Feed aggregator

In a study published today in npj Digital Medicine, the researchers found that while activity levels then slowly declined over time, even after 30 months those users who were still using the app were more active than they had been beforehand.

Lack of physical activity is linked to poor health, including higher rates of heart disease and stroke, type 2 diabetes, cancers, dementia, depression and early death. Almost 4 million premature deaths per year – and healthcare costs of US$27 billion – are attributable to physical inactivity.

In England, more than one in three (37%) adults do not reach the recommended 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity activity – which can include brisk walking – and around one in four (26%) adults does less than 30 minutes per week.

Recently, mobile health apps have grown in popularity, allowing users to track their physical activity, offering tailored feedback, goal setting opportunities and activity reminders throughout the day. One such app is NHS Active 10, launched in 2017 to increase brisk walking levels, as walking is the most common form of activity reported by English adults. The app has been downloaded over 1.5 million times since its introduction.

In the first formal evaluation of its effectiveness, researchers from the University of Cambridge examined anonymised data from more than 200,000 users of the app – those who used the app for at least a month – collected between July 2021 and January 2024. These users had agreed for their anonymised data to be collected and shared for research purposes.

Three quarters of those users who provided demographic information were women, and the average age of users was 51 years. One in three users (32%) was aged 60 years or over.

Following download, the app requested permission from users to access their historical walking data. This revealed that prior to using the app, individuals spent on average 12.3 minutes per day in brisk walking and 30.4 minutes per day in non-brisk walking.

On the first day the app was downloaded, users walked on average an additional 9.0 minutes per day briskly. Their non-brisk walking increased by 2.6 minutes per day.

Over time, the amount of brisk walking done by users declined, falling on average 0.15 minutes per day for each month that passed. The amount of non-brisk walking also fell, by 0.06 minutes per day for each month that passed.

Over a third of users (35%) were still using the app after six months and a fifth (21%) after a year. This is much higher than the average for health and fitness apps worldwide, where typically less than three in 100 users (2.8%) are still using the app after 30 days.

At the end of 30 months, users were still walking an average of 4.5 minutes more per day briskly and 0.8 minutes per day more non-briskly than before they began using the app.

First author Dr Dharani Yerrakalva, from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge, said: “Even though activity levels fell over time, people still using the app after more than two years were doing more physical activity than before they started using it.

“At the population level, other research has suggested that we would see significant health benefits from even modest increases in activity such as this. Previous work by colleagues at Cambridge suggests that just 11 minutes a day of brisk walking could prevent one in 10 premature deaths.”

Senior author Professor Simon Griffin, from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care and  the Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge, said: “Active 10 appears to have a been a success, in that it encouraged 200,000 people to increase their levels of moderate physical activity. We should now consider whether apps such as this can be integrated into NHS practice, for example providing data to GPs so they can monitor their patients’ progress and provide tailored advice, to help us move towards a more personalised approach to medicine.”         

Simon Willcock, aged 71, said: “I am a big fan of Active 10. Following a successful cardiac ablation in January 2023, I set out to get fit and start looking after my heart. Active 10 has enabled me to change my behaviour especially when walking my two dogs twice a day. I now consciously walk faster and rarely amble.

“I set myself a minimum of three Active 10’s a day and usually manage four or five. My measured ‘brisk minutes’ recorded usually average 40 to 55% of my total walking. I have lost over a stone, feel fitter and are rarely out of breath when walking the Surrey Hills near where I live. Much cheaper than going to the gym!”

The research was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and Medical Research Council, with support from the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.

Reference

Yerrakalva, D et al. Evaluation of the NHS Active 10 Walking App Intervention through time-series analysis in 201,688 individuals. npj Digital Medicine; 6 Aug 2025; DOI: 10.1038/s41746-025-01785-x

Users of the NHS Active 10 app, designed to encourage people to become more active, immediately increased their amount of brisk and non-brisk walking upon using the app, according to researchers from the University of Cambridge.

Even though activity levels fell over time, people still using the app after more than two years were doing more physical activity than before they started using itDharani YerrakalvaNHS Better HealthPeople walking beside a graffitied wall“It's right there in my face if I've been lazy!” – Sonali Shukla

Sonali Shukla is a careers consultant at the University of Cambridge. Living in Cambridge, she was used to cycling to work, but when her daughter was born, she found that a combination of looking after her and the recent Covid lockdowns meant she had become less active.

“I started using the NHS Active 10 app around six months after my daughter was born,” she says. “I was looking for ways to get a bit more active. I was intrigued because I've used the step counter on my phone, but what was interesting about this one is that it tracks your brisk walking.”

Sonali initially downloaded the app out of curiosity so see whether or not she walked briskly, but then found herself hooked, motivated by the trophies and celebrations it gave when she completed 10 minutes of brisk walking.

She found the results illuminating as it highlighted the impact her daughter had on her physical activity levels, even when she thought she was getting enough exercise. “I might go for an hour long walk, but when I've got small children in tow, it's too leisurely to really count as proper exercise.”

Even now, three years later, she still uses the app. “The version that I have on my phone has a little tracker that you don't have to log into the app to see. It tracks your brisk walking on the face of your phone. So it's right there in my face if I've been lazy!”

Sonali has managed to keep active, and although the app isn’t the only reason why, she says it certainly helps.

“When the weather's bad and it's not as easy to just go for a walk, I might notice that it's been a couple of days before I've really moved. It encourages me to go outside and get moving.”

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University 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

In a study published today in npj Digital Medicine, the researchers found that while activity levels then slowly declined over time, even after 30 months those users who were still using the app were more active than they had been beforehand.

Lack of physical activity is linked to poor health, including higher rates of heart disease and stroke, type 2 diabetes, cancers, dementia, depression and early death. Almost 4 million premature deaths per year – and healthcare costs of US$27 billion – are attributable to physical inactivity.

In England, more than one in three (37%) adults do not reach the recommended 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity activity – which can include brisk walking – and around one in four (26%) adults does less than 30 minutes per week.

Recently, mobile health apps have grown in popularity, allowing users to track their physical activity, offering tailored feedback, goal setting opportunities and activity reminders throughout the day. One such app is NHS Active 10, launched in 2017 to increase brisk walking levels, as walking is the most common form of activity reported by English adults. The app has been downloaded over 1.5 million times since its introduction.

In the first formal evaluation of its effectiveness, researchers from the University of Cambridge examined anonymised data from more than 200,000 users of the app – those who used the app for at least a month – collected between July 2021 and January 2024. These users had agreed for their anonymised data to be collected and shared for research purposes.

Three quarters of those users who provided demographic information were women, and the average age of users was 51 years. One in three users (32%) was aged 60 years or over.

Following download, the app requested permission from users to access their historical walking data. This revealed that prior to using the app, individuals spent on average 12.3 minutes per day in brisk walking and 30.4 minutes per day in non-brisk walking.

On the first day the app was downloaded, users walked on average an additional 9.0 minutes per day briskly. Their non-brisk walking increased by 2.6 minutes per day.

Over time, the amount of brisk walking done by users declined, falling on average 0.15 minutes per day for each month that passed. The amount of non-brisk walking also fell, by 0.06 minutes per day for each month that passed.

Over a third of users (35%) were still using the app after six months and a fifth (21%) after a year. This is much higher than the average for health and fitness apps worldwide, where typically less than three in 100 users (2.8%) are still using the app after 30 days.

At the end of 30 months, users were still walking an average of 4.5 minutes more per day briskly and 0.8 minutes per day more non-briskly than before they began using the app.

First author Dr Dharani Yerrakalva, from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge, said: “Even though activity levels fell over time, people still using the app after more than two years were doing more physical activity than before they started using it.

“At the population level, other research has suggested that we would see significant health benefits from even modest increases in activity such as this. Previous work by colleagues at Cambridge suggests that just 11 minutes a day of brisk walking could prevent one in 10 premature deaths.”

Senior author Professor Simon Griffin, from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care and  the Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge, said: “Active 10 appears to have a been a success, in that it encouraged 200,000 people to increase their levels of moderate physical activity. We should now consider whether apps such as this can be integrated into NHS practice, for example providing data to GPs so they can monitor their patients’ progress and provide tailored advice, to help us move towards a more personalised approach to medicine.”         

Simon Willcock, aged 71, said: “I am a big fan of Active 10. Following a successful cardiac ablation in January 2023, I set out to get fit and start looking after my heart. Active 10 has enabled me to change my behaviour especially when walking my two dogs twice a day. I now consciously walk faster and rarely amble.

“I set myself a minimum of three Active 10’s a day and usually manage four or five. My measured ‘brisk minutes’ recorded usually average 40 to 55% of my total walking. I have lost over a stone, feel fitter and are rarely out of breath when walking the Surrey Hills near where I live. Much cheaper than going to the gym!”

The research was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and Medical Research Council, with support from the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.

Reference

Yerrakalva, D et al. Evaluation of the NHS Active 10 Walking App Intervention through time-series analysis in 201,688 individuals. npj Digital Medicine; 6 Aug 2025; DOI: 10.1038/s41746-025-01785-x

Users of the NHS Active 10 app, designed to encourage people to become more active, immediately increased their amount of brisk and non-brisk walking upon using the app, according to researchers from the University of Cambridge.

Even though activity levels fell over time, people still using the app after more than two years were doing more physical activity than before they started using itDharani YerrakalvaNHS Better HealthPeople walking beside a graffitied wall“It's right there in my face if I've been lazy!” – Sonali Shukla

Sonali Shukla is a careers consultant at the University of Cambridge. Living in Cambridge, she was used to cycling to work, but when her daughter was born, she found that a combination of looking after her and the recent Covid lockdowns meant she had become less active.

“I started using the NHS Active 10 app around six months after my daughter was born,” she says. “I was looking for ways to get a bit more active. I was intrigued because I've used the step counter on my phone, but what was interesting about this one is that it tracks your brisk walking.”

Sonali initially downloaded the app out of curiosity so see whether or not she walked briskly, but then found herself hooked, motivated by the trophies and celebrations it gave when she completed 10 minutes of brisk walking.

She found the results illuminating as it highlighted the impact her daughter had on her physical activity levels, even when she thought she was getting enough exercise. “I might go for an hour long walk, but when I've got small children in tow, it's too leisurely to really count as proper exercise.”

Even now, three years later, she still uses the app. “The version that I have on my phone has a little tracker that you don't have to log into the app to see. It tracks your brisk walking on the face of your phone. So it's right there in my face if I've been lazy!”

Sonali has managed to keep active, and although the app isn’t the only reason why, she says it certainly helps.

“When the weather's bad and it's not as easy to just go for a walk, I might notice that it's been a couple of days before I've really moved. It encourages me to go outside and get moving.”

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University 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

Nat Riches, who studies Natural Sciences at Trinity College, and Natasha Atkinson, who graduated from Downing College with a Law degree in 2024, were intrigued by the ‘haunted summer’ of 1816, when tumultuous weather confined writers including Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and Mary Godwin (later Mary Shelley) to a villa beside Lake Geneva.

1816: The Year Without A Summer is one of two Cambridge student productions selected by the Cambridge University Musical Theatre Society for the Camden and Edinburgh Fringe festivals this summer.

The musical brings to life the literary characters and Byron’s personal doctor John Polidori and his lover Claire Clairmont, who were cooped up in Villa Diodati by the terrible weather wrought by the huge volcanic eruption of 1815 in the then Dutch East Indies.

As rain lashes down, the wind gets up and it’s dark by the afternoon, Byron sets the assembled guests a challenge: write the most chilling ghost story. The challenge led to the conception of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and John Polidori’s The Vampyre, two of the greatest horror stories of the last two centuries. 

1816: The Year Without A Summer premieres at the Camden Fringe Festival on August 6 and 7.

Read the full story.

Cambridge students – one a researcher in the electrical currents of heart tissue – have created a new musical partly inspired by the genesis of Mary Shelley's monster,  which was brought to life by electricity.

Trinity College, CambridgeNatasha Atkinson, left, and Nat Riches have created the new musical based on the legendary 1816 meeting of minds.

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University 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

Nat Riches, who studies Natural Sciences at Trinity College, and Natasha Atkinson, who graduated from Downing College with a Law degree in 2024, were intrigued by the ‘haunted summer’ of 1816, when tumultuous weather confined writers including Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and Mary Godwin (later Mary Shelley) to a villa beside Lake Geneva.

1816: The Year Without A Summer is one of two Cambridge student productions selected by the Cambridge University Musical Theatre Society for the Camden and Edinburgh Fringe festivals this summer.

The musical brings to life the literary characters and Byron’s personal doctor John Polidori and his lover Claire Clairmont, who were cooped up in Villa Diodati by the terrible weather wrought by the huge volcanic eruption of 1815 in the then Dutch East Indies.

As rain lashes down, the wind gets up and it’s dark by the afternoon, Byron sets the assembled guests a challenge: write the most chilling ghost story. The challenge led to the conception of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and John Polidori’s The Vampyre, two of the greatest horror stories of the last two centuries. 

1816: The Year Without A Summer premieres at the Camden Fringe Festival on August 6 and 7.

Read the full story.

Cambridge students – one a researcher in the electrical currents of heart tissue – have created a new musical partly inspired by the genesis of Mary Shelley's monster,  which was brought to life by electricity.

Trinity College, CambridgeNatasha Atkinson, left, and Nat Riches have created the new musical based on the legendary 1816 meeting of minds.

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University 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

Cambridge Innovation Capital (CIC), the VC firm investing in the UK’s highest-potential deep tech and life sciences companies, is committing at least £100m to invest in spinouts from the University of Cambridge.

The funding will seek to take advantage of the vast commercial potential in science and technology innovation developed by Cambridge researchers and follows a series of recent initiatives from the university designed to support entrepreneurial academics. These include plans for four million sq. ft of high-tech development at Cambridge West and a new Innovation Hub in central Cambridge to host spinouts, startups, and entrepreneurs.

Dr Diarmuid O’Brien, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Innovation at the University of Cambridge, welcomed the investment that will help build on current success: “In 2024, the University of Cambridge created more spinout companies than any other university. It has also produced the most unicorns of any European ecosystem and generates £23 billion in economic interest linked to research and commercialisation each year.”

To coincide with the funding commitment, CIC is launching a new Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) programme, in partnership with the university, to identify IP with the potential for commercialisation and support academic founders as they begin to build a company. By matching experienced deep tech and life sciences executives, many of whom have achieved significant exits with their previous businesses, with academics and high-potential IP, the EIR programme will increase the number of quality spinouts and accelerate the path towards viable commercialisation of the technology. The EIR programme, will maintain a rolling cohort of up to six EIRs.

This is the latest initiative to support spinouts from the university. The University of Cambridge, through its innovation business, Cambridge Enterprise, has also launched the Founders programme to support new company creation; the Translational Investment Fund (TIF), a new proof of concept fund to de-risk world class research and enable faster commercialisation; and invested an additional £30m of new capital into the £100m AUM Cambridge Enterprise Ventures (CEV) fund to support increasing University investment in spinouts.

“We are determined to do even more, and faster, through initiatives such as the new EIR programme and by attracting investment into our spinout companies working with partners like Cambridge Innovation Capital” added Dr O’Brien.

CIC is committing at least £100m as part of the launch of Fund III, its latest £250 million early-stage venture fund focused on the Cambridge ecosystem, to invest in University of Cambridge spinouts. Companies created within the EIR programme can access the new funding to support development from inception through proof-of-concept to early-stage growth.

Andrew Williamson, Managing Partner, CIC, explained the reasons for focusing on Cambridge University spinouts: “Cambridge is at the forefront of innovation in deep tech and life sciences. Our new EIR programme will provide academics and researchers with access to the £100m we are committing to University of Cambridge spinouts as they continue to develop breakthrough technologies. This expansion of CIC’s long-standing partnership with the University of Cambridge, which provides unique access to the university’s academics and research, will help support the UK’s economic growth by developing the next generation of world-class companies.”

New Entrepreneur in Residence programme builds on work by Cambridge Enterprise and will match serial entrepreneurs with academics to develop world-leading ideas and IP.

Cambridge is at the forefront of innovation in deep tech and life sciences. Our new EIR programme will provide academics and researchers with access to the £100m we are committing to University of Cambridge spinouts as they continue to develop breakthrough technologies.Andrew Williamson, Managing Partner, CIC,

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University 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

Cambridge Innovation Capital (CIC), the VC firm investing in the UK’s highest-potential deep tech and life sciences companies, is committing at least £100m to invest in spinouts from the University of Cambridge.

The funding will seek to take advantage of the vast commercial potential in science and technology innovation developed by Cambridge researchers and follows a series of recent initiatives from the university designed to support entrepreneurial academics. These include plans for four million sq. ft of high-tech development at Cambridge West and a new Innovation Hub in central Cambridge to host spinouts, startups, and entrepreneurs.

Dr Diarmuid O’Brien, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Innovation at the University of Cambridge, welcomed the investment that will help build on current success: “In 2024, the University of Cambridge created more spinout companies than any other university. It has also produced the most unicorns of any European ecosystem and generates £23 billion in economic interest linked to research and commercialisation each year.”

To coincide with the funding commitment, CIC is launching a new Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) programme, in partnership with the university, to identify IP with the potential for commercialisation and support academic founders as they begin to build a company. By matching experienced deep tech and life sciences executives, many of whom have achieved significant exits with their previous businesses, with academics and high-potential IP, the EIR programme will increase the number of quality spinouts and accelerate the path towards viable commercialisation of the technology. The EIR programme, will maintain a rolling cohort of up to six EIRs.

This is the latest initiative to support spinouts from the university. The University of Cambridge, through its innovation business, Cambridge Enterprise, has also launched the Founders programme to support new company creation; the Translational Investment Fund (TIF), a new proof of concept fund to de-risk world class research and enable faster commercialisation; and invested an additional £30m of new capital into the £100m AUM Cambridge Enterprise Ventures (CEV) fund to support increasing University investment in spinouts.

“We are determined to do even more, and faster, through initiatives such as the new EIR programme and by attracting investment into our spinout companies working with partners like Cambridge Innovation Capital” added Dr O’Brien.

CIC is committing at least £100m as part of the launch of Fund III, its latest £250 million early-stage venture fund focused on the Cambridge ecosystem, to invest in University of Cambridge spinouts. Companies created within the EIR programme can access the new funding to support development from inception through proof-of-concept to early-stage growth.

Andrew Williamson, Managing Partner, CIC, explained the reasons for focusing on Cambridge University spinouts: “Cambridge is at the forefront of innovation in deep tech and life sciences. Our new EIR programme will provide academics and researchers with access to the £100m we are committing to University of Cambridge spinouts as they continue to develop breakthrough technologies. This expansion of CIC’s long-standing partnership with the University of Cambridge, which provides unique access to the university’s academics and research, will help support the UK’s economic growth by developing the next generation of world-class companies.”

New Entrepreneur in Residence programme builds on work by Cambridge Enterprise and will match serial entrepreneurs with academics to develop world-leading ideas and IP.

Cambridge is at the forefront of innovation in deep tech and life sciences. Our new EIR programme will provide academics and researchers with access to the £100m we are committing to University of Cambridge spinouts as they continue to develop breakthrough technologies.Andrew Williamson, Managing Partner, CIC,

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University 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

As many as one in four people will have a stroke during their lifetime. This is when a blood clot prevents oxygen from reaching a part of the brain. The first few hours following a stroke are crucial – the blood clot needs to be removed quickly so that the oxygen supply to the brain can be restored; otherwise, the brain tissue begins to die.

Currently, the outcome for stroke patients receiving even the best available treatment, known as mechanical thrombectomy, is still poor, with fewer than one in 10 patients leaving hospital with no neurological impairment.

Professor Thomas Krieg from the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge said: “Stroke is a devastating disease. Even for those who survive, there is a significant risk of damage to the brain that can lead to disabilities and a huge impact on an individual’s life. But in terms of treatment, once the stroke is happening, we have only limited options.”

Mechanical thrombectomy is a minimally invasive medical procedure involving the insertion of a thin tube, known as a catheter, into a blood vessel, often through the groin or arm. This is guided to the blood clot, where it is removed by a tiny device, restoring normal blood flow.

Restoring blood flow too suddenly can make things worse, however. This is called ischaemia-reperfusion injury. When blood rushes back into the oxygen-starved tissue (a process known as reperfusion), the damaged cells struggle to cope, leading to the production of harmful molecules called free radicals that can damage cells, proteins, and DNA. This triggers further damage and can cause an inflammatory response.

The Cambridge team has previously shown that when the brain is starved of oxygen, a build-up occurs of a chemical called succinate. When blood flow is restored, the succinate is rapidly oxidised to drive free radical production within mitochondria, the ‘batteries’ that power our cells, initiating the extra damage. This occurs within the first few minutes of reperfusion, but the researchers showed that the oxidation of succinate can be blocked by the molecule malonate.

Professor Mike Murphy from the Medical Research Council Mitochondrial Biology Unit said: “All of this happens very rapidly, but if we can get malonate in quickly at the start of reperfusion, we can prevent this oxidation and burst of free radicals.

“We discovered in our labs that we can get malonate into cells very quickly by lowering the pH a little, making it a bit more acidic, so that it can cross the blood-brain barrier better. If we inject it into the brain just as we’re ready to reperfuse, then we can potentially prevent further damage.”

In a study published in Cardiovascular Research, the team has shown that treating the brain with a form of the chemical known as acidified disodium malonate (aDSM) alongside mechanical thrombectomy greatly decreased the amount of brain damage that occurs from ischaemia-reperfusion injury by as much as 60%.

Dr Jordan Lee, a postdoctoral researcher in the group, developed a mouse model that mimics mechanical thrombectomy, allowing the team to test the effectiveness of aDSM against ischaemia-reperfusion injury.

Dr Lee said: “This approach reduces the amount of dead brain tissue resulting from a stroke. This is incredibly important because the amount of dead brain tissue is directly correlated to the patient’s recovery – to their disability, whether they can still use all their limbs, speak and understand language, for example.”

Mechanical thrombectomy is increasingly used in the NHS, and the researchers hope that with the addition of aDSM as a treatment alongside this intervention, they will be able to improve outcomes significantly when the procedure is more widely adopted.

The team has launched Camoxis Therapeutics, a spin-out company, with support from Cambridge Enterprise, the innovation arm of the University of Cambridge. It is now seeking seed funding to develop the drug further and take it to early-stage clinical trials.

Professor Murphy added: “If it’s successful, this same drug could have much wider applications for other instances of ischemia-reperfusion injuries, such as heart attack, resuscitation, organ transplantation, and so on, which have similar underlying mechanisms.”

The research was supported by the British Heart Foundation, Medical Research Council, Wellcome Trust and the National Institute for Health and Care Research Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.

Reference

Lee, JJ et al. Local arterial administration of acidified malonate as an adjunct therapy to mechanical thrombectomy in ischemic stroke. Cardiovascular Research; 27 Jun 2025; DOI: 10.1093/cvr/cvaf118

Cambridge scientists have developed and tested a new drug in mice that has the potential to reduce damage to the brain when blood flow is restored following a stroke.

Stroke is a devastating disease. Even for those who survive, there is a significant risk of damage to the brain that can lead to disabilities and a huge impact on an individual’s lifeThomas KriegSean Anthony Eddy (Getty Images)Woman visiting an elderly man in hospital

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University 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

As many as one in four people will have a stroke during their lifetime. This is when a blood clot prevents oxygen from reaching a part of the brain. The first few hours following a stroke are crucial – the blood clot needs to be removed quickly so that the oxygen supply to the brain can be restored; otherwise, the brain tissue begins to die.

Currently, the outcome for stroke patients receiving even the best available treatment, known as mechanical thrombectomy, is still poor, with fewer than one in 10 patients leaving hospital with no neurological impairment.

Professor Thomas Krieg from the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge said: “Stroke is a devastating disease. Even for those who survive, there is a significant risk of damage to the brain that can lead to disabilities and a huge impact on an individual’s life. But in terms of treatment, once the stroke is happening, we have only limited options.”

Mechanical thrombectomy is a minimally invasive medical procedure involving the insertion of a thin tube, known as a catheter, into a blood vessel, often through the groin or arm. This is guided to the blood clot, where it is removed by a tiny device, restoring normal blood flow.

Restoring blood flow too suddenly can make things worse, however. This is called ischaemia-reperfusion injury. When blood rushes back into the oxygen-starved tissue (a process known as reperfusion), the damaged cells struggle to cope, leading to the production of harmful molecules called free radicals that can damage cells, proteins, and DNA. This triggers further damage and can cause an inflammatory response.

The Cambridge team has previously shown that when the brain is starved of oxygen, a build-up occurs of a chemical called succinate. When blood flow is restored, the succinate is rapidly oxidised to drive free radical production within mitochondria, the ‘batteries’ that power our cells, initiating the extra damage. This occurs within the first few minutes of reperfusion, but the researchers showed that the oxidation of succinate can be blocked by the molecule malonate.

Professor Mike Murphy from the Medical Research Council Mitochondrial Biology Unit said: “All of this happens very rapidly, but if we can get malonate in quickly at the start of reperfusion, we can prevent this oxidation and burst of free radicals.

“We discovered in our labs that we can get malonate into cells very quickly by lowering the pH a little, making it a bit more acidic, so that it can cross the blood-brain barrier better. If we inject it into the brain just as we’re ready to reperfuse, then we can potentially prevent further damage.”

In a study published in Cardiovascular Research, the team has shown that treating the brain with a form of the chemical known as acidified disodium malonate (aDSM) alongside mechanical thrombectomy greatly decreased the amount of brain damage that occurs from ischaemia-reperfusion injury by as much as 60%.

Dr Jordan Lee, a postdoctoral researcher in the group, developed a mouse model that mimics mechanical thrombectomy, allowing the team to test the effectiveness of aDSM against ischaemia-reperfusion injury.

Dr Lee said: “This approach reduces the amount of dead brain tissue resulting from a stroke. This is incredibly important because the amount of dead brain tissue is directly correlated to the patient’s recovery – to their disability, whether they can still use all their limbs, speak and understand language, for example.”

Mechanical thrombectomy is increasingly used in the NHS, and the researchers hope that with the addition of aDSM as a treatment alongside this intervention, they will be able to improve outcomes significantly when the procedure is more widely adopted.

The team has launched Camoxis Therapeutics, a spin-out company, with support from Cambridge Enterprise, the innovation arm of the University of Cambridge. It is now seeking seed funding to develop the drug further and take it to early-stage clinical trials.

Professor Murphy added: “If it’s successful, this same drug could have much wider applications for other instances of ischemia-reperfusion injuries, such as heart attack, resuscitation, organ transplantation, and so on, which have similar underlying mechanisms.”

The research was supported by the British Heart Foundation, Medical Research Council, Wellcome Trust and the National Institute for Health and Care Research Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.

Reference

Lee, JJ et al. Local arterial administration of acidified malonate as an adjunct therapy to mechanical thrombectomy in ischemic stroke. Cardiovascular Research; 27 Jun 2025; DOI: 10.1093/cvr/cvaf118

Cambridge scientists have developed and tested a new drug in mice that has the potential to reduce damage to the brain when blood flow is restored following a stroke.

Stroke is a devastating disease. Even for those who survive, there is a significant risk of damage to the brain that can lead to disabilities and a huge impact on an individual’s lifeThomas KriegSean Anthony Eddy (Getty Images)Woman visiting an elderly man in hospital

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University 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

The Girls Enjoy Maths Summer School – a partnership between Cambridge Maths School, the University of Cambridge, and Raspberry Pi – saw 45 students get hands-on learning and real-world insight into the mathematical sciences.

Over three days, the students were offered a unique blend of academic exploration, including interactive workshops on maths in biology, chemistry, and physics at Cambridge Maths School, where they also had the opportunity to speak with current students and staff about A-level maths and further maths.

They also spent a day at the University, including sessions at St John’s and Queens’ Colleges, a punting trip along the River Cam, and a walk across the iconic Mathematical Bridge. They heard from the University’s Dr Zoe Wyatt and Professor Julia Gog OBE, who shared their experiences as female mathematicians and discussed the impact of mathematics in research and society.

During a visit to Raspberry Pi, the students also explored the creative side of coding and artificial intelligence.

Founded in association with the University of Cambridge, the new Cambridge Maths School welcomed its first-ever students in 2023. The specialist sixth form, led by multi-academy trust the Eastern Learning Alliance, focuses on pioneering learning and increasing diversity in the field of maths. It works to encourage more students from underrepresented groups, including girls, to study maths post-16. 

“The GEM Summer School was a celebration of curiosity, creativity, and community,” said a spokesperson from Cambridge Maths School. “Thanks to the dedication of our inspiring staff and the invaluable support of our partners, we were able to create a truly empowering experience that sparked curiosity, built confidence, and celebrated the joy of mathematics.”

The programme was free to attend, with lunch provided and financial support available for travel. Priority was given to students from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in the mathematical sciences.

Year 10 students from around the Cambridge region took part in a special programme designed to inspire the next generation of female mathematicians.

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University 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

The Girls Enjoy Maths Summer School – a partnership between Cambridge Maths School, the University of Cambridge, and Raspberry Pi – saw 45 students get hands-on learning and real-world insight into the mathematical sciences.

Over three days, the students were offered a unique blend of academic exploration, including interactive workshops on maths in biology, chemistry, and physics at Cambridge Maths School, where they also had the opportunity to speak with current students and staff about A-level maths and further maths.

They also spent a day at the University, including sessions at St John’s and Queens’ Colleges, a punting trip along the River Cam, and a walk across the iconic Mathematical Bridge. They heard from the University’s Dr Zoe Wyatt and Professor Julia Gog OBE, who shared their experiences as female mathematicians and discussed the impact of mathematics in research and society.

During a visit to Raspberry Pi, the students also explored the creative side of coding and artificial intelligence.

Founded in association with the University of Cambridge, the new Cambridge Maths School welcomed its first-ever students in 2023. The specialist sixth form, led by multi-academy trust the Eastern Learning Alliance, focuses on pioneering learning and increasing diversity in the field of maths. It works to encourage more students from underrepresented groups, including girls, to study maths post-16. 

“The GEM Summer School was a celebration of curiosity, creativity, and community,” said a spokesperson from Cambridge Maths School. “Thanks to the dedication of our inspiring staff and the invaluable support of our partners, we were able to create a truly empowering experience that sparked curiosity, built confidence, and celebrated the joy of mathematics.”

The programme was free to attend, with lunch provided and financial support available for travel. Priority was given to students from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in the mathematical sciences.

Year 10 students from around the Cambridge region took part in a special programme designed to inspire the next generation of female mathematicians.

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University 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

The research, published in the journal Gut, could help in the development of a blood test and points towards a potential new treatment.

When we eat, the liver releases bile acid to break down fats so that they can be absorbed into the body. Bile acid is released into the top end of the small intestine and then absorbed back into the body at the lower end.

However, around one person in every 100 is affected by a condition known as bile acid diarrhoea (also known as bile acid malabsorption), whereby the bile acid is not properly re-absorbed and makes its way into the large intestine (colon). It can trigger urgent and watery diarrhoea, and patients can risk episodes of incontinence.

Bile acid diarrhoea can be difficult to diagnose as there are currently no routine clinical blood tests. Many individuals are given a diagnosis of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), an umbrella term for a range of conditions. As many as one in 20 people is thought to have IBS, of which an estimated one in three patients with diarrhoea as their main symptom have undiagnosed bile acid diarrhoea.

Studies in mice have previously suggested that the gut hormone known as Insulin-Like Peptide 5 (INSL5) – present in cells at the far end of the colon and rectum – may play a role in chronic diarrhoea. INSL5 is released by these cells when irritated by bile acid.

Researchers at the Institute of Metabolic Science, University of Cambridge, have been exploring whether this hormone might also underlie chronic diarrhoea in humans. This has been possible thanks to a new antibody test developed by pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, with whom the team is collaborating, which allows them to measure tiny amounts of INSL5.

A study at the University of Adelaide looking at ways to trigger release of the gut hormone GLP-1 – the hormone upon which weight-loss drugs are based – previously found that giving a bile acid enema to healthy volunteers triggered release of GLP-1, but had the unintended consequence of causing diarrhoea. When the Cambridge team analysed samples from this study, they found that the bile acid enema caused levels of INSL5 to shoot up temporarily – and the higher the INSL5 levels, the faster the volunteers needed to use the toilet. This confirmed that INSL5 is likely to play a role in chronic cases of diarrhoea.

When the team analysed samples obtained from Professor Julian Walters at Imperial College London, which include samples from patients with bile acid diarrhoea, they found that while levels of INSL5 were almost undetectable in healthy volunteers, they were much higher in patients with bile acid diarrhoea. In addition, the higher the INSL5 level, the more watery their stool samples.

Dr Chris Bannon from the University of Cambridge, the study’s first author, said: “This was a very exciting finding because it showed us that this hormone could be playing a big part in symptoms of this misunderstood condition. It also meant it might allow us to develop a blood test to help diagnose bile acid diarrhoea if INSL5 levels are only high in these individuals.

“When you go to the doctor with chronic diarrhoea, it’s likely they’ll test for food intolerances, rule out an infection or look for signs of inflammation. There has been significant research interest in the microbiome, but gut hormones have been neglected. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that gut hormones play an important role in things like gut health and weight management.”

INSL5 also provides a potential target for treatment. Dr Bannon and colleagues obtained further samples from Professor Robin Spiller at the University of Nottingham, who had given the anti-sickness medication ondansetron – known to block the action of INSL5 in mice – to patients with IBS. Analysis of these samples by the Cambridge team showed that around 40% of these patients had raised levels of INSL5, even though they had had bile acid malabsorption ruled out, and these patients responded best to ondansetron.

Exactly why ondansetron is effective is currently unclear, though a known side effect of the drug is constipation. The team will now be investigating this further, hopeful that it will allow them either to repurpose the drug or to develop even better treatments. Bile acid diarrhoea is usually treated with so-called bile acid sequestrants, but these are only effective in around two-thirds of patients.

Dr Bannon added: “I often get asked why we would have a hormone that gives you diarrhoea. I think of it as a kind of poison sensor. Bile acids aren't meant to be in the colon – they're an irritant to the colon and they're toxic to the microbiome. It makes sense that you would have something that detects toxins and helps the body rid itself of them. But a problem develops if it’s always being triggered by bile acid, causing very dramatic symptoms.”

Dr Bannon is a clinical fellow in the group led by Professors Fiona Gribble and Frank Reimann at the Institute of Metabolic Science, University of Cambridge.

The research was supported by the Medical Research Council and Wellcome, with additional support from the National Institute for Health and Care Research Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.

Reference

Bannon, CA et al. Insulin like peptide 5 is released in response to bile acid in the rectum and is associated with diarrhoea severity in patients with bile acid diarrhoea. Gut; 23 July 2025; DOI: 10.1136/gutjnl-2025-335393

High levels of a hormone found in cells in the gut could underlie many cases of chronic diarrhoea and help explain up to 40% of cases of patients with irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhoea, according to a new study led by scientists at the University of Cambridge.

I often get asked why we would have a hormone that gives you diarrhoea. I think of it as a kind of poison sensorChris BannonKinga Krzeminska (Getty Images)Stomach ache

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University 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

The research, published in the journal Gut, could help in the development of a blood test and points towards a potential new treatment.

When we eat, the liver releases bile acid to break down fats so that they can be absorbed into the body. Bile acid is released into the top end of the small intestine and then absorbed back into the body at the lower end.

However, around one person in every 100 is affected by a condition known as bile acid diarrhoea (also known as bile acid malabsorption), whereby the bile acid is not properly re-absorbed and makes its way into the large intestine (colon). It can trigger urgent and watery diarrhoea, and patients can risk episodes of incontinence.

Bile acid diarrhoea can be difficult to diagnose as there are currently no routine clinical blood tests. Many individuals are given a diagnosis of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), an umbrella term for a range of conditions. As many as one in 20 people is thought to have IBS, of which an estimated one in three patients with diarrhoea as their main symptom have undiagnosed bile acid diarrhoea.

Studies in mice have previously suggested that the gut hormone known as Insulin-Like Peptide 5 (INSL5) – present in cells at the far end of the colon and rectum – may play a role in chronic diarrhoea. INSL5 is released by these cells when irritated by bile acid.

Researchers at the Institute of Metabolic Science, University of Cambridge, have been exploring whether this hormone might also underlie chronic diarrhoea in humans. This has been possible thanks to a new antibody test developed by pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, with whom the team is collaborating, which allows them to measure tiny amounts of INSL5.

A study at the University of Adelaide looking at ways to trigger release of the gut hormone GLP-1 – the hormone upon which weight-loss drugs are based – previously found that giving a bile acid enema to healthy volunteers triggered release of GLP-1, but had the unintended consequence of causing diarrhoea. When the Cambridge team analysed samples from this study, they found that the bile acid enema caused levels of INSL5 to shoot up temporarily – and the higher the INSL5 levels, the faster the volunteers needed to use the toilet. This confirmed that INSL5 is likely to play a role in chronic cases of diarrhoea.

When the team analysed samples obtained from Professor Julian Walters at Imperial College London, which include samples from patients with bile acid diarrhoea, they found that while levels of INSL5 were almost undetectable in healthy volunteers, they were much higher in patients with bile acid diarrhoea. In addition, the higher the INSL5 level, the more watery their stool samples.

Dr Chris Bannon from the University of Cambridge, the study’s first author, said: “This was a very exciting finding because it showed us that this hormone could be playing a big part in symptoms of this misunderstood condition. It also meant it might allow us to develop a blood test to help diagnose bile acid diarrhoea if INSL5 levels are only high in these individuals.

“When you go to the doctor with chronic diarrhoea, it’s likely they’ll test for food intolerances, rule out an infection or look for signs of inflammation. There has been significant research interest in the microbiome, but gut hormones have been neglected. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that gut hormones play an important role in things like gut health and weight management.”

INSL5 also provides a potential target for treatment. Dr Bannon and colleagues obtained further samples from Professor Robin Spiller at the University of Nottingham, who had given the anti-sickness medication ondansetron – known to block the action of INSL5 in mice – to patients with IBS. Analysis of these samples by the Cambridge team showed that around 40% of these patients had raised levels of INSL5, even though they had had bile acid malabsorption ruled out, and these patients responded best to ondansetron.

Exactly why ondansetron is effective is currently unclear, though a known side effect of the drug is constipation. The team will now be investigating this further, hopeful that it will allow them either to repurpose the drug or to develop even better treatments. Bile acid diarrhoea is usually treated with so-called bile acid sequestrants, but these are only effective in around two-thirds of patients.

Dr Bannon added: “I often get asked why we would have a hormone that gives you diarrhoea. I think of it as a kind of poison sensor. Bile acids aren't meant to be in the colon – they're an irritant to the colon and they're toxic to the microbiome. It makes sense that you would have something that detects toxins and helps the body rid itself of them. But a problem develops if it’s always being triggered by bile acid, causing very dramatic symptoms.”

Dr Bannon is a clinical fellow in the group led by Professors Fiona Gribble and Frank Reimann at the Institute of Metabolic Science, University of Cambridge.

The research was supported by the Medical Research Council and Wellcome, with additional support from the National Institute for Health and Care Research Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.

Reference

Bannon, CA et al. Insulin like peptide 5 is released in response to bile acid in the rectum and is associated with diarrhoea severity in patients with bile acid diarrhoea. Gut; 23 July 2025; DOI: 10.1136/gutjnl-2025-335393

High levels of a hormone found in cells in the gut could underlie many cases of chronic diarrhoea and help explain up to 40% of cases of patients with irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhoea, according to a new study led by scientists at the University of Cambridge.

I often get asked why we would have a hormone that gives you diarrhoea. I think of it as a kind of poison sensorChris BannonKinga Krzeminska (Getty Images)Stomach ache

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University 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

Dementias such as Alzheimer's disease are estimated to affect more than 57.4 million people worldwide, a number that is expected to almost triple to 152.8 million cases by 2050. The impacts on the individuals, families and caregivers and society at large are immense.

While there are some indications that the prevalence of dementia is decreasing in Europe and North America, suggesting that it may be possible to reduce the risk of the disease at a population level, elsewhere the picture is less promising.

Air pollution has recently been identified as a risk factor for dementia, with several studies pointing the finger at a number of pollutants. However, the strength of evidence and ability to determine a causal effect has been varied.

In a paper published today in The Lancet Planetary Health, a team led by researchers at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge, carried out a systematic review and meta-analysis of existing scientific literature to examine this link further. This approach allowed them to bring together studies that on their own may not provide sufficient evidence, and which sometimes disagree with each other, to provide more robust overarching conclusions.

In total, the researchers included 51 studies, including data from more than 29 million participants who had been exposed to air pollutants for at least one year, mostly from high-income countries. Of these, 34 papers were included in the meta-analysis: 15 originated in North America, 10 in Europe, seven in Asia, and two in Australia.

The researchers found a positive and statistically-significant association between three types of air pollutant and dementia. These were:

• Particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 microns or less (PM2.5), a pollutant made up of tiny particles small enough that they can be inhaled deep into the lungs. These particles come from several sources, including vehicle emissions, power plants, industrial processes, wood burning stoves and fireplaces, and construction dust. They also form in the atmosphere because of complex chemical reactions involving other pollutants such as sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. The particles can stay in the air for a long time and travel a long way from where they were produced.
• Nitrogen dioxide (NO2), one of the key pollutants that arise from burning fossil fuels. It is found in vehicle exhaust, especially diesel exhaust, and industrial emissions, as well as those from gas stoves and heaters. Exposure to high concentrations of nitrogen dioxide can irritate the respiratory system, worsening and inducing conditions like asthma and reducing lung function.
• Soot from sources such as vehicle exhaust emissions and burning wood. It can trap heat and affect the climate. When inhaled, it can penetrate deep into the lungs, aggravating respiratory diseases and increasing the risk of heart problems.

According to the researchers, for every 10 micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m³) of PM2.5, an individual’s relative risk of dementia would increase by 17%. The average roadside measurement for PM2.5 in Central London in 2023 was 10 μg/m³.

For every 10 μg/m3 of NO2, the relative risk increased by 3%. The average roadside measurement for NO2 in Central London in 2023 was 33 µg/m³.

For each 1 μg/m³ of soot as found in PM2.5, the relative risk increased by 13%. Across the UK, annual mean soot concentrations measured at select roadside locations in 2023 were 0.93 μg/m³ in London, 1.51 μg/m³ in Birmingham and 0.65 μg/m³ in Glasgow.

Senior author Dr Haneen Khreis from the MRC Epidemiology Unit said: “Epidemiological evidence plays a crucial role in allowing us to determine whether or not air pollution increases the risk of dementia and by how much. Our work provides further evidence to support the observation that long-term exposure to outdoor air pollution is a risk factor for the onset of dementia in previously healthy adults.

“Tackling air pollution can deliver long-term health, social, climate, and economic benefits. It can reduce the immense burden on patients, families, and caregivers, while easing pressure on overstretched healthcare systems.”

Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain how air pollution may cause dementia, primarily involving inflammation in the brain and oxidative stress (a chemical process in the body that can cause damage to cells, proteins, and DNA). Both oxidative stress and inflammation play a well-established role in the onset and progression of dementia. Air pollution is thought to trigger these processes through direct entry to the brain or via the same mechanisms underlying lung and cardiovascular diseases. Air pollution can also enter circulation from the lungs and travel to solid organs, initiating local and wide-spread inflammation.

The researchers point out that the majority of people included in the published studies were white and living in high-income countries, even though marginalised groups tend to have a higher exposure to air pollution. Given that studies have suggested that reducing air pollution exposure appears to be more beneficial at reducing the risk of early death for marginalised groups, they call for future work to urgently ensure better and more adequate representation across ethnicities and low- and middle-income countries and communities.

Joint first author Clare Rogowski, also from the MRC Epidemiology Unit, said: “Efforts to reduce exposure to these key pollutants are likely to help reduce the burden of dementia on society. Stricter limits for several pollutants are likely to be necessary targeting major contributors such as the transport and industry sectors. Given the extent of air pollution, there is an urgent need for regional, national, and international policy interventions to combat air pollution equitably.”

Further analysis revealed that while exposure to these pollutants increased the risk of Alzheimer's disease, the effect seemed stronger for vascular dementia, a type of dementia caused by reduced blood flow to the brain. Around 180,000 people in the UK are thought to be affected by this type of dementia. However, as there were only a small number of studies that examined this difference, the researchers did not class it as statistically significant.

Joint first author Dr Christiaan Bredell from the University of Cambridge and North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust said: “These findings underscore the need for an interdisciplinary approach to dementia prevention. Preventing dementia is not just the responsibility of healthcare: this study strengthens the case that urban planning, transport policy, and environmental regulation all have a significant role to play.”

The research was funded by the European Research Council under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Framework Programme.

Reference

Best Rogowski, CB, & Bredell, C et al. Long-term Air Pollution Exposure and Incident Dementia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Lancet Planetary Health; 24 July 2025; DOI: 10.1016/S2542-5196(25)00118-4

An analysis of studies incorporating data from almost 30 million people has highlighted the role that air pollution – including that coming from car exhaust emissions – plays in increased risk of dementia.

Tackling air pollution can deliver long-term health, social, climate, and economic benefitsHaneen KhreisjoiseyshowaaTraffic jam

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University 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.

YesLicence type: Attribution-ShareAlike

Dementias such as Alzheimer's disease are estimated to affect more than 57.4 million people worldwide, a number that is expected to almost triple to 152.8 million cases by 2050. The impacts on the individuals, families and caregivers and society at large are immense.

While there are some indications that the prevalence of dementia is decreasing in Europe and North America, suggesting that it may be possible to reduce the risk of the disease at a population level, elsewhere the picture is less promising.

Air pollution has recently been identified as a risk factor for dementia, with several studies pointing the finger at a number of pollutants. However, the strength of evidence and ability to determine a causal effect has been varied.

In a paper published today in The Lancet Planetary Health, a team led by researchers at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge, carried out a systematic review and meta-analysis of existing scientific literature to examine this link further. This approach allowed them to bring together studies that on their own may not provide sufficient evidence, and which sometimes disagree with each other, to provide more robust overarching conclusions.

In total, the researchers included 51 studies, including data from more than 29 million participants who had been exposed to air pollutants for at least one year, mostly from high-income countries. Of these, 34 papers were included in the meta-analysis: 15 originated in North America, 10 in Europe, seven in Asia, and two in Australia.

The researchers found a positive and statistically-significant association between three types of air pollutant and dementia. These were:

• Particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 microns or less (PM2.5), a pollutant made up of tiny particles small enough that they can be inhaled deep into the lungs. These particles come from several sources, including vehicle emissions, power plants, industrial processes, wood burning stoves and fireplaces, and construction dust. They also form in the atmosphere because of complex chemical reactions involving other pollutants such as sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. The particles can stay in the air for a long time and travel a long way from where they were produced.
• Nitrogen dioxide (NO2), one of the key pollutants that arise from burning fossil fuels. It is found in vehicle exhaust, especially diesel exhaust, and industrial emissions, as well as those from gas stoves and heaters. Exposure to high concentrations of nitrogen dioxide can irritate the respiratory system, worsening and inducing conditions like asthma and reducing lung function.
• Soot from sources such as vehicle exhaust emissions and burning wood. It can trap heat and affect the climate. When inhaled, it can penetrate deep into the lungs, aggravating respiratory diseases and increasing the risk of heart problems.

According to the researchers, for every 10 micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m³) of PM2.5, an individual’s relative risk of dementia would increase by 17%. The average roadside measurement for PM2.5 in Central London in 2023 was 10 μg/m³.

For every 10 μg/m3 of NO2, the relative risk increased by 3%. The average roadside measurement for NO2 in Central London in 2023 was 33 µg/m³.

For each 1 μg/m³ of soot as found in PM2.5, the relative risk increased by 13%. Across the UK, annual mean soot concentrations measured at select roadside locations in 2023 were 0.93 μg/m³ in London, 1.51 μg/m³ in Birmingham and 0.65 μg/m³ in Glasgow.

Senior author Dr Haneen Khreis from the MRC Epidemiology Unit said: “Epidemiological evidence plays a crucial role in allowing us to determine whether or not air pollution increases the risk of dementia and by how much. Our work provides further evidence to support the observation that long-term exposure to outdoor air pollution is a risk factor for the onset of dementia in previously healthy adults.

“Tackling air pollution can deliver long-term health, social, climate, and economic benefits. It can reduce the immense burden on patients, families, and caregivers, while easing pressure on overstretched healthcare systems.”

Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain how air pollution may cause dementia, primarily involving inflammation in the brain and oxidative stress (a chemical process in the body that can cause damage to cells, proteins, and DNA). Both oxidative stress and inflammation play a well-established role in the onset and progression of dementia. Air pollution is thought to trigger these processes through direct entry to the brain or via the same mechanisms underlying lung and cardiovascular diseases. Air pollution can also enter circulation from the lungs and travel to solid organs, initiating local and wide-spread inflammation.

The researchers point out that the majority of people included in the published studies were white and living in high-income countries, even though marginalised groups tend to have a higher exposure to air pollution. Given that studies have suggested that reducing air pollution exposure appears to be more beneficial at reducing the risk of early death for marginalised groups, they call for future work to urgently ensure better and more adequate representation across ethnicities and low- and middle-income countries and communities.

Joint first author Clare Rogowski, also from the MRC Epidemiology Unit, said: “Efforts to reduce exposure to these key pollutants are likely to help reduce the burden of dementia on society. Stricter limits for several pollutants are likely to be necessary targeting major contributors such as the transport and industry sectors. Given the extent of air pollution, there is an urgent need for regional, national, and international policy interventions to combat air pollution equitably.”

Further analysis revealed that while exposure to these pollutants increased the risk of Alzheimer's disease, the effect seemed stronger for vascular dementia, a type of dementia caused by reduced blood flow to the brain. Around 180,000 people in the UK are thought to be affected by this type of dementia. However, as there were only a small number of studies that examined this difference, the researchers did not class it as statistically significant.

Joint first author Dr Christiaan Bredell from the University of Cambridge and North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust said: “These findings underscore the need for an interdisciplinary approach to dementia prevention. Preventing dementia is not just the responsibility of healthcare: this study strengthens the case that urban planning, transport policy, and environmental regulation all have a significant role to play.”

The research was funded by the European Research Council under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Framework Programme.

Reference

Best Rogowski, CB, & Bredell, C et al. Long-term Air Pollution Exposure and Incident Dementia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Lancet Planetary Health; 24 July 2025; DOI: 10.1016/S2542-5196(25)00118-4

An analysis of studies incorporating data from almost 30 million people has highlighted the role that air pollution – including that coming from car exhaust emissions – plays in increased risk of dementia.

Tackling air pollution can deliver long-term health, social, climate, and economic benefitsHaneen KhreisjoiseyshowaaTraffic jam

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University 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.

YesLicence type: Attribution-ShareAlike

Lord Smith, the outgoing Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge, becomes the 109th Chancellor and will hold the office for ten years.  

He said: “To be elected as Chancellor of the University I love is a huge honour. I’m thrilled. I look forward to being the best possible ambassador for Cambridge, to being a strong voice for higher education more generally, and to working closely together with the Vice-Chancellor and her team.” 

Lord Smith’s election follows a process which attracted ten candidates. For the first time the election was opened to online voting and more than 23,000 alumni and staff participated. In addition, almost 2,000 chose to vote in person at the University's Senate House.      

Professor Deborah Prentice, the Vice-Chancellor, said: "On behalf of everyone at the University, I offer my warm congratulations to Chris on his election. I very much look forward to working with him and building on the strong relationship that we have developed since I became Vice-Chancellor. Chris has had a long involvement with the University and brings a wealth of relevant experience to this important role.”  

“I would like to thank the other nine candidates for standing for the role and their willingness to serve Cambridge.”  

Lord Smith has been the Master of Pembroke since 2015 and steps down at the end of July. He is a former Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and later Chairman of the Environment Agency.

Born in 1951, Lord Smith was educated in Edinburgh and then Pembroke College, Cambridge, achieving a double first in English (and later a PhD on Wordsworth and Coleridge) and was also a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard.    

He began his political career as a Labour Councillor for the London Borough of Islington, becoming MP for Islington South and Finsbury in 1983. In 1992 he joined the Shadow Cabinet and held a number of front bench posts before Labour came to power in 1997. He served as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport until 2001 when he returned to the back benches, standing down from the Commons in 2005.  Immediately afterwards he was made a life peer.

In July 2008 he became Chairman of the Environment Agency. He chaired the Environment Agency from 2008 to 2014; from 2007 to 2017 he was also Chairman of the Advertising Standards Authority.

The position of Chancellor stretches back more than 800 years to the foundation of the University. Although the role is primarily ceremonial and without executive responsibilities, the Chancellor has an important part to play in acting as a sounding board for senior figures within the University, in supporting fundraising and in acting as an ambassador for Cambridge. The most significant commitment for the Chancellor is to advocate and support the University’s aims and strategic interests.

The election was held between 9 and 18 July. It was conducted under the single transferable vote system and administered on behalf of the University by Civica Election Services. The results, based on the final numbers of votes allocated to each candidate, were as follows:  

1. Lord Chris Smith  
2. Dr Mohamed El-Erian  
3. Ms Sandi Toksvig 
4. Lord John Browne  
5. Professor Wyn Evans  
6. Mrs Gina Miller  
7. Mr Tony Booth  
8. Dr Mark Mann  
9. Dr Ayham Ammora  
10. Mr Ali Azeem

Read the full results 

Lord Chris Smith has been elected as the new Chancellor of the University of Cambridge.

To be elected as Chancellor of the University I love is a huge honour. I’m thrilled. I look forward to being the best possible ambassador for Cambridge, to being a strong voice for higher education more generally, and to working closely together with the Vice-Chancellor and her teamLord SmithLord Chris Smith

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University 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

Lord Smith, the outgoing Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge, becomes the 109th Chancellor and will hold the office for ten years.  

He said: “To be elected as Chancellor of the University I love is a huge honour. I’m thrilled. I look forward to being the best possible ambassador for Cambridge, to being a strong voice for higher education more generally, and to working closely together with the Vice-Chancellor and her team.” 

Lord Smith’s election follows a process which attracted ten candidates. For the first time the election was opened to online voting and more than 23,000 alumni and staff participated. In addition, almost 2,000 chose to vote in person at the University's Senate House.      

Professor Deborah Prentice, the Vice-Chancellor, said: "On behalf of everyone at the University, I offer my warm congratulations to Chris on his election. I very much look forward to working with him and building on the strong relationship that we have developed since I became Vice-Chancellor. Chris has had a long involvement with the University and brings a wealth of relevant experience to this important role.”  

“I would like to thank the other nine candidates for standing for the role and their willingness to serve Cambridge.”  

Lord Smith has been the Master of Pembroke since 2015 and steps down at the end of July. He is a former Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and later Chairman of the Environment Agency.

Born in 1951, Lord Smith was educated in Edinburgh and then Pembroke College, Cambridge, achieving a double first in English (and later a PhD on Wordsworth and Coleridge) and was also a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard.    

He began his political career as a Labour Councillor for the London Borough of Islington, becoming MP for Islington South and Finsbury in 1983. In 1992 he joined the Shadow Cabinet and held a number of front bench posts before Labour came to power in 1997. He served as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport until 2001 when he returned to the back benches, standing down from the Commons in 2005.  Immediately afterwards he was made a life peer.

In July 2008 he became Chairman of the Environment Agency. He chaired the Environment Agency from 2008 to 2014; from 2007 to 2017 he was also Chairman of the Advertising Standards Authority.

The position of Chancellor stretches back more than 800 years to the foundation of the University. Although the role is primarily ceremonial and without executive responsibilities, the Chancellor has an important part to play in acting as a sounding board for senior figures within the University, in supporting fundraising and in acting as an ambassador for Cambridge. The most significant commitment for the Chancellor is to advocate and support the University’s aims and strategic interests.

The election was held between 9 and 18 July. It was conducted under the single transferable vote system and administered on behalf of the University by Civica Election Services. The results, based on the final numbers of votes allocated to each candidate, were as follows:  

1. Lord Chris Smith  
2. Dr Mohamed El-Erian  
3. Ms Sandi Toksvig 
4. Lord John Browne  
5. Professor Wyn Evans  
6. Mrs Gina Miller  
7. Mr Tony Booth  
8. Dr Mark Mann  
9. Dr Ayham Ammora  
10. Mr Ali Azeem

Read the full results 

Lord Chris Smith has been elected as the new Chancellor of the University of Cambridge.

To be elected as Chancellor of the University I love is a huge honour. I’m thrilled. I look forward to being the best possible ambassador for Cambridge, to being a strong voice for higher education more generally, and to working closely together with the Vice-Chancellor and her teamLord SmithLord Chris Smith

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University 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

On 3 April 2024, a magnitude 7.4 quake—Taiwan’s strongest in 25 years—shook the country's eastern coast. Stringent building codes spared most structures, but mountainous and remote villages were devastated by landslides.

When disasters affect large and inaccessible areas, responders often turn to satellite images to pinpoint affected areas and prioritise relief efforts.

But mapping landslides from satellite imagery by eye can be time-intensive, said Lorenzo Nava, who is jointly based at Cambridge’s Departments of Earth Sciences and Geography. “In the aftermath of a disaster, time really matters,” he said. Using AI, he identified 7,000 landslides after the Taiwan earthquake, and within three hours of the satellite imagery being acquired.

Since the Taiwan earthquake, Nava has been developing his AI method alongside an international team. By employing a suite of satellite technologies—including satellites that can see through clouds and at night—the researchers hope to enhance AI’s landslide detection capabilities.

Multiplying Hazards

Triggered by major earthquakes or intense rainfall, landslides are often worsened by human activities such as deforestation and construction on unstable slopes. In certain environments, they can trigger additional hazards such as fast-moving debris flows or severe flooding, compounding their destructive impact.

Nava’s work fits into a larger effort at Cambridge to understand how landslides and other hazards can set off cascading ‘multihazard’ chains. The CoMHaz group, led by Maximillian Van Wyk de Vries, Professor of Natural Hazards in the Departments of Geography and Earth Sciences, draws on information from satellite imagery, computer modelling and fieldwork to locate landslides, understand why they happen and ultimately predict their occurrence.

They’re also working with communities to raise landslide awareness. In Nepal, Nava and Van Wyk de Vries teamed up with local scientists and the Climate and Disaster Resilience in Nepal (CDRIN) consortium to pilot an early warning system for Butwal, which sits beneath a massive unstable slope.

Improved AI-detection

Nava is training AI to identify landslides in two types of satellite images—optical images of the ground surface and radar data, the latter of which can penetrate cloud cover and even acquire images at night.

Radar images can, however, be difficult to interpret, as they use greyscale to depict contrasting surface properties and landscape features can also appear distorted. These challenges make radar data well-suited for AI-assisted analysis, helping extract features that may otherwise go unnoticed.

By combining the cloud-penetrating capabilities of radar with the fidelity of optical images, Nava hopes to build an AI-powered model that can accurately spot landslides even in poor weather conditions.

His trial following the 2024 Taiwan earthquake showed promise, detecting thousands of landslides that would otherwise go unnoticed beneath cloud cover. But Nava acknowledges that there is still more work needed, both to improve the model’s accuracy and its transparency.

He wants to build trust in the model and ensure its outputs are interpretable and actionable by decision-makers. “Very often, the decision-makers are not the ones who developed the algorithm,” said Nava. “AI can feel like a black box. Its internal logic is not always transparent, and that can make people hesitant to act on its outputs.

“It’s important to make it easier for end users to evaluate the quality of AI-generated information before incorporating it into important decisions.” 

This is something he is now addressing as part of a broader partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the International Telecommunication Union’s AI for Good Foundation and Global Initiative on Resilience to Natural Hazards through AI Solutions.

At a recent working group meeting at the ESA Centre for Earth Observation in Italy, the researchers launched a data-science challenge to crowdsource efforts to improve the model. “We’re opening this up and looking for help from the wider coding community,” said Nava.

Beyond improving the model’s functionality, Nava says the goal is to incorporate features that explain its reasoning—potentially using visualisations such as maps that show the likelihood of an image containing landslides to help end users understand the outputs.

“In high-stakes scenarios like disaster response, trust in AI-generated results is crucial. Through this challenge, we aim to bring transparency to the model’s decision-making process, empowering decision-makers on the ground to act with confidence and speed.”

Reference: 
Lorenzo Nava, Alessandro Novellino et al. 'Brief Communication: AI-driven rapid landslides mapping following the 2024 Hualien City Earthquake in Taiwan.' Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (2025). DOI: 10.5194/nhess-25-2371-2025

 

Researchers from the University of Cambridge are using AI to speed up landslide detection following major earthquakes and extreme rainfall events—buying valuable time to coordinate relief efforts and reduce humanitarian impacts.

Taitung County Government via Wikimedia CommonsRescue teams at one of the landslides following the Taiwan earthquake

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University 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.

YesLicence type: Attribution

On 3 April 2024, a magnitude 7.4 quake—Taiwan’s strongest in 25 years—shook the country's eastern coast. Stringent building codes spared most structures, but mountainous and remote villages were devastated by landslides.

When disasters affect large and inaccessible areas, responders often turn to satellite images to pinpoint affected areas and prioritise relief efforts.

But mapping landslides from satellite imagery by eye can be time-intensive, said Lorenzo Nava, who is jointly based at Cambridge’s Departments of Earth Sciences and Geography. “In the aftermath of a disaster, time really matters,” he said. Using AI, he identified 7,000 landslides after the Taiwan earthquake, and within three hours of the satellite imagery being acquired.

Since the Taiwan earthquake, Nava has been developing his AI method alongside an international team. By employing a suite of satellite technologies—including satellites that can see through clouds and at night—the researchers hope to enhance AI’s landslide detection capabilities.

Multiplying Hazards

Triggered by major earthquakes or intense rainfall, landslides are often worsened by human activities such as deforestation and construction on unstable slopes. In certain environments, they can trigger additional hazards such as fast-moving debris flows or severe flooding, compounding their destructive impact.

Nava’s work fits into a larger effort at Cambridge to understand how landslides and other hazards can set off cascading ‘multihazard’ chains. The CoMHaz group, led by Maximillian Van Wyk de Vries, Professor of Natural Hazards in the Departments of Geography and Earth Sciences, draws on information from satellite imagery, computer modelling and fieldwork to locate landslides, understand why they happen and ultimately predict their occurrence.

They’re also working with communities to raise landslide awareness. In Nepal, Nava and Van Wyk de Vries teamed up with local scientists and the Climate and Disaster Resilience in Nepal (CDRIN) consortium to pilot an early warning system for Butwal, which sits beneath a massive unstable slope.

Improved AI-detection

Nava is training AI to identify landslides in two types of satellite images—optical images of the ground surface and radar data, the latter of which can penetrate cloud cover and even acquire images at night.

Radar images can, however, be difficult to interpret, as they use greyscale to depict contrasting surface properties and landscape features can also appear distorted. These challenges make radar data well-suited for AI-assisted analysis, helping extract features that may otherwise go unnoticed.

By combining the cloud-penetrating capabilities of radar with the fidelity of optical images, Nava hopes to build an AI-powered model that can accurately spot landslides even in poor weather conditions.

His trial following the 2024 Taiwan earthquake showed promise, detecting thousands of landslides that would otherwise go unnoticed beneath cloud cover. But Nava acknowledges that there is still more work needed, both to improve the model’s accuracy and its transparency.

He wants to build trust in the model and ensure its outputs are interpretable and actionable by decision-makers. “Very often, the decision-makers are not the ones who developed the algorithm,” said Nava. “AI can feel like a black box. Its internal logic is not always transparent, and that can make people hesitant to act on its outputs.

“It’s important to make it easier for end users to evaluate the quality of AI-generated information before incorporating it into important decisions.” 

This is something he is now addressing as part of a broader partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the International Telecommunication Union’s AI for Good Foundation and Global Initiative on Resilience to Natural Hazards through AI Solutions.

At a recent working group meeting at the ESA Centre for Earth Observation in Italy, the researchers launched a data-science challenge to crowdsource efforts to improve the model. “We’re opening this up and looking for help from the wider coding community,” said Nava.

Beyond improving the model’s functionality, Nava says the goal is to incorporate features that explain its reasoning—potentially using visualisations such as maps that show the likelihood of an image containing landslides to help end users understand the outputs.

“In high-stakes scenarios like disaster response, trust in AI-generated results is crucial. Through this challenge, we aim to bring transparency to the model’s decision-making process, empowering decision-makers on the ground to act with confidence and speed.”

Reference: 
Lorenzo Nava, Alessandro Novellino et al. 'Brief Communication: AI-driven rapid landslides mapping following the 2024 Hualien City Earthquake in Taiwan.' Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (2025). DOI: 10.5194/nhess-25-2371-2025

 

Researchers from the University of Cambridge are using AI to speed up landslide detection following major earthquakes and extreme rainfall events—buying valuable time to coordinate relief efforts and reduce humanitarian impacts.

Taitung County Government via Wikimedia CommonsRescue teams at one of the landslides following the Taiwan earthquake

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University 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.

YesLicence type: Attribution

Researchers have conducted the world’s biggest ever bird survey, recording 971 different species living in forests and cattle pastures across the South American country of Colombia. This represents almost 10% of the world’s birds.

They combined the results, gathered over a decade, with information on each species’ sensitivity to habitat conversion to find that the biodiversity loss caused by clearing rainforest for cattle pasture is on average 60% worse than previously thought.

Until now, understanding the biodiversity impact of land-use change has generally involved small-scale, local surveys. The researchers say that this approach does not represent the larger-scale damage caused to nature.

When forests are converted to pasture, some species win and others lose. Measuring the biodiversity loss at local scale does not capture the larger-scale effect of forest conversion, which is occurring across the ranges of many different species. While the same species usually survive on pastureland, a wide range of other species don’t, so overall biodiversity is more severely reduced at large scale.

The results are published today in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

Professor David Edwards in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Plant Sciences and Conservation Research Institute, senior author of the report, said: “This is a really surprising result. We found that the biodiversity loss caused by clearing rainforest for pastureland is being massively underestimated.”

He added: “When people want to understand the wider impact of deforestation on biodiversity, they tend to do a local survey and extrapolate the results. But the problem is that tree clearance is occurring at massive spatial scales, across all sorts of different habitats and elevations.

“When we looked the biodiversity impact of deforestation across thirteen different eco-regions in Colombia, we found a 62% greater biodiversity loss than local survey results would indicate.”

The study also showed that at least six different eco-regions – that is, regions containing distinct types of plants and animals - must be considered for an accurate assessment of overall biodiversity impact. This is because the species in different eco-regions have different sensitivities to habitat conversion.

Biodiversity offsetting schemes, which aim to compensate for species losses caused by developments in one place by boosting biodiversity in another, rely on accurate measures of biodiversity.

Trees are also being cleared at huge scales in Colombia and other tropical regions to create growing space for major agricultural crops including rubber, oil palm, sugar cane and coffee.

Edwards said: “The food we eat comes with a much great environmental cost than we thought. We need policy makers to think much more about the larger scale biodiversity impact of deforestation.”

Tropical birdsong recordings

The team studied Columbia’s birdlife across its diverse landscapes for over seven years, recording the song of hundreds of bird species to help them identify the species present in landscapes across the country, from pasture to mountain forest. In about 80% of cases the birds were heard but not seen, requiring the team to make identifications from the sounds alone.

With information about the birds, including their size and diet, the team could predict which other species were likely to be living in the same regions and how they too would respond to deforestation.

A highly biodiverse country

Colombia is home to some of the most beautiful and exotic animal and plant life in the world, with almost one third made up of rainforest.

Particularly biodiverse areas, including the Caqueta moist forests and the Napo moist forests, can have 500-600 different bird species within an area of ten square kilometres – but many of these species have very specific habitat requirements. The study showed that if trees are cleared across their range these species are likely to die out.

Land-use change, particularly in the highly biodiverse tropics, is one of the main causes of the global biodiversity crisis.

This research was funded by the Research Council of Norway and the Natural Environment Research Council.

Reference 

Socolar, J. B. et al: ‘Tropical biodiversity loss from land-use change is severely underestimated by local-scale assessments.’ Nature Ecology and Evolution, July 2025. DOI: 10.1038/s41559-025-02779-4

In the largest ever survey of rainforest birdlife, scientists have discovered that deforestation to create pastureland in Colombia is causing around 60% more damage to biodiversity than previously estimated.

The food we eat comes with a much great environmental cost than we thought. We need policy makers to think much more about the larger scale biodiversity impact of deforestation.David EdwardsDavid EdwardsSavanna hawk is a widespread species that invades formerly forested areas after clearance

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University 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.

YesLicence type: Attribution-Noncommerical

Researchers have conducted the world’s biggest ever bird survey, recording 971 different species living in forests and cattle pastures across the South American country of Colombia. This represents almost 10% of the world’s birds.

They combined the results, gathered over a decade, with information on each species’ sensitivity to habitat conversion to find that the biodiversity loss caused by clearing rainforest for cattle pasture is on average 60% worse than previously thought.

Until now, understanding the biodiversity impact of land-use change has generally involved small-scale, local surveys. The researchers say that this approach does not represent the larger-scale damage caused to nature.

When forests are converted to pasture, some species win and others lose. Measuring the biodiversity loss at local scale does not capture the larger-scale effect of forest conversion, which is occurring across the ranges of many different species. While the same species usually survive on pastureland, a wide range of other species don’t, so overall biodiversity is more severely reduced at large scale.

The results are published today in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

Professor David Edwards in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Plant Sciences and Conservation Research Institute, senior author of the report, said: “This is a really surprising result. We found that the biodiversity loss caused by clearing rainforest for pastureland is being massively underestimated.”

He added: “When people want to understand the wider impact of deforestation on biodiversity, they tend to do a local survey and extrapolate the results. But the problem is that tree clearance is occurring at massive spatial scales, across all sorts of different habitats and elevations.

“When we looked the biodiversity impact of deforestation across thirteen different eco-regions in Colombia, we found a 62% greater biodiversity loss than local survey results would indicate.”

The study also showed that at least six different eco-regions – that is, regions containing distinct types of plants and animals - must be considered for an accurate assessment of overall biodiversity impact. This is because the species in different eco-regions have different sensitivities to habitat conversion.

Biodiversity offsetting schemes, which aim to compensate for species losses caused by developments in one place by boosting biodiversity in another, rely on accurate measures of biodiversity.

Trees are also being cleared at huge scales in Colombia and other tropical regions to create growing space for major agricultural crops including rubber, oil palm, sugar cane and coffee.

Edwards said: “The food we eat comes with a much great environmental cost than we thought. We need policy makers to think much more about the larger scale biodiversity impact of deforestation.”

Tropical birdsong recordings

The team studied Columbia’s birdlife across its diverse landscapes for over seven years, recording the song of hundreds of bird species to help them identify the species present in landscapes across the country, from pasture to mountain forest. In about 80% of cases the birds were heard but not seen, requiring the team to make identifications from the sounds alone.

With information about the birds, including their size and diet, the team could predict which other species were likely to be living in the same regions and how they too would respond to deforestation.

A highly biodiverse country

Colombia is home to some of the most beautiful and exotic animal and plant life in the world, with almost one third made up of rainforest.

Particularly biodiverse areas, including the Caqueta moist forests and the Napo moist forests, can have 500-600 different bird species within an area of ten square kilometres – but many of these species have very specific habitat requirements. The study showed that if trees are cleared across their range these species are likely to die out.

Land-use change, particularly in the highly biodiverse tropics, is one of the main causes of the global biodiversity crisis.

This research was funded by the Research Council of Norway and the Natural Environment Research Council.

Reference 

Socolar, J. B. et al: ‘Tropical biodiversity loss from land-use change is severely underestimated by local-scale assessments.’ Nature Ecology and Evolution, July 2025. DOI: 10.1038/s41559-025-02779-4

In the largest ever survey of rainforest birdlife, scientists have discovered that deforestation to create pastureland in Colombia is causing around 60% more damage to biodiversity than previously estimated.

The food we eat comes with a much great environmental cost than we thought. We need policy makers to think much more about the larger scale biodiversity impact of deforestation.David EdwardsDavid EdwardsSavanna hawk is a widespread species that invades formerly forested areas after clearance

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University 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.

YesLicence type: Attribution-Noncommerical