̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Department of Health and Social Care

AstraZeneca/GSK/ ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge collaborate to support UK national effort to boost COVID-19 testing

plc32 — Tue, 07 Apr 2020 10:46:52 +0000

A new testing laboratory will be set up by AstraZeneca, GSK and Cambridge at the ̽��ֱ��’s Anne McLaren Building. This facility will be used for high throughput screening for COVID-19 testing and to explore the use of alternative chemical reagents for test kits in order to help overcome current supply shortages.

Alongside this new testing facility, AstraZeneca and GSK are working together to provide process optimisation support to the UK national testing centres in Milton Keynes, Alderley Park and Glasgow for COVID-19, providing expertise in automation and robotics to help the national testing system to continue to expand capacity over the coming weeks.

While diagnostic testing is not part of either company’s core business, we are moving as fast as we can to help where possible - with a focus on providing our world class scientific and technical expertise - working both with the Government’s screening programme and alongside the wider life sciences sector and specialist diagnostic companies.

Further updates on progress will be issued on this work in due course.

We continue to pay tribute to those working on the frontlines of this pandemic, in the UK and globally. Defeating COVID-19 requires a collective effort from everyone working in healthcare and we are committed to playing our part.

As part of the UK Government’s announcement of a new five pillar plan to boost testing for COVID-19, AstraZeneca, GSK and the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge have formed a joint collaboration to take action to support this national effort.

Everyone in this ̽��ֱ�� and private industry partnership is working hard to help our health service fight COVID-19.

Vice-Chancellor Stephen J Toope

̽��ֱ��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.

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Removing sweets and crisps from supermarket checkouts linked to dramatic fall in unhealthy snack purchases

cjb250 — Tue, 18 Dec 2018 19:00:52 +0000

̽��ֱ��study, published in the journal PLOS Medicine, found that 76% fewer purchases of sugary confectionery, chocolate and potato crisps were bought and eaten ‘on-the-go’ from supermarkets with checkout food policies compared to those without. In addition, 17% fewer small packages of these items were bought and taken home from supermarkets immediately after introducing a checkout food policy.

Large supermarket chains such as Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s have captured the majority of the grocery market and play a major role in shaping food preferences and purchasing behaviour. Retail practices such as product displays, positioning, promotions and pricing can all influence consumers’ choices in stores.

Supermarket checkouts provide a unique location for prompting purchases as all customers have to pass through them to pay and may spend considerable time in queues; however, the majority of food at supermarket checkouts could be considered unhealthy. Over the last decade, many UK supermarket groups have made voluntary commitments to remove or limit unhealthy foods at the tills or to provide healthier options.

“Many snacks picked up at the checkout may be unplanned, impulse buys – and the options tend to be confectionery, chocolate or crisps,” says Dr Jean Adams from the Centre for Diet and Activity Research at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. “Several supermarkets have now introduced policies to remove these items from their checkouts, and we wanted to know if this had any impact on people’s purchasing choices.”

To examine the effect that the introduction of checkout food policies in major supermarket chains has had on shoppers’ purchasing habits, Dr Adams led a team of researchers at the universities of Cambridge, Stirling and Newcastle who analysed data from the Kantar Worldpanel’s Consumer panel for food, beverages and household products. Six out of the nine major supermarkets introduced checkout food policies between 2013 and 2017. ( ̽��ֱ��researchers anonymised the information to avoid ‘naming and shaming’ companies.)

Firstly, the team looked at how purchases of less healthy common checkout foods brought home changed following the implementation of checkout policies. They used data from over 30,000 UK households from 12 months before to 12 months after implementation.

̽��ֱ��researchers found that implementation of a checkout food policy was associated with an immediate 17% reduction in purchases. After a year, shoppers were still purchasing over 15% fewer of the items compared to when no policy was in place.

Next, they looked at data from 7,500 shoppers who recorded food bought and eaten ‘on-the-go’ during 2016-17 from supermarkets with and without checkout food policies. On-the-go purchases are often impulsive and can be the result of children pestering their parents. ̽��ֱ��researchers found that shoppers made 76% fewer annual purchases of less healthy common checkout foods from supermarkets with checkout food policies compared to those without.

As the study was not a randomised control trial, it was not possible to say definitely that the changes in purchasing behaviour were due to the checkout food policies. Stores that chose to have checkout food policies may have been different from those that did not. Or shoppers may have changed to purchasing larger packages from the same stores, or similar products from stores that aren’t supermarkets.

“Our findings suggest that by removing sweets and crisps from the checkout, supermarkets can have a positive influence on the types of purchases their shoppers make,” says Dr Katrine Ejlerskov, the study’s first author. “This would be a relatively simple intervention with the potential to encourage healthier eating. Many of these purchases may have been impulse buys, so if the shopper doesn’t pick up a chocolate bar at the till, it may be one less chocolate bar that they consume.”

“It may seem obvious that removing unhealthy food options from the checkout would reduce the amount that people buy, but it is evidence such as this that helps build the case for government interventions to improve unhealthy behaviours,” adds Dr Adams.

“One such intervention might be to introduce nutritional standards for checkout food as suggested in the Government’s recent Childhood Obesity Plan. Such a government-led policy might prove attractive to supermarkets as it would provide a level playing field across the sector.”

̽��ֱ��work was undertaken by the authors as part of the Public Health Research Consortium. ̽��ֱ��Public Health Research Consortium is funded by the Department of Health and Social Care Policy Research Programme.

Reference
Ejlerskov, KT et al. Supermarket policies on less healthy food at checkouts: natural experimental evaluation using interrupted time series analyses of purchases. PLOS Medicine; 18 Dec 2018; DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1002712

Policies aimed at removing sweets and crisps from checkouts could lead to a dramatic reduction in the amount of unhealthy food purchased to eat ‘on-the-go’ and a significant reduction in that purchased to take home, suggests new research led by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

It is evidence such as this that helps build the case for government interventions to improve unhealthy behaviours

Jean Adams

paulbr75 (Pixabay)

Shopping carts

Researcher Profile: Dr Jean Adams

“Most people have a vague idea about what eating better involves – more fruit and veg, less fat and sugar – and they also often have an aspiration to eat better,” says Dr Jean Adams. “But they don’t always manage to put this aspiration into practice.”

Jean’s research group in the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR) asks why this is the case – and what can be done about it. “We’re particularly interested in how we can provide environments that make it easier for everyone to eat better. This might involve making healthier foods more available, cheaper, attractive, or easier to prepare.”

Jean began her career studying medicine at Newcastle ̽��ֱ��, but admits she “never really enjoyed it”. But between her second and third year at medical school, she did a research year and realised this was where her passion lay. She went on to study for a PhD in public health and since then her career has involved public health research, rather than clinical medicine.

“I do a lot of talking and listening to people working in local and national government to understand what sorts of opportunities they feel are coming up and what research they would find helpful. In Cambridge we then try and focus on what the most rigorous and useful research we could do would be.”

Jean hopes that her research will lead to more people finding it easier to eat better. “Poor diet accounts for as much death and disease in the UK as tobacco smoking, so we are trying to address a major problem,” she says.

While she finds her work interesting and rewarding, she says research can be more prosaic than it is sometimes painted. “I have never had a Eureka moment and no-one’s ever slapped a sheaf of papers on my desk that explains everything! In my experience, research is more about grinding things out with a lot of refining and polishing leading to incremental accumulation of knowledge.”

Nor is it particularly glamorous: “ ̽��ֱ��CEDAR offices are in a slightly dingy corner deep in the heart of Addenbrooke’s Hospital. We have a small meeting room with a big white board. Sometimes I think that whiteboard has been the key vehicle for almost all of the great research CEDAR has produced!”

But fortunately, it can be both enjoyable and exhilarating. “My favourite meetings are the ones where we talk about ideas and share our brain power to arrive at new insights. I particularly enjoy when someone makes me see an old problem in a new way, or helps me crystallise some vague ideas that have been bubbling in my head for a while.

“We also try not to take ourselves too seriously and have a lot of fun along the way.”

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Ebola and Lassa fever targeted by new vaccine trial and improved surveillance

cjb250 — Tue, 25 Sep 2018 09:08:41 +0000

Researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge will shortly begin clinical trials of a new vaccine that builds on almost two decades of research to protect against diseases caused by RNA viruses. At the same time, they will begin studying the natural animal reservoirs of the viruses in an attempt to try and predict which strains are likely to cause future outbreaks, information that will be essential for creating effective vaccines.

Ebola, Lassa and Marburg viruses cause haemorrhagic fever, leading to severe disease, often with high mortality rates. Outbreaks can cause devastating local epidemics in the human population and to wildlife, including non-human primates. ̽��ֱ��recent Ebola epidemic in West Africa (2013–2016) killed over 11,000 people and devastated the infrastructure and economies of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

A new approach to vaccine development

Professor Jonathan Heeney and colleagues at the Laboratory of Viral Zoonotics, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, have developed and successfully tested a trivalent vaccine in guinea pigs that protects against Ebola, Lassa and Marburg viruses. As a result, Professor Heeney has been awarded a further £2 million by Innovate UK and the Department of Health and Social Care to take the vaccine to clinical trials in humans.

̽��ֱ��research takes a new approach pioneered by Professor Heeney and builds on Cambridge’s strengths in genomics, monoclonal antibody research and computational biology. It has led to the formation of DIOSynVax, a spin-out company of Cambridge Enterprise.

A virus’s genetic code is written into its ribonucleic acid (RNA), just as ours is written into our DNA, which leads to the generation of proteins. When we are infected by a virus, our immune system responds to these proteins, known as ‘antigens’, producing antibodies that can identify and try to eliminate the invading pathogen.

̽��ֱ��approach developed by Professor Heeney involves understanding how the immune system correctly identifies the virus from its proteins, and using this information to create ‘viruses’ that can generate an immune response. Using monoclonal antibodies – copies of antibodies taken from survivors of the target diseases – they can then test whether the body can effectively eliminate these fake viruses, leading to protection.

“We’ve taken fundamental science that stretches back almost two decades and developed a new approach to vaccine development,” says Professor Heeney. “This has the potential to dramatically reduce the time needed to produce new vaccines and change the way in which the industry makes them.”

With the new funding, the team hopes to scale up production while ensuring that the quality of the vaccine is maintained. They will then carry out toxicity tests in animals and human blood samples to test for potential adverse effects; if successful, they will then trial the vaccine in healthy human volunteers.

̽��ֱ��funding is part of a £5m commitment from the Department of Health and Social Care to fund five projects to develop new vaccines with a ‘One Health’ focus, considering how the environment, the health of animals and the health of humans interact. This sits within the government’s £120m UK aid commitment to develop vaccines to help tackle diseases with epidemic potential.

Predicting the next outbreak

In recent Ebola outbreaks, the approach used successfully by the World Health Organization is known as ‘ring vaccination’, focused on vaccinating and monitoring a ring of people around each infected individual. However, this approach can only be used in response to an outbreak. In order for a vaccine to be used proactively – to prevent an outbreak in the first place – it is necessary to predict which strain or strains of a virus are most likely to cause future epidemics.

“A disproportionally high number of emerging and re-emerging diseases – from Ebola and Lassa through to rabies and influenza – are caused by RNA viruses carried naturally by animals,” says Professor Heeney. “We know very little about the viral diversity within these reservoir species and what enables them to spread to humans – and hence where the likely future threats lie.”

Viral genomes are notoriously variable due to the high mutation rates that occur during replication. These accumulate over time and result in evolution of the viruses as they circulate in their natural animal reservoir populations. If some viral variants arise and are able to adapt to use human cell receptors and are then able to escape immune defences, they may become highly infectious and cause large disease outbreaks.

“Vaccines are only as good as the antigen immune targets of the virus that they are designed for,” adds Professor Heeney. “If the antigen changes, the vaccine will no longer be effective. In most cases, current vaccine candidates against RNA viruses are from past human outbreaks with little or no information of future risks from viral variants carried in animal reservoirs, especially those with the potential for animal-to-human transmission.”

Professor Heeney has also received £1.4 million from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) to lead a project that aims to predict where future outbreaks may arise from and the likely strains, and to then use this knowledge to inform vaccine design. This One Health project enlists veterinarians, clinicians, ecologists and medical and public health workers in West Africa to understand how people catch Lassa fever from rat populations. Their work will include trapping rat species that carry these viruses and placing GPS tags to monitor their movements, as well as obtaining molecular, genomic and antibody data from the animals and viral sequences from infected rats.

Professor Melanie Welham, Executive Chair of BBSRC, says: “This important research from the team at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge is about providing effective treatments for some potentially deadly diseases spread by rats and bats: Lassa and Ebola respectively. Novel strategies to combat dangerous infections like these are essential and often underpin the development of much-needed next generation vaccines.

“Professor Heeney and team have already made a significant difference in this area, researching cross species transmissions of these viruses, with a view to developing vaccines for Ebola and Lassa that would be effective against multiple strains.”

In addition, the team is collaborating with Professor James Wood, Head of the Department of Veterinary Medicine at Cambridge, who is conducting a complementary study funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund to sample bat colonies in Ghana, believed to be a natural reservoir for the Ebola virus.

“Equipped with this information, we should be able to design better vaccine antigens for more effective and broadly-protective vaccines,” says Professor Heeney. “Combined with our accelerated vaccine development platform, this has the potential to have an enormous positive impact on global public health.”

Scientists hope that a new approach to vaccine development, combined with improved surveillance of potential future threats of outbreak, could help to massively reduce the impact of deadly diseases such as Ebola, Marburg and Lassa fever.

"This has the potential to have an enormous positive impact on global public health"

Jonathan Heeney

NIAID

Ebola Vaccine Study in West Africa

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