The UK relies on effective environmental monitoring to support decision making, for example on actions needed to tackle the impacts of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. Some traditional methods of environmental monitoring can be slow, limited in scope and unable to capture the full complexity of these rapidly evolving issues. Growing urgency There is growing urgency to protect natural resources and mitigate environmental threats, as well as a global need for more advanced, comprehensive and efficient monitoring solutions. The UK environmental monitoring sector has access to a wide range of cutting-edge facilities and academic research and expertise, so is…
Author: UKRI
This landmark achievement has been conducted by a large international collaboration of scientists, called the FlyWire Consortium, including researchers from: the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology Princeton University the University of Vermont the University of Cambridge It is published in a pair of papers in Nature today (see the ‘further information’ section for links to the papers). 139,255 neurons The diagram of all 139,255 neurons in the adult fly brain is the first of an entire brain for an animal that can walk and see. Previous efforts have completed the whole brain diagrams for much smaller brains.…
The new investment aims to: scale up semiconductor manufacturing within the UK improve supply chain resilience within the UK establish innovations and new manufacturing techniques expand capability or performance of existing manufacturing techniques encourage relationships between product designers and manufacturers to develop new manufacturing techniques or expanding capability encourage new collaborations across industry and academia National semiconductor strategy This is the final competition which forms part of an £18 million programme supporting the UK government’s national semiconductor strategy. The strategy plans to build on the UK’s strengths in semiconductors to grow the sector, increase our resilience and protect our security.…
Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency, will invest £3.2 million in seven innovative projects to help propel the decarbonisation of the UK’s concrete industry. The seven projects receiving funding Cemcor Ltd The funding will aid development of calcined clay from low-grade sources, to produce a new generation of low-carbon cement and concrete. Cocoon Carbon Ltd The funding will support work scaling the production of a novel cementitious material from electric arc furnace steel production. Skanska UK Ltd The funding will continue repurposing excavated London Clay in concrete applications. Cemex UK Operations Ltd The funding will aid development of combining micronised…
Generative AI Generative AI is a broad label used to describe any AI that can be used to create new content such as text, images, video, audio or code. It is a fast emerging and evolving technology that can present opportunities and bring benefits in the context of research and innovation by: facilitating creativity and the development of ideas providing a useful tool for people who have neurodivergencies reducing language barriers Generative AI also presents potential risks for research and innovation which can compromise the integrity of the application and assessment process. Upholding integrity Integrity is critical to upholding the…
We are committed to ensuring that clinical researchers working in a university setting receive a salary uplift in line with their colleagues working as consultants and junior doctors, soon to be called resident doctors, in their local NHS provider. Salary uplift Professor Patrick Chinnery, the Medical Research Council’s (MRC) Executive Chair said: Clinical researchers deliver world-leading biomedical and health research in the UK. They enable an NHS fit for the future, with research active hospitals consistently delivering better patient outcomes. They also kickstart economic growth with every £1 invested in medical research delivering a further 25p return for every year…
The team of scientists are from the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC LMB), and the UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI) at the University of Cambridge. They say this promising approach for Alzheimer’s disease could also be applied in future to other brain disorders driven by protein aggregation inside cells, such as: motor neuron disease Huntington’s disease Parkinson’s disease Alzheimer’s disease In two papers, published in Cell and Science, they demonstrated how utilising the unique capabilities of a protein called TRIM21 gives the potential therapies two key advantages. Firstly, they only destroyed the disease-linked tau aggregates, leaving…
New research has found four genes with some of the largest known effects on the timing of menopause discovered to date, providing new insight into links between menopause timing and cancer risk. Genes come in pairs, and when women only have one working copy of the four new genes identified, they have menopause between two and five and a half years earlier than average. Published in ‘Nature’, the large-scale analysis was funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and Wellcome. The team first looked at variation in data from genetic sequencing of 106,973 post-menopausal female participants in the UK Biobank…
Further information Challenge area: supporting a just transition Smart Heat and Intelligent Energy in Low-income Districts (SHIELD) Lead network type: electricity Funding award: £5,401,332 SHIELD is a bold new initiative aimed at making the net zero transition accessible to low-income residents of social housing and other tenures who cannot afford low carbon technologies. Project partners: UK Power Networks (lead) Power Circle Projects Eastlight Community Homes Electricity North West Essex County Council Thermify UK Community Works UrbanChain Citizens Advice Essex Essex Community Energy Challenge area: accelerating decarbonisation of major energy demands Flexible railway energy hubs Lead network type: electricity Funding award:…
The Medical Research Council (MRC) Protein Phosphorylation and Ubiquitylation Unit (PPU) is a major research centre focusing on understanding how signals are transmitted within the body’s cells. Deciphering how disruption of these processes can cause many diseases, such as neurodegeneration, cancer, hypertension and immune disorders, aims to lead to the development of new treatments. The MRC PPU is based at the University of Dundee School of Life Sciences. Funding will support more than 200 scientific and support staff, and students at the unit to continue their research. Research by the unit has already contributed to breakthroughs, such as a drug…