Category: The Conversation

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sheena Cruickshank, Professor in Immunology, University of Manchester

A new immunotherapy drug has demonstrated early promise in a recent prostate cancer clinical trial. The drug, called VIR-5500, is a “masked T-cell engager”. This type of immunotherapy ignites our own immune arsenal to fight cancer.

In the trial, which is still in progress and has not yet undergone peer-review, patients with advanced prostate cancer who had failed to respond to other treatments were given VIR-5500. Remarkably, initial findings showed that in the patients who received the highest doses, 82% saw reductions in their PSA (prostate specific antigen) levels – a commonly used measure of prostate cancer.

Strikingly, nearly half of the patients within this group also showed tumour shrinkage at both the primary tumour sites as well as in metastatic tumours (tumours which had spread from the prostate into different parts of the body).

Cancer cells have mechanisms to evade being eliminated by our immune system. But immunotherapies boost our immune system’s capacity to fight cancer. They do this by combatting these evasion strategies.

Various immunotherapies have demonstrated phenomenal success in recent years. Yet many cancers, such as prostate cancer, remain difficult to treat exposing the need for more effective immunotherapies.

T-cell engagers are a specific type of immunotherapy that works by anchoring immune cells, called T-cells, and cancer cells together by engaging molecules on the surface of both cell types. This enforced proximity prompts the T-cells to produce toxic cancer-killing chemicals and generate a cascade of inflammatory processes that promote cancer killing.

There are now over 200 different T-cell engagers, many of which are in clinical trials to treat a range of tumours including multiple myeloma, leukaemia and lung cancer.

T-cell engagers

T-cell engagers are not just being trialled for cancer. They may also help with treating other viral conditions, such as hepatitis B, which can cause life-long infection. As in cancer, the virus can evade our immune responses – but T-cell engagers can promote more effective clearance of virally-infected cells.

Despite the great promise surrounding T-cell engagers, the vigorous inflammation they trigger can also be a double-edged sword. In some cases, it can cause a serious inflammatory condition called cytokine release syndrome.

Cytokines are protein messengers released by cells that can drive inflammation. Normally, their release is tightly controlled – but in cytokine release syndrome, the response is excessive and uncontrolled. This can lead to multi-organ failure with potentially life-threatening consequences.

Similar toxic inflammatory side-effects can be seen with other immunotherapies. It’s likely the condition is driven by the potent, acute activation of an immune response.

This is why T-cell engagers and other immunotherapy drugs need to be refined, to ensure their effects are less toxic.

One way of doing this involves producing versions of immunotherapies that are inactive but can be activated once inside tumours.

This is done by covering the drug in a “mask” that prevents it from engaging both the T-cells and cancer cells. When the drug enters tumours, molecules that are abundant in cancers can break down this mask, allowing the drug to engage its target cells. VIR-5500, the drug used in this recent, promising prostate cancer trial, is one of many new masked T-cell engagers.

As such, masking creates an effective drug that may also be safer. Tumour-specific activation should restrict the anti-cancer, inflammatory response to within the tumour, preventing widespread inflammation.

It may also enable the T-cell engagers to be more selective towards cancer cells, as some of their targets may also be expressed by normal healthy cells. This could simultaneously reduce toxicity and improve anti-cancer potency.

An additional benefit of masked immunotherapies is that the conversion from the inactive to active drug in the body takes time. This changes how the drug is dosed within patients.

In the clinic, T-cell engagers are often given in small doses that then need to be escalated to prevent acute immune over-activation. But the mask would allow the drug to be released more slowly, making delivery simpler and safer. The mask itself may also prevent the drugs from being broken down in the body and may extend their lifespan.

An important finding in this recent trial for prostate cancer was that most patients who received the highest doses of VIR-5500 suffered only mild inflammatory side effects. Given the known toxicity associated with T-cell engagers, this is an exciting finding – suggesting the masking is working to reduce the risks of excessive inflammation.

If further research proves that masking T-cell engagers creates safer, more effective drugs, then we can expand what we can do with them. They can be combined with more traditional cancer therapies, such as chemotherapy or radiotherapy, which may prove even more effective in eliminating cancer.

Other masked T-cell engagers have also shown early clinical promise in prostate cancer and trials have begun in numerous other cancers including pancreatic, colorectal and lung cancer.

As these trials are all ongoing, it’s too early to know the full extent of clinical success here. Early trials also only test within a small number of patients. The data has also not yet faced the scrutiny of peer-review and have only been presented at an oncology conferences.

Nevertheless, the initial results represent great hope for treating cancers that have proven otherwise difficult to treat with other immunotherapies.

Jonathan Worboys receives funding from Wellcome and the BBSRC.

Sheena Cruickshank does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Masked T-cell engagers: cancer immunotherapies for the future? – https://theconversation.com/masked-t-cell-engagers-cancer-immunotherapies-for-the-future-277437

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Lucy van Dorp, Principal Research Fellow, Microbial Genomics, UCL

There’s no nice way to put it: small children are snotty. A research study that tested children for multiple respiratory viruses every week for a year found that under-fives are carrying one or more viruses 50% of the time. A child aged 15 months will have 12-15 colds per year and eight or nine of those will show symptoms, such as a runny nose. If parents feel their small children are sick with a cold half the time, that’s backed up by evidence.

Our new study brings together information from different sources to understand how the immune systems of small children differ from adults, why children pass germs around so effectively and what parents can do to help.

Babies and toddlers are encountering a whole host of infectious diseases for the first time, which makes them more likely to have symptoms; this can make them more likely to pass these bugs on to others. We also found that going to nursery often accelerates a natural process of building up immunity that would otherwise take place at school. Finally, we highlighted vaccination as a major tool to reduce childhood sick days.

It’s worth saying that most of the evidence we reviewed is from studies conducted before COVID showed up. We don’t yet know whether COVID adds another virus to this mix.

Children experience about twice as many bouts of diarrhoea and vomiting per year as adults (two on average). Having an under five in your household increases your risk as an adult of having diarrhoea and vomiting three- to fivefold.

Children also pick up multiple viruses and bacteria that can cause rashes or skin infections. By 12 months of age, 70% of children have antibodies to the two viruses (HHV6A and 6B) that cause most cases of roseola (a common infection, usually causing high temperature and a rash). By age five, 65% of children in the UK have antibodies to varicella-zoster virus (chickenpox). In short, twelve colds, two rounds of diarrhoea and vomiting and one or two rash illnesses is typical between 12 and 24 months of age, with or without nursery.

Nursery bugs

But parents aren’t exaggerating when they say that starting at nursery leads to children and infants passing more germs around than might be caught at a birthday party or baby class. The process of picking up germs that cause colds, stomach bugs and rashes is sped up by starting at nursery and continues for one to two years.

However, this is a trade off against disease later.

Studies have shown that children who attend nursery have fewer infections when they start primary school than children who did not attend nursery. The idea that nursery gets bugs out of the way before starting school has evidence behind it. Whether or not this is a good thing may come down to parents’ opinions.

In some cases, delaying the age children get an infection for the first time is beneficial, such as for RSV, the cause of bronchiolitis. For others, earlier infection or vaccination (such as for varicella-zoster virus, the cause of chickenpox) seems to lead to milder symptoms than if infection is delayed to later in childhood.

We think it’s important for parents’ employers to know that all small children get ill frequently, and that this is entirely normal – their immune systems are barraged with new infections and they must develop immunity to those infections that can’t be prevented with vaccination. It’s not an indicator of poor hygiene at a nursery or parents being precious. Children can transmit before and after they show symptoms, simply keeping ill children home isn’t enough to stop transmission.

Beyond better support from employers, how do we make this situation better for young children and their parents and carers? We found in our research that vaccination is one of the most effective things we can do to prevent children from becoming sick and to reduce their symptoms.

With large outbreaks of measles in the US and UK, ensuring that young children receive their recommended vaccines, such as MMRV (for measles, mumps, rubella and, since early 2026, chickenpox) has never been more important. Between January 1 and March 6 2026, 34% of England’s measles cases were in the one to four years (nursery) age group. In summer 2025, over 96% of measles cases were in unvaccinated people.

In the future, vaccination programmes could even be designed to delay infection to the age at which it is safest for children to contract each specific infection, based on whether they are likely to be exposed at nursery.

Finally, we want to reassure parents that age, better hand hygiene and a more experienced immune system mean that rates of illness for nursery children go down by 50% each year of attendance. Things can only get better.

Lucy van Dorp receives funding from the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowshp Programme.

Charlotte Houldcroft receives funding from the Cambridge-Africa ALBORADA Trust and the European Research Council.

– ref. Your toddler is likely to get 12 or more illnesses in their first year at nursery – but they’ll build immunity, too – https://theconversation.com/your-toddler-is-likely-to-get-12-or-more-illnesses-in-their-first-year-at-nursery-but-theyll-build-immunity-too-275587

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Henry Taylor, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Birmingham

What can you see right now? This might seem like a silly question, but what enters your consciousness is not the whole story when it comes to vision. A great deal of visual processing in the brain goes on well below our conscious awareness.

Some studies have probed the unconscious depths of vision. One source of
evidence comes from the neurological condition known as blindsight, which is caused by damage to areas of the brain involved in processing visual information. People with blindsight report that they are unable to see, either entirely or in a portion of their visual field. However, when asked to guess what is there, they can often do so with remarkable accuracy.

For example, in an experiment published in 2004 on someone with blindsight, a black bar was displayed in the portion of the visual field to which the person was blind. The person was asked to “guess” whether the bar was vertical or horizontal.

Despite denying any conscious awareness of the bar, the participant could answer correctly at a level well above chance. The participant even showed evidence of being able to pay attention to the bar – they were faster to respond when an arrow (placed in a healthy area of their visual field) correctly indicated the location of the bar.

The most popular interpretation (though not the only one) is that people with blindsight can see these objects, but not see them consciously. They see what is there, but it all goes on unconsciously, below their awareness.

The phenomenon of inattentional blindness seems to show you can see without the information crossing into your consciousness. Anyone can experience inattentional blindness. The phenomenon has been known about for a long time, but we can most easily get a handle on it by looking at a well-known experiment reported in 1999.

In this experiment, participants are shown a video of people playing basketball, and told to count the number of passes between the players wearing a white shirt. If you’ve never done this before, I urge to you stop reading now and watch the video.

In many cases, people are so busy counting the passes that they completely miss a large gorilla walking across the middle of the scene and beating its chest, then walking off. The gorilla’s right there, in the centre of your visual field. Light from the gorilla enters your eyes, and is processed in the visual system, but somehow you missed it, because you weren’t paying attention to it.

The gorilla has more to teach us. In another experiment reported in 2013, radiologists were given a series of lung scans. They were told to look for nodules (which show up as small light coloured circles) on each scan. In one of the scans, a large picture of a dancing gorilla was superimposed on top of the lung scan. In this study, 83% of the radiologists failed to spot it, even though it was 48 times bigger than the average nodule they were looking for. Some of them even looked directly at the gorilla and still didn’t notice it!

The interpretation of these experiments is controversial. Some scientists suggest that in these kinds of cases, you consciously see the gorilla, but immediately forget it (although a dancing gorilla in someone’s lung doesn’t seem like the kind of thing you’d forget). Others argue that you see the gorilla, but the information never made its way into consciousness. You saw the gorilla, but unconsciously.

Let’s assume that in the case of blindsight, and inattentional blindness, the information is seen, but didn’t make it all the way to consciousness. Then, the question is: what makes some information conscious, rather than the information that stays unconscious? This is one of the central questions for consciousness studies in philosophy, psychology and neuroscience.

The brain’s loudspeaker

There’s no agreement on which is the best theory of consciousness, but in my
opinion, the strongest contender is the global neuronal workspace theory.

According to this theory, consciousness is all to do with a particular area of the brain which is the seat of the “workspace”. The workspace is a system with a small capacity, so it can’t hold a lot of information at any one time. The job of the workspace is to take unconscious information and broadcast it to lots of different networks all across the brain. Global neuronal workspace theorists say that broadcasting the information in this way is what makes it conscious.

The job of the workspace is to act like the brain’s loudspeaker, and consciousness is the information that gets broadcast. The workspace takes unconscious information and boosts it so that many of the different systems in the brain hear about it and can use that information in their own processes. The late philosopher Daniel Dennett used to call consciousness “fame in the brain”. The workspace idea is similar.

One of the most striking implications of the global neuronal workspace theory is how little information makes it to consciousness. Since the workspace has quite a small capacity, it follows that we can only ever be conscious of a little at a time. We might think there’s a rich visual world in front of us, full of details, all of which we’re conscious of, but really – according to the theory – we’re only ever conscious of a small portion of that.

Some philosophers and scientists have objected to the theory on these grounds. They suggest that consciousness “overflows” the workspace: we are conscious of more information than can “fit” into the workspace at any one time. Even with these debates still ongoing, I think the global neuronal workspace theory gives us a reasonably clear answer to the question of what consciousness is for, and how it interacts with other systems in the brain.

In our brains, consciousness is only the tip of a very large iceberg. But the global neuronal workspace theory might give us insight into what makes that tip so special.

Henry Taylor has received funding from the Leverhulme Trust.

– ref. Human vision: what we actually see – and don’t see – tells us a lot about consciousness – https://theconversation.com/human-vision-what-we-actually-see-and-dont-see-tells-us-a-lot-about-consciousness-276310

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Renaud Foucart, Senior Lecturer in Economics, Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster University

Four years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the world is bracing for another energy crisis. The US-Israel bombing of Iran and then the blockade of the strait of Hormuz have forced up the price of oil. The price of natural gas in Europe has also risen sharply.

In the UK, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced a £50 million package to support consumers who heat their homes with oil. The government is also considering a U-turn on the decision to increase fuel duty (currently almost 53p per litre of petrol or diesel) in September after a 15-year freeze. Other taxes would need to go up to compensate.

But the main question concerns what will happen to electricity prices this summer. A sustained crisis could push prices higher for both households and businesses. It could also push the Bank of England to avoid interest rate cuts, making mortgages more expensive. And the government could even end up paying part of everyone’s bills directly as it did between 2022 and 2024, piling up tens of billions of pounds of public debt.

To secure most of the future production of electricity – wind farms or new nuclear power stations for instance – the government signs what are known as “contracts for difference” with electricity producers. These contracts fix the price of electricity for decades, typically above expected wholesale prices.

These guaranteed prices correspond roughly to the expected average cost of producing electricity. Unlike gas, once a wind farm is built, each additional unit of electricity costs almost nothing to produce. So, without a guaranteed price, renewable producers would fear having to sell the electricity for free and never recouping their investment.

Consumers are shouldering the risk

The UK is not as sunny as somewhere like Spain and so will never get very cheap solar power. It is also trying to build new nuclear power plants, but the first attempt (Hinkley point C, currently expected to begin delivering electricity in 2030) is so expensive that the French state-owned energy operator EDF lost £10 billion in the process. Future projects now ask taxpayers to take most of the risk and pay upfront in the form of higher bills.

Consumers mostly notice these extra costs added to their bills (called “environmental levies”) when gas prices are low. The levies currently make up 6.5% of a typical bill, which is down from 13% after the government shifted some costs so that they would be paid for through general taxation.

So given that they’re paying upfront for the infrastructure, consumers might expect renewables to cut their bills when gas prices spike. But that is not how markets work: the price is set by the most expensive unit sold. Around 85% of the time in the UK this most expensive unit uses liquefied natural gas (LNG) transported by boat.

If one day the UK becomes like Spain where prices are mostly set by renewables (thanks to huge leaps in wind and solar), wholesale prices will often be zero. But consumers will still pay more, because they will still be charged the environmental levies that were put in place years before to invest in the infrastructure.

This is what led the CEO of energy giant E.ON, Chris Norbury, to declare in parliament that “even if the wholesale price was zero, bills would still be where they were today”. That’s true, but also a bit misleading.

Wholesale prices only go to zero because the country invested in renewables. The alternative – going back to more gas – would probably be much more expensive for everyone. It would certainly be more risky as the current conflict in the Middle East is illustrating.

Sunshine and wind do not need to pass through the strait of Hormuz and cannot be used as leverage by dictators. And what looks like a costly subsidy heaping pressure on billpayers in good times becomes insurance in a crisis.

During the peak of the energy crisis in 2022, the wholesale price of electricity was higher than the guaranteed one, and renewable generators paid money to the government instead of receiving subsidies. But because the government was helping out with everyone’s bills, consumers never saw the benefit.

In 2025 in the UK, less than a third of electricity was generated using gas. Replacing renewables with gas would mean building power plants and importing more gas at ever-higher prices and greater geopolitical risk.

Gas is cheaper in the US where fracking makes the country almost energy independent. But fracking is much harder in places that are as densely populated as England. The government is currently planning to ban it everywhere in the UK.

But the UK’s vulnerable situation also gives it a chance to innovate and export. The key is making sure that consumers pay a price that reflects the real cost of electricity at any given moment.

The more we switch from fossil fuels – heating, cars, trucks – to electricity, the more battery capacity we have to fill. The price signal (the gap between cheap and expensive electricity) gives industries and households a strong incentive to innovate and invest in storage.

Most people only care about their monthly bill and won’t adapt directly. But smart appliances, home batteries and vehicle-to-grid systems (where vehicles can store electricity and sell it back to the grid when required) will do it for them.

The UK can gain in efficiency what nature has not provided in resources. This could give Britain a chance to sell its innovations to the world. Selling services is what the UK does as a country, after all. The large majority of global investments in energy are in renewables, and there will be huge opportunities for the countries that figure out how to run a grid on intermittent electricity sources.

Renaud Foucart does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The UK’s high electricity prices are here to stay. But could they offer an opportunity? – https://theconversation.com/the-uks-high-electricity-prices-are-here-to-stay-but-could-they-offer-an-opportunity-278584

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Pedram Vousoughi, Post Doctoral Researcher in Biological Sciences, University of Limerick

Across Europe, many banks alongside motorways are planted with grass to stabilise soil and keep roadside landscapes tidy.

But there may be a better solution. Already some countries are experimenting with using moss in built-up areas to absorb air pollution. As countries search for nature-based solutions to climate and environmental challenges, roadside moss is starting to attract attention. So could mossy motorway banks work?

Moss could offer environmental benefits over grass, from trapping air pollution to slowing rainwater runoff during heavy storms.

Mosses are small plants that grow without roots or flowers. Instead of drawing nutrients from soil like most plants do, they absorb water and minerals directly from the air. They can grow in thin soils, shaded areas and exposed surfaces where grass often struggles. Once established, moss also requires very little maintenance. Unlike grass, moss grows slowly and stays low to the ground. This means roadside moss would require far less mowing, potentially reducing labour and maintenance costs along thousands of kilometres of roads.

Moss and air pollution

One of moss’s most fascinating features is its ability to absorb substances from the atmosphere. It can accumulate pollutants such as heavy metals.

Scientists have used moss for decades as a bioindicator – a living organism used to monitor environmental pollution. Experimental observations have shown that moss can also exhibit visible physical responses to air pollution. For example, moss exposed to highly polluted environments has been observed to change colour from fresh green to brownish.

Across Europe, the European Moss Survey uses moss samples to track air pollution levels in dozens of countries. Research shows moss can capture pollutants including nitrogen compounds and particulate matter, both of which are produced by traffic emissions. If moss grows beside busy roads, it may therefore help capture some airborne pollution before it spreads into surrounding ecosystems or nearby communities.

Another potential benefit involves water. Many moss species act like natural sponges. They can absorb several times their own weight in water and release it slowly over time. On roadside slopes, this property could help slow down rainwater runoff during heavy storms. Fast runoff from roads and embankments can overwhelm drainage systems and contribute to flash flooding. By temporarily storing water, moss could reduce the speed at which rainwater flows into roadside drains. The UK, for instance, has one of the densest road networks in Europe, and many major roads run close to towns and residential areas. Vegetation that can reduce pollution and water runoff could therefore provide environmental benefits.

Roadside vegetation can also play an important role in biodiversity. Road verges and embankments form long, connected strips of habitat that can support insects, mosses, lichens and other small organisms. In landscapes heavily shaped by agriculture or urban development, these narrow corridors can help species move between fragmented habitats. Moss-dominated banks may provide microhabitats for invertebrates and microorganisms that depend on moist, shaded environments. Although research on mossy roadside systems is still limited, increasing structural diversity along road verges could enhance ecological connectivity and contribute to wider efforts to support biodiversity in managed landscapes.

Read more:
An epic global study of moss reveals it is far more vital to Earth’s ecosystems than we knew

Moss thrives in cool, damp climates with frequent rainfall, conditions common across much of the UK, for instance. Shaded roadside slopes, especially where roads cut through hillsides or woodland, also favour moss growth. In such places, grass often struggles because soils are thin and sunlight is limited.

Best in shade

Despite its potential advantages, moss would not be a universal solution.

One problem is it grows slowly. Establishing a stable moss cover on new embankments could take several years.
Also, roadside environments can be harsh. Salt used for winter road de-icing can damage many moss species, and prolonged dry conditions may limit growth on exposed slopes.

Another issue is pollutant accumulation. Moss can absorb airborne pollutants, but these substances remain stored within the plant material. Over time this may require monitoring or periodic removal. Finally, moss generally prefers shaded and moist environments. On sunny or dry motorway banks, other vegetation may still be more suitable.

Road networks occupy vast areas of land, yet roadside vegetation is often managed simply to keep it short and tidy. Instead of treating roadside land as space that just needs mowing, it could be designed to capture pollution, manage water and support biodiversity.

Moss will not transform highways overnight. But small ecological changes along thousands of kilometres of roads could add up to meaningful environmental benefits. Sometimes, even plants at the edges of our motorways may help tackle pollution, flooding and climate change.

Pedram Vousoughi receives funding from Ireland’s Department of Climate, Energy, and the Environment for funding his current work under the FORESIGHT services contract for national agriculture and land-use modeling. He has also been granted EPS-IRC funding previously.

– ref. How moss could help roads cope with heavy rain and reduce air pollution – https://theconversation.com/how-moss-could-help-roads-cope-with-heavy-rain-and-reduce-air-pollution-277686