 outcomes, compared to those with a normal BMI. A modest increase in risk was also seen in people with obesity (30-39.9kg/m2), which affects a quarter of the UK population, and those who were underweight. ‘Break-through infections’ after the second vaccine dose also led to hospitalisation and death sooner (from 10 weeks) among people with severe obesity, and among people with obesity (after 15 weeks), than among individuals with normal weight (after 20 weeks).

Prof Sir Aziz Sheikh said: “Our findings demonstrate that protection gained through COVID-19 vaccination drops off faster for people with severe obesity than those with a normal body mass index. Using large-scale data assets such as the EAVE II Platform in Scotland have enabled us to generate important and timely insights that enable improvements to the delivery of COVID-19 vaccine schedules in a post-pandemic UK.”

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge team – jointly led by Dr James Thaventhiran, from the MRC Toxicology Unit and Prof Sadaf Farooqi from the Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science – studied people with severe obesity attending the Obesity clinic at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, and compared the number and function of immune cells in their blood to those of people of normal weight.

They studied people six months after their second vaccine dose and then looked at the response to a third 'booster' vaccine dose over time. ̽��ֱ��Cambridge researchers found that six months after a second vaccine dose, people with severe obesity had similar levels of antibodies to the COVID-19 virus as those with a normal weight.

But the ability of those antibodies to work efficiently to fight against the virus (known as ‘neutralisation capacity’) was reduced in people with obesity. 55% of individuals with severe obesity were found to have unquantifiable or undetectable ‘neutralising capacity’ compared to 12% of people with normal BMI.

“This study further emphasises that obesity alters the vaccine response and also impacts on the risk of infection,” said Dr Agatha van der Klaauw from the Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science and first author of the paper. “We urgently need to understand how to restore immune function and minimise these health risks.”

̽��ֱ��researchers found that antibodies produced by people with severe obesity were less effective at neutralising the SARS-CoV-2 virus, potentially because the antibodies were not able to bind to the virus with the same strength.

When given a third (booster) dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, the ability of the antibodies to neutralise the virus was restored in both the normal weight and severely obese groups. But the researchers found that immunity again declined more rapidly in people with severe obesity, putting them at greater risk of infection with time.

Dr James Thaventhiran, a Group Leader from the MRC Toxicology Unit in Cambridge and co-lead author of the SCORPIO study said: “It is promising to see that booster vaccines restore the effectiveness of antibodies for people with severe obesity, but it is concerning that their levels decrease more quickly, after just 15 weeks. This shows that the vaccines work as well in people with obesity, but the protection doesn’t last as long.”

Prof Sadaf Farooqi from the Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science and co-lead author of the SCORPIO study said: “More frequent booster doses are likely to be needed to maintain protection against COVID-19 in people with obesity. Because of the high prevalence of obesity across the globe, this poses a major challenge for health services”.

Reference

A A van der Klaauw et al., ‘Accelerated waning of the humoral response to COVID-19 vaccines in obesity’, Nature Medicine (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41591-023-02343-2

̽��ֱ��protection offered by COVID-19 vaccination declines more rapidly in people with severe obesity than in those with normal weight, scientists at the Universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh have found. ̽��ֱ��study suggests that people with obesity are likely to need more frequent booster doses to maintain their immunity.

This poses a major challenge for health services

Sadaf Farooqi

Steven Cornfield

Patient receiving a COVID-19 vaccination in their arm

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

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Attribution

Saffron: a Cambridge spice

sjr81 — Tue, 17 Jan 2023 15:08:30 +0000

An investigation into the local histories of saffron in Cambridgeshire.

Runaway West Antarctic ice retreat can be slowed by climate-driven changes in ocean temperature

sc604 — Mon, 16 Jan 2023 09:45:30 +0000

New research finds that ice-sheet-wide collapse in West Antarctica isn’t inevitable: the pace of ice loss varies according to regional differences in atmosphere and ocean circulation.

Anglo-Saxon kings were mostly veggie but peasants treated them to huge BBQs

ta385 — Thu, 21 Apr 2022 13:00:00 +0000

Very few people in England ate large amounts of meat before the Vikings settled, and there is no evidence that elites ate more meat than other people, a major new bioarchaeological study suggests. But its sister study also argues that peasants occasionally hosted lavish meat feasts for their rulers. Their findings overturn major assumptions about early medieval English history.

Astronomers spot a ‘blinking giant’ near the centre of the Galaxy

sc604 — Fri, 11 Jun 2021 07:00:00 +0000

An international team of astronomers observed the star, VVV-WIT-08, decreasing in brightness by a factor of 30, so that it nearly disappeared from the sky. While many stars change in brightness because they pulsate or are eclipsed by another star in a binary system, it’s exceptionally rare for a star to become fainter over a period of several months and then brighten again.

̽��ֱ��researchers believe that VVV-WIT-08 may belong to a new class of ‘blinking giant’ binary star system, where a giant star ⎼ 100 times larger than the Sun ⎼ is eclipsed once every few decades by an as-yet unseen orbital companion. ̽��ֱ��companion, which may be another star or a planet, is surrounded by an opaque disc, which covers the giant star, causing it to disappear and reappear in the sky. ̽��ֱ��study is published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

̽��ֱ��discovery was led by Dr Leigh Smith from Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy, working with scientists at the ̽��ֱ�� of Edinburgh, the ̽��ֱ�� of Hertfordshire, the ̽��ֱ�� of Warsaw in Poland and Universidad Andres Bello in Chile.

“It’s amazing that we just observed a dark, large and elongated object pass between us and the distant star and we can only speculate what its origin is,” said co-author Dr Sergey Koposov from the ̽��ֱ�� of Edinburgh.

Since the star is located in a dense region of the Milky Way, the researchers considered whether some unknown dark object could have simply drifted in front of the giant star by chance. However, simulations showed that there would have to be an implausibly large number of dark bodies floating around the Galaxy for this scenario to be likely.

One other star system of this sort has been known for a long time. ̽��ֱ��giant star Epsilon Aurigae is partly eclipsed by a huge disc of dust every 27 years, but only dims by about 50%. A second example, TYC 2505-672-1, was found a few years ago, and holds the current record for the eclipsing binary star system with the longest orbital period ⎼ 69 years ⎼ a record for which VVV-WIT-08 is currently a contender.

̽��ֱ��UK-based team has also found two more of these peculiar giant stars in addition to VVV-WIT-08, suggesting that these may be a new class of ‘blinking giant’ stars for astronomers to investigate.

VVV-WIT-08 was found by the VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea survey (VVV), a project using the British-built VISTA telescope in Chile and operated by the European Southern Observatory, that has been observing the same one billion stars for nearly a decade to search for examples with varying brightness in the infrared part of the spectrum.

Project co-leader Professor Philip Lucas from the ̽��ֱ�� of Hertfordshire said, “Occasionally we find variable stars that don’t fit into any established category, which we call ‘what-is-this?’, or ‘WIT’ objects. We really don’t know how these blinking giants came to be. It’s exciting to see such discoveries from VVV after so many years planning and gathering the data.”

While VVV-WIT-08 was discovered using VVV data, the dimming of the star was also observed by the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE), a long-running observation campaign run by the ̽��ֱ�� of Warsaw. OGLE makes more frequent observations, but closer to the visible part of the spectrum. These frequent observations were key for modelling VVV-WIT-08, and they showed that the giant star dimmed by the same amount in both the visible and infrared light.

There now appear to be around half a dozen potential known star systems of this type, containing giant stars and large opaque discs. “There are certainly more to be found, but the challenge now is in figuring out what the hidden companions are, and how they came to be surrounded by discs, despite orbiting so far from the giant star,” said Smith. “In doing so, we might learn something new about how these kinds of systems evolve.”

Reference:
Leigh C Smith et al. ‘VVV-WIT-08: the giant star that blinked.’ Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2021). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab1211

Astronomers have spotted a giant ‘blinking’ star towards the centre of the Milky Way, more than 25,000 light years away.

There are certainly more to be found, but the challenge now is in figuring out what the hidden companions are, and how they came to be surrounded by discs, despite orbiting so far from the giant star

Leigh Smith

Amanda Smith

Artist's impression of the binary star VVV-WIT-08

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Teaching pupils to ‘think like Da Vinci’ will help them to take on climate change

tdk25 — Fri, 23 Apr 2021 07:48:35 +0000

A radically reformed approach to education, in which different subjects teach connected themes, like climate change or food security, is being proposed by researchers, who argue that it would better prepare children for future crises.

In a newly-published study, education researchers from the Universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh argue that there is a compelling case for a drastic shake-up of the school curriculum, so that subjects are no longer taught independently of one another. Instead, they argue that the arts and sciences should ‘teach together’ around real-world problems, and in a manner rooted in pupils’ lived experiences.

̽��ֱ��model draws inspiration from Renaissance polymaths like Leonardo Da Vinci, who worked across disciplinary boundaries in pursuit of deeper knowledge. Similar, ‘trans-disciplinary’ approaches are already used in well-regarded education systems such as Finland’s. ̽��ֱ��idea also echoes recent calls by the youth campaign, Teach the Future, to break down subject silos to teach climate change.

̽��ֱ��academic paper, in the journal Curriculum Perspectives, also presents evidence from two recent projects in which pupils appeared to benefit from an approach to teaching which blurred subject boundaries.

One, which invited South African teenagers from disadvantaged settings to create ‘math-artworks’, produced evidence that as well as increasing their familiarity with key mathematical principles, the project also enabled pupils to understand more about the relevance of maths in their own lives. In the second case study, primary school children in Aberdeen showed a deeper understanding of food security and environmental protection issues after learning to grow food in their school grounds.

Pam Burnard, Professor of Arts, Creativities and Education at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “If we look at the amazing designs that Da Vinci produced, it’s clear he was combining different disciplines to advance knowledge and solve problems. We need to encourage children to think in a similar way because tomorrow’s adults will have to problem-solve differently due to the existential crises they will face: especially those of climate, sustainability, and the precarity of life on Earth.”

Dr Laura Colucci-Gray, of the ̽��ֱ�� of Edinburgh’s School of Education and Sport, said: “ ̽��ֱ��nature of these problems calls for a radically different approach to knowledge. We are proposing a move from the idea of a curriculum as something children are just ‘given’ to a curriculum ‘in-the-making’, in response to transformations that will define their lives.”

̽��ֱ��paper contributes to an emerging field called ‘STEAM’ education. This seeks to reinsert the ‘A’ of arts into national attempts to encourage the uptake of STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), in response to a critical skills gap in related areas of the economy.

Some educationists argue that the emphasis on STEM is devaluing other subjects, and that arts disciplines are also powerful tools for delivering the problem-solving skills society needs. “For education to reflect that requires a major shift away from linear conceptions where subjects are taught separately, and towards a situation where they are inseparable,” Burnard said.

In their alternative model, the researchers suggest giving schools greater freedom to determine how to meet general study targets set by the curriculum. Teachers and leadership teams would make collective decisions and share practices about how to engage pupils with unifying, cross-curricular themes, such as environmental sustainability.

They add that this might also involve the imaginative use of space and resources, and closer links between schools and their communities to connect learning to pupils’ lived experiences beyond the classroom.

Evidence is also emerging that a transdisciplinary approach enhances pupils’ acquisition of key skills. In the math-artwork project cited in the study, students in South Africa were asked to create art which showed the links between maths and the world around them. Subsequent analysis of the 113 submissions showed that pupils had applied principles such as measurement, ratio and proportion, and geometry in their creations.

̽��ֱ��researchers also found, however, that participants had engaged deeply with the meaning of maths at a level rarely seen in conventional lessons. One especially powerful example, by a 16-year-old male student, was entitled ̽��ֱ��Stressed Vitruvian Man, inspired by Da Vinci’s ̽��ֱ��Vitruvian Man. Like Da Vinci, the young artist’s work was partly a study of the proportions of the human body, but at the same time, the student used it to comment on both the potential, and dangers, of creating a society built on mathematical principles alone.

Similarly, the primary school pupils in Aberdeen showed a deepened understanding of issues like food production and natural resource management when they were given the opportunity to take responsibility for a small piece of land in their school. Researchers found that the survival of plants became personal to the pupils, rather than just an abstract concept that they had learned about in science lessons. It also introduced them to other, related ethical challenges which those lessons rarely address: such as how to produce enough food when space is limited.

Any attempted reimagining of education along transdisciplinary lines would require children’s attainment to be measured differently, the researchers add. “It would require a system of testing which measures how children are internalising ideas and what they are expressing – not just what they know,” Burnard said. “That may be an uncomfortable idea for some, but it is the sort of radical thinking we need if education is going to prepare young people for the future.”

Curriculum reforms which mix the arts and sciences will better prepare young people for the real-world challenges that will define their adult lives, researchers argue.

Tomorrow’s adults will have to problem-solve differently due to the existential crises they will face

Pam Burnard

(L) Leonardo Da Vinci’s ‘ ̽��ֱ��Vitruvian Man’. (R) ‘ ̽��ֱ��Stressed Vitruvian Man’, by a South African teenage artist for a project which challenged young people to create artworks using concepts and principles from mathematics.

Yes

Cambridge Legacies of Enslavement Inquiry delivers initial report

plc32 — Fri, 15 May 2020 15:41:26 +0000

̽��ֱ��interim report for the Inquiry, led by Professor Martin Millett, outlines a plan of action from Lent Term 2020 that includes research conducted by two new Research Fellows to be based in the Centre for African Studies working in an interdisciplinary context across the ̽��ֱ��, and information gathered from related work across the Collegiate ̽��ֱ��.

In support of this research, the report said the Inquiry will use its website and an email list to provide current information about the project and related activities across the Collegiate ̽��ֱ�� and to serve as a hub for research and engagement around the theme.

A priority over the next two years will be presenting the Inquiry and seeking input on it from a broad audience, both within the ̽��ֱ�� and beyond. In addition to an ongoing series of public forums and seminars, the Inquiry will seek to support research and public-facing engagement on enslavement and its legacies by students, staff, and organisations and institutions throughout the ̽��ֱ��.

Discussions are also progressing with the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Museums about an exhibition in 2022 that will explore aspects of the subject and a plan for the work to culminate in a major international conference in 2022. Other ideas include involvement in ̽��ֱ�� outreach events and programmes.

In all this, the Inquiry welcomes proposals and ideas for collaboration from across the Collegiate ̽��ֱ��.

An external advisory panel comprised of academics from King's College, Warwick ̽��ֱ��, Bristol and the ̽��ֱ�� of Edinburgh has also been added to provide help and advice to the Inquiry.

The Inquiry was convened in April 2019 by Vice-Chancellor Professor Stephen J Toope to advise him on the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s historical links with enslavement and on the legacies of those links in light of the growing public interest in the issue of British universities’ historical links to enslavement and the slave trade.

̽��ֱ��two-year inquiry will explore ̽��ֱ�� archives and a wide range of records elsewhere to uncover how the institution may have gained from slavery and the exploitation of coerced labour, through financial and other bequests to departments, libraries and museums.

It will also investigate the extent to which scholarship at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, an established and flourishing seat of learning before and during the period of Empire, might have reinforced and validated race-based thinking between the 18th and early 20th Century.

Professor Millett said: “This will be an evidence-led and thorough piece of research into the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s historical relationship with the slave trade and other forms of coerced labour. We cannot know at this stage what exactly it will find but it is reasonable to assume that, like many large British institutions during the colonial era, the ̽��ֱ�� will have benefited directly or indirectly from, and contributed to, the practices of the time.”

̽��ֱ��Advisory Group is expected to deliver its final report to the Vice-Chancellor in 2022. Alongside its findings on historical links to the slave trade, the report will recommend appropriate ways for the ̽��ֱ�� to publicly acknowledge such links and their modern impact.

Full initial report

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Legacies of Enslavement Inquiry delivered its first report this week outlining its plan of action and initial recommendations.

This will be an evidence-led and thorough piece of research

Professor Martin Millett

Yes