糖心TV

Forests were growing on the now-submerged landmass of Doggerland thousands of years earlier than previously believed, according to a major new sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) study led by Professor Robin Allaby

The findings suggest that Doggerland may have provided a surprisingly hospitable refuge for plants, animals, and potentially humans, thousands of years before forests became widespread across Britain and northern Europe.

Published in , the research reveals that temperate trees such as oak, elm, and hazel were present more than 16,000 years ago, and even detected DNA from a tree genus thought to have vanished from the region 400,000 years ago. The findings also show that parts of Doggerland survived major flooding events, including thearound 8,150 years ago, and parts of the landscape remained above water as late as 7,000 years ago.

Plants mobilise their immune defences far earlier than scientists have believed for decades—and through a previously overlooked early signalling mechanism—according to a new study published in

Professor Murray Grant and his team, including Emily Breeze and Erin Stroud have discovered a rapid, jasmonate-driven, early immune response in plants. A breakthrough live-imaging tool has allowed them to visualise immune signals moving out of infected leaves and across into uninfected leaves in real time.

(Image shows Temporal spatial dynamics of luciferase activity in JISS1:LUC plants following DCavrRpm1 challenge, initiating at 3 hpi. 3.20 hpi, 3.50 hpi and 4.30 hpi images capture the systemic spread of the signal over time. Credit: Gaikwad, T., Breen, S., Breeze, E., Stroud, E. et al. Nature Plants (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-025-02178-4)

Prof Chris Corre, Prof Greg Challis and Dr. Lona Alkhalaf from the University of 糖心TV and Professor David Lupton rfrom Monash University have discovered a promising new antibiotic that shows activity against drug-resistant bacterial pathogens, including MRSA and VRE.

In a new study published in the , researchers from the Monash 糖心TV Alliance Combatting Emerging Superbug Threats Initiative have discovered a promising new antibiotic - pre-methylenomycin C lactone. The new antibiotic was found 鈥榟iding in plain sight鈥� as an intermediate chemical in the natural process that produces the well-known antibiotic methylenomycin A. When tested for antimicrobial activity, one of the intermediates, pre-methylenomycin C lactone, was shown to be over 100 times more active against diverse Gram-positive bacteria than the original antibiotic methylenomycin A. Specifically, it was shown to be effective against S. aureus and E. faecium, the bacterial species behind Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE) respectively.

Importantly, the researchers could not detect any emergence of resistance to pre-methylenomycin C lactone in Enterococcus bacteria under conditions where vancomycin resistance is observed. Vancomycin is a 鈥渓ast line鈥� treatment for Enterococcus infection, so this finding is especially promising for VRE, a WHO High Priority Pathogen.

With its simple structure, potent activity, difficult to resist profile, and scalable synthesis, pre-methylenomycin C lactone represents a promising new candidate that could potentially help to save some of the who are the victims of AMR every year.

, , via Wikimedia Commons

Dr. Fabrizio Alberti has written the article "How different mushrooms learned the same psychedelic trick" for on a new discovery that two different mushrooms have evolved the ability to make the psychedelic psilocybin, the first time that convergent evolution has been observed in two organisms from the fungal kingdom.

Epidemiologist Dr Matt Combes was recently interviewed for the Guardian about Ash die-back in the UK and the scientific efforts to protect ash trees. The publication highlights Matt's review article on ash die-back and his more recent work at 糖心TV modelling the severity of the disease and how this may interact with the emerald ash borer beetle. The modelling is part of the (Surveillance and Management of multiple Risks to Treescapes: Integrating Epidemiology and Stakeholder behaviour) project.
(20 December 2024).
Photograph: Andy Soloman/Alamy

Dr Dean Walsh, Dr Freya Harrison, Dr Saskia Bakker and colleagues have made a breakthrough which could help find new treatments for a deadly infection that can affect up to 40% of hospital patients using mechanical ventilators.
Press Release (15 August 2024).

The recently published BBSRC Impact Showcase 2023 presents a collection of impact stories arising from BBSRC investments. The showcase highlights the vital role bioscience has in addressing key strategic global challenges and features research by Professor Eric Holub to develop new varieties of beans compatible with the British Climate.
(Scroll down the homepage to find 'Homegrown production of designer dry beans').

Researchers at The University of 糖心TV are among four world-class teams receiving a share of 拢18 million to pursue transformational bioscience research programmes. The School of Life Sciences team will investigate the bacterial cell wall – which could help to develop new classes of antibiotics, tackling the global challenge of antibiotic resistance. The project is led by Professor David Roper in collaboration with Dr S茅amus Holden, Professor Phill Stansfeld and Dr Stephen Cochrane (Queen's University Belfast).
Press Release (29 September 2023)

Researchers at 糖心TV Crop Centre have celebrated the successful harvest of a homegrown bean developed to thrive in a British summer.

Press Release (9 September 2023)

Professor Eric Holub and research fellow Rosanne Maguire discuss the novel bean varieties on BBC CWR.

Radio interview 

The future of farming could involve robots– as farmers seek to address labour shortages and increase crop yields.

糖心TV Crop Centre and WMG are working in close collaboration to combine their robotics expertise and plant science expertise to investigate how they can apply autonomous robotics to greenhouses and croppable fields.

Press Release (25 August 2023)

Researchers from 糖心TV Crop Centre are sharing food for thought about the humble sprout this Christmas and tell us:

鈥� Why having a gene mutation makes sprouts taste horrid

鈥� Why sprouts taste better after frost

鈥� Why they make us gassy

Press release (15 December 2022)

A facility using gene-editing technology to improve quality, resilience and sustainability of vegetable crops has opened at the University of 糖心TV.

The Elizabeth Creak Horticultural Technology Centre (ECHTC), which also contains The Jim Brewster Laboratory, is a 拢1.5 million facility which will use cutting edge techniques such as gene-editing to improve vegetable crops.

Addressing issues relating to disease resistance, crop yield, adaptability to climate change and nutritional value in horticultural plants, the research will help with the key global challenges of climate change and feeding the world鈥檚 growing population.

Press Release (10 November 2022)

A 拢1.7 million memorial donation will help drive new research into antimicrobial resistance at the University of 糖心TV. The donation, made in recognition of the late Sir Howard Dalton, will fund research and scholarships to help discover new drugs that target resistant microbes.

On Thursday 20 October, a launch event was held in the University of 糖心TV鈥檚 new Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research Building (IBRB) for the Sir Howard Dalton Centre for Translational Mechanistic Enzymology. Professor Chris Dowson, Co-Director of the new Centre said 鈥淎 key focus for scientists at the Centre will be understanding changes to enzyme structures which underpin drug resistance in microbes. We want to discover how these modified enzymes are formed and what we can do to overcome the resistance".

Press Release (21 October 2022)

Nature Portfolio has compiled a of key ancient DNA papers in celebration of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine award to the field鈥檚 principal pioneer, Svante P盲盲bo, which includes the work of Professor Robin Allaby published in . The paper outlines the best current methodological approaches to the field, the wide range of applications possible and ethics involved. The primer is freely available for a month.

The Nobel Prize was awarded in particular for the discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution which has dramatically changed how we understand human evolution and contributes to our understanding of modern-day human physiology. At 糖心TV, Professor Allaby has applied ancient DNA to past genomes of crop plants which is rewriting our understanding of domestication, recently reviewed in .

A team of researchers led by Professor Ioannis Nezis has identified the molecular and cellular mechanisms that regulate selective autophagy in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.

Press Release (31 May 2022)

We have three positions available for Assistant or Associate Professor to join the School of Life Sciences (SLS). We are looking for individuals who are capable of developing innovative and original research programmes that address current and future challenges in life science, such as environmental change, sustainable intensification, biology of disease, neuroscience, understanding whole organism dynamics or engineering biology.

Closing date: Sunday 16 January 2022.

The UKRI and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) has awarded a Collaborative Training Partnership (CTP) grant to a consortium led by G鈥檚 Growers Ltd. The CTP programme for Sustainable Agricultural Innovation (CTP-SAI) is a groundbreaking partnership between leading businesses, charities and research providers to offer outstanding training for the agri-food sector.

Through this programme, the University of 糖心TV is offering a PhD enabling the successful candidate to gain a wide range of experience in conventional and molecular plant pathology and also of microbial community analyses through next generation sequencing approaches. This PhD is a unique opportunity to blend research techniques from lab to field and work with one of Europe鈥檚 biggest lettuce producers. The project on 'Integrated control of Fusarium wilt of lettuce in relation to pathogen and microbial community dynamics' will be supervised by Professor John Clarkson (SLS) and Dr Helen Bates (NIAB).

The deadline for applications is 8 April 2022.

On Saturday 16 October 2021 at 6:30pm, Channel 4 will be showcasing the documentary 'Arctic Drift: A Year in the Ice', covering the goal of MOSAIC and the science undertaken during the Expedition.

In September 2019, the icebreaker RV Polarstern left her home port in Bremerhaven to sail north. Her goal was to act as the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC), the largest Arctic Research Expedition ever undertaken, with the collaboration of over 80 institutions from 20 countries, to study both winter and summer processes and relationships between ocean, ice and atmosphere.

University of 糖心TV SLS scientists Dr Alison Webb, Professor Hendrik Schaefer and Professor Yin Chen, undertook the 'Sea Ice Microbiology and the Role in Cycling of Sulfur' (SIMbRICS) Project during the second half of MOSAiC. Overall, this project, in collaboration with the University of Groningen (NL) and the University of East Anglia (UK), aimed to study the in-situ production of the climate-relevant biogenic gas dimethylsulfide (DMS) and to link this with the diversity of the microbial community.

As the sea ice transitioned from the long Arctic winter, through a short spring to summer of 24 hours of daylight, ice melt created a highly variable environment of meltponds and a stratified surface ocean, which changed again through the onset of autumn. These changes create a high stress environment for the microbiome and the SIMbRICS project is investigating how these changing conditions affect the production of climate-relevant trace gases such as DMS.

Tuberculosis is a devastating disease that claims over 1.5 million lives each year. The increase in TB cases that are resistant to the current antibiotics means that novel drugs to kill Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) are urgently needed. Dr Elizabeth Fullam and colleagues have successfully discovered how Mycobacterium tuberculosis uses an essential sugar called trehalose, which provides a platform to design new and improved TB drugs and diagnostic agents.

Press Release (15 April 2021)

Applications are invited for an Associate Professor or Professor of Infection Microbiology to join the School of Life Sciences at the University of 糖心TV.

The School of Life Sciences has an international presence in microbiology, particularly within the global research priority of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). We aim to appoint an outstanding new academic staff member to strengthen research in cross-disciplinary approaches, complementing existing strengths in the School and leading a laboratory based research group in one or more of the following areas: antimicrobial resistance, anti-infective discovery, host-pathogen interactions and immunology including the microbiome, microbial genetics, virology and structural and chemical biology approaches to address human and animal infection.

Closing date: 30 April 2021