Four researchers are among the UK’s “most promising research leaders” who will benefit from £101 million from UKRI to tackle major global issues and commercialise their innovations.
Researchers find that babies don’t begin to process phonetic information reliably until seven months old which they say is too late to form the foundation of language.
One in 200 newborns is admitted to a neonatal unit with sepsis caused by a bacteria commonly carried by their mothers – much greater than the previous estimate, say Cambridge researchers. The team has developed an ultra-sensitive test capable of better detecting the bacteria, as it is missed in the vast majority of cases.
An international team has shown that the injection of a type of stem cell into the brains of patients living with progressive multiple sclerosis (MS) is safe, well tolerated and has a long-lasting effect that appears to protect the brain from further damage.
The facility, based at the Milner Therapeutics Institute, will support the discovery of new medicines and diagnostics for chronic diseases by applying advanced biological and technological tools, including CRISPR gene editing.
The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded grants worth a total of €627 million to 308 researchers across Europe, of whom four are at the University of Cambridge.
One in five children and young people have a probable mental health condition, according to The Mental Health of Children and Young People in England 2023 report, published today. The report also reveals a significant rise in those being diagnosed with eating disorders, including a 10% increase among young men and women aged 17-19.
Contrary to the commonly-held view, the brain does not have the ability to rewire itself to compensate for the loss of sight, an amputation or stroke, for example, say scientists from the University of Cambridge and Johns Hopkins University.
Cambridge scientists have shown that placing physical constraints on an artificially-intelligent system – in much the same way that the human brain has to develop and operate within physical and biological constraints – allows it to develop features of the brains of complex organisms in order to solve tasks.
Researchers hoping to rebrand a marine pest as a nutritious food have developed the world’s first system of farming shipworms, which they have renamed ‘Naked Clams’.
