The technology will help patients answer a painfully difficult question asked by doctors, plaguing them since time immemorial: “How have you been in the last six months?”

The trial is funded by the () and Versus Arthritis.

The Remote Monitoring of Rheumatoid Arthritis () system allows patients to download a symptom tracking app to their smartphone or tablet and sign in at home via NHS login.

The system could revolutionize the care of people living with a long-term conditions, who are often asked by doctors to describe their symptoms since they were last seen.

Professor Will Dixon from Swagֱ�� is co-lead for the REMORA study and is a consultant rheumatologist at Salford Royal Hospital.

He said: “It can be difficult for patients to recall and describe the ups and downs of their health in a few minutes during a consultation.

“By tracking symptoms day-to-day and making them automatically available at consultations within the electronic medical record, we will generate a clearer picture of how someone has been in the last six months which could have a transformative impact on treatment and care.”

The research team are about to start the clinical trial which will test whether tracked symptoms, integrated into the NHS, leads to better outcomes compared to usual care.

The trial will allocate patients at random to symptom tracking or not, and will run in 16 hospitals across Greater Swagֱ�� and North West London during 2024-25 with the results expected in 2026.

If successful, the team hope it will become a funded NHS service available for free to all patients with rheumatoid arthritis, and that it can be expanded to other long-term conditions.

Doctors and researchers agree that technology has big potential for improving healthcare, although strong evidence for its efficacy is often lacking.

This trial will test not only whether patients benefit from symptom tracking, but will also examine whether it is value for money, how to ensure certain patient groups are not ‘left behind’ because of the technology, how to get around the barriers for setting up this new technology in the NHS, and how the data generated can be re-used to support research as well as patients’ direct care.

The researchers will conduct interviews with patients, clinicians and other staff within the NHS to understand how to optimise symptom tracking in the future NHS

Areas they will consider include the views of older patients, those with dexterity problems, and those with lower digital access.

The study is also learning how best to allow patients to control who will have access to their data using an electronic consent system from home.

Prof Dixon added: “Smartphones and tablets provide a convenient way for patients to record their symptoms and health changes while living day-to-day with their long-term conditions.

“Real-time tracking from home allows patients and doctors to spot patterns that would otherwise have been missed or forgotten, like flares or gradual changes following treatment.”

Dr Sabine van der Veer, a senior lecturer in health informatics at the University of Swagֱ�� is the other co-lead for the study.

She said: “A major advantage of REMORA is that we have successfully sent patient’s data into the NHS.

“The data is available during a consultation, seen from within the electronic patient record that the clinician is already using to manage the patient’s care.

“Patient records have historically only included information entered by clinicians. We are changing this, by learning how patients can contribute information themselves and ultimately improve their long-term health.”

Karen Staniland, a patient with rheumatoid arthritis at Salford Royal, said: “It is very exciting to be involved in this research as one of the patient partners.

“I believe that REMORA could make a real difference to the patient consultation, as evidence provided directly from the patient will already be available to view in their medical record.

“It could also allow time for patients to plan future care with their health care professional and definitely help improve their quality of life.”  

More information about the REMORA study, including a short video, can be found here: and    here:  

The driving force behind the podcast, named Big Sisters in STEM, is a recognition of the need for a supportive and inclusive environment where women and non-binary individuals in STEM feel seen and heard.

It explores the challenges, triumphs and experiences of women and non-binary individuals navigating through a traditionally male-dominated field and delves into the complex realities behind living in a society where just being present in the room is often hailed as a milestone achievement.

From grappling with imposter syndrome to the societal pressure to overburden ourselves, the challenges of being the only woman in the classroom and navigating a career while balancing family responsibilities, the podcast unpacks the multifaceted issues that hinder the full participation of underrepresented groups in STEM.

Host and producer Jasmine Luby Barrow (she/her), a Marketing and Recruitment Co-ordinator at Swagֱ��, said: “The idea behind Big Sisters in STEM was really about creating a safe space for women and people who know what it feels like to be othered.

“The prospective and current students I talk to are so often surprised to hear that successful career people or award-winning researchers still struggle with relatable things like self-confidence or learning how to say ‘no’. While it might be scary to hear that things like imposter syndrome linger on longer than we’d like, I hope it’s also heartening for people to know they are not alone, and that together we might be able to better support each other.

“It’s somewhere to come together and share experiences and guidance in an open and genuine way – like sitting down for a ‘cuppa with your big sister.

“As in all areas of education and industry, it’s so important that STEM becomes more intersectional – and we talk about that a lot on the podcast. The more perspectives which inform a situation the more well-rounded our solutions will be – be that in climate change, use of new technology, or medical equality.”

Each episode of the podcast hears from a combination of inspirational academics, industry professionals and students.

Episode one, which will air on Wednesday, 27 March 2024, features (she/her), a Lecturer in Aerospace Systems at the University, who specialises in Astrodynamics and Space Mission Design and in 2021 won the Institute of Engineering and Technology Woman of the Year award.During the episode Ciara shares her own personal experiences, talking about the turning point in her career when someone told her, her work on space was “frivolous”. She gives her take on the topic, space as a that can help “change the world” and shares fascinating insight into how satellite technology has a tangible impact on everyday lives on earth.

She said: “People think that space is so far away, but it’s not. Most of the satellites that we have in space are actually closer to us here in Swagֱ�� than we are away from Paris.”

Ciara goes on to talk about the lack of understanding around the breadth of engineering and frustration of losing potentially great people from the field through lack of understanding.

She added: “There are so many skills that are equally as important in engineering, and we probably lose those along the way… One of the things I talk about with industry partners we work with is how important human factors are. You can engineer the perfect aircraft or spacecraft but accounting for how people are going to behave is really hard – that’s where accidents happen, and mistakes are made. We need good communicators, and psychologists, and I worry that we’re losing those people along the way because people don’t feel like those are the skills we need in engineering.”

Ciara is joined by Earth and Environmental Sciences student Vannessa Thai (they/them), a first-year Earth and Environmental Sciences Student with a sought-after scholarship at the University.

They said: “It’s a lot of challenge to go through and fight for what you believe in and be heard, especially in spaces where people don’t look like you or from your background, especially climate engineering where it can feel like an exclusive space.

Other guests throughout the six-week series include Dr Zahra Montazeri (she/her) a Computer Science Lecturer, who is a Computer Graphics specialist and has previously worked with Disney, Pixar, and Dreamworks - on everything from Star Wars to Frozen.

The season also brings conversations with Dr Charlene Gallery (she/her), who talks about her work in the fashion industry, working with new technologies to pioneer more sustainable practices,(she/her), a Professor of Climate Science and Energy Policy at Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, Ella Podmore MBE (she/her) IET Woman of the Year 2020 and Senior Materials Engineer, and (she/her) an inspiring Clinical Academic who focuses on the screening, prevention and early diagnosis of gynaecological cancers.

They are joined with students from a broad range of STEM areas, including civil engineering, computer science, materials science, chemical engineering, biotechnology and medicine.

The first episode of Big Sisters in STEM will launch on Wednesday, 27 March 2024 and will be available on all podcast platforms.

For more information and regular updates, follow the Instagram, or visit the website:

, with its mission to enable cleaner water supplies for the world's growing demand, has developed an energy-efficient and highly versatile membrane coating based around a material called modified molybdenum disulphide (MoS₂) to create an innovative water filtration solution.  

The technology comes from research led by  and , at Swagֱ��, working in partnership with innovation experts at the University’s (GEIC).  

This team has used a two-dimensional version of MoS_2, part of which is a natural crystal with physical properties that are complementary to those of , the world’s first 2D material, originally isolated at Swagֱ��. 

Molymem and its filtration application has been awarded an investment funding package of £500,400. Among the private sector investors are , Swagֱ�� Angels and NorthInvest.

Ray Gibbs, Chairman and Director at Molymem, said this new funding would enable the company to scale up and deliver on its mission. He said: “New 2D materials for membranes are needed to improve sustainability, accessibility and tackle one of the world’s greatest problems – delivering clean fresh water for all.”

“The application of 2D advanced materials into water filtration technologies will, we are confident, help provide solutions to this critical global challenge.”   

Working with businesses and utility companies Molymem has coated a variety of membrane systems and tested the rejection of various salts and other organic molecules, such as nitrates. The performance is equal to or better than existing commercial solutions - but at much lower cost, making the Molymem system a 'greener and cheaper' option.”

Dr Mark Bissett Chief Scientific Officer (Molymem Limited), Reader in Nanomaterials, Dept. of Materials (University of Swagֱ��) commented “It’s incredibly exciting to see our technology, which was developed here in the labs at the University of Swagֱ�� as a fundamental research project, be successfully spun out into a company and receiving this funding. Going forward I look forward to seeing our technology have real commercial impact and see our products improving sustainability in multiple industries.”

Richard Lydon, a leading filtration expert and senior advisor to Molymem explained: “Access to clean fresh water is one of the greatest problems we face in the world. Factors that impact on the availability of clean water include climate change, water quality, pollution, and population growth.

“At the same time, water and wastewater treatment plants across the world need to be upgraded to keep pace with legislation and the ever-growing demand for drinking water. This unique technology is an added value to existing membrane systems reducing particulate 'clogging' of the current filter, enabling improved life, reducing the use of chemicals and increasing flux (water flow). The Molymem platform is robust in any environment and can be tailored (through specific functionalisation of the coating) to reject target particulates such as nitrates, phosphates, PFAS/PFOS, dissolved organics, heavy metals and other pollutants, offering unique selling points to meet the needs of the water industry.”

Rajat Malhotra, Managing Partner, Wren Capital and a member of Cambridge Angels commented, “ We liked the sustainability aspect of Molymem and the strong management to apply novel technology into a significant market in need of new membranes to deal with the increasing threat of particulate pollution (especially nitrates) in the water course. We, therefore, wanted to lead a SEED funding round on behalf of Cambridge Angels who were subsequently joined by investors from Swagֱ�� Angels and NorthInvest. This first tie-up makes a strong strategic link between Swagֱ�� and Cambridge to enhance co-syndication between the investor groups and the hope of more to come.”   

David Levine, Principal of Swagֱ�� Angels said: "We're very excited to have participated in Molymem's recent raise. Swagֱ�� Angels was established specifically to fund early-stage, game-changing technologies and technology businesses and help support levelling-up for the North."

Jordan Dargue, Board Director of NorthInvest said: ''We were so impressed with the Molymem team's expertise and passion.  The technology is innovative and solves a real market problem so I was thrilled to be able to help the company access funding at this crucial stage.  What’s more, this round of investment for Molymem is a perfect example of how angel networks can collaborate to help Northern entrepreneurs access investment.  I’m so pleased for Richard and the Molymem team and look forward to seeing what the future holds. “

Notes to Editor

1) Richard Lydon is a leading figure in the filtration, separation and membrane markets and is providing valuable advice and guide the Molymem team as it embarks on its commercial journey in wider areas of the clean and deep tech market sectors.

 2) Molymem is a University of Swagֱ�� spin-out and has developed and patented a new class of novel nano-coating applied to membranes for ultra-high filtration performance. The 2D functionalised materials can be retrofitted easily to existing membranes, utilising existing infrastructure and a large installed base. The initial focus is in the demand-driven space of clean water, water reuse and species selectivity but with potential across numerous other industry sectors including air, gas cleaning and future clean energy sectors. Chosen routes to market will be via licence and royalty deals with Membrane suppliers, Original Equipment Manufacturers and System Integrators.

3) Cambridge Angels is a leading UK business angel network providing smart capital from entrepreneurs to entrepreneurs. The collaborative Cambridge-based group, actively mentors and invests in innovative teams and their ideas, equipping generations of entrepreneurs to generate returns and help realise their full potential. The group has a strong ethos of backing merit and supporting entrepreneurship. Cambridge Angels members, most of whom are successful entrepreneurs, invest in a wide range of start-up and scale-up businesses with a particular focus on deep-tech, and tools and technologies supporting healthcare.

In addition to forming these new IP-rich businesses, the Innovation Factory, which is dedicated to driving the commercialisation of innovations and intellectual property originating from Swagֱ�� (UoM), secured an impressive £6.4M of first investment into Swagֱ��-based spinout companies as well as £4.9M in UoM licensing income.   

Andrew Wilkinson, Innovation Factory Chief Executive, said: “Over the past three years the Innovation Factory has worked hard to meet our ambitious targets and fulfil our commitment to create positive social, environmental and economic impact by helping UoM academics and student inventors commercialise their research.

“We are proud to help the nation’s most visionary researchers and scholars transform their ideas and theories into a form that can be used to benefit people from all parts of the world.  Swagֱ�� has always been the birthplace of great ideas and that pulse of innovation is as strong as ever.”

In 2021, the Innovation Factory was instrumental in facilitating the formation of Northern Gritstone through a partnership with the Universities of Leeds, Swagֱ�� and Sheffield. Northern Gritstone is an investment vehicle determined to be one of the largest investors into academic spinouts in the UK. 

Wilkinson continued: “This year the Innovation Factory continued to perform well and exceeded most of its key targets, placing it firmly in line with the top technology transfer offices in the world.  Our team works tirelessly to identify opportunities and maximise investment in the innovations originating from Swagֱ��, and this year further secures our positive trajectory.”

The newly formed businesses are:

• Apini Therapeutics Ltd – Novel Small Molecule Therapeutics for the treatment of inflammatory diseases without induction of immune suppression
• Holiferm Ltd – Fermentation technology with initial focus on biosurfactants
• Imperagen Ltd – An AI prediction of enzyme optimisation
• Mi-Trial Ltd – Clinical trial companion system and app
• Music in Mind Remote Ltd – Digital platform for providing music to people with dementia
• Nexsys Ltd – Online platform for water management and planning
• Polynerve Ltd – Synthetic polymer nerve conduit
• Recon2 Ltd – System for measurement of recycled plastic content in packaging
• Sebomix Ltd – A rapid, non-invasive test for the diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease and a wide range of other indications
• Urban 360 Ltd – Intelligence to improve urban sustainability

To find out more about the Innovation Factory’s work and the projects they are supporting, visit

Watercycle’s patented filtration process can selectively extract lithium from sub-surface waters, such as those found in the South West of the UK. Given lithium’s essential role in battery technologies, the ability to obtain it from water cost-effectively and establish a domestic supply of the mineral is vital for the UK’s Net Zero strategy. 

is a mineral exploration and development company focused on the environmentally responsible extraction of lithium from geothermal waters and hard rock in the historic mining district of Cornwall.

Earlier this year, Watercycle Technologies became a Tier 2 Partner of the University's , allowing for access to lab space, state-of-the-art equipment and engineering and academic expertise at the UK’s leading institute for R&D and commercialisation of applications around graphene and 2D materials.

The ‘Smart’ grant is Innovate UK's responsive funding programme. It has focused eligibility criteria and scope to support SMEs and their partners to develop disruptive innovations with significant potential for rapid economic return to the UK.

Under the terms of the agreement, Watercycle will deliver a containerised filtration system to extract lithium from Cornish Lithium’s project in Cornwall at a pilot scale. The project, which includes an environmental impact assessment, is anticipated to complete in October 2023.  

Watercycle CEO Dr Seb Leaper said: “Having already proven that our proprietary filtration membranes and systems work in lab conditions, we are excited to be working with Cornish Lithium to demonstrate their scalability and accelerate the creation of a resilient, domestic lithium supply chain in the UK.  

"This agreement marks the next step in our development strategy as we look at the commercialisation of our technology, which is capable of treating a wide range of water types and can deliver dramatic reductions in costs, carbon emissions and water consumption compared with current processes.”

Watercycle co-founder and CTO Dr Ahmed Abdelkarim added: “It is great to be working with like-minded partners, Cornish Lithium and Innovate UK, which, like us, are focused on making a positive impact on the global transition through advancing innovative technologies. 

"Lithium is a critical element with EV demand set to grow 418% from 468 GWh this year to 2.4 TWh by 2030 and we are delighted to be part of that chain, offering a British solution to the challenge of primary lithium production, which is the first link within the wider EV supply chain.”

Dr Rebecca Paisley, Lead Geochemist at Cornish Lithium, said: “Cornish Lithium is keen to support projects from UK-based universities and the companies commercialising them, which we believe have the potential to be both game-changing and contribute to the UK’s Net Zero strategy. 

"Working with Watercycle in the development of a pilot system aligns strongly with our Research and Innovation strategy, as well as our continued efforts to trial multiple DLE technologies at pilot scale in Cornwall to establish the most effective and responsible process flow sheet. We have a good relationship with the Watercycle team and look forward to progressing the project over the next 12 months.”

For more information, visit . To discover how Swagֱ�� Innovation Factory helps academic and student inventors create social, economic and environmental impact with their work visit .

 is one of Swagֱ��’s  - examples of pioneering discoveries, interdisciplinary collaboration and cross-sector partnerships that are tackling some of the biggest questions facing the planet. #ResearchBeacons.

In the UK, the space sector is worth over £16.4 billion per year and employs more than 45,000 people, while satellites and space tech underpins £360 billion per year of wider economic activity. Globally, projections reveal that the space economy

To optimise opportunities in this booming market, organisations such as the European Space Agency are looking to build space habitats, including a and ultimately . However, these types of ambitious projects will require breakthroughs in new materials to help construct resilient structures and infrastructure.

In response to this challenge, Dr Vivek Koncherry - a University alumnus and now CEO of Graphene Innovations Swagֱ��, a start-up based at the - is looking to build pressurised vessels that will create a modular space station for Low Earth Orbit. These pioneering vessels are to be made from graphene-enhanced carbon fibre as the addition of this 2D material will lightweight the habitat, as well as lending its thermal management properties to help regulate extremes of temperature.

Dr Koncherry has been working closely with global architects SOM, who have been studying the complexity of space habitation for many years as they look to .

As space explorers of the future look to go beyond the Earth’s orbit, travelling from a graphene space ship to begin building bases on the Moon – or even Mars – Dr Koncherry’s colleague Dr Aled Roberts, also part of the GEIC, is conducting research to develop bio-based building materials.

Dr Roberts, who is also part of the , explains that one of the biggest challenges for “off-world habitat construction” is the transportation of building materials, which can cost upwards of £1m 'per brick’. Until the conceptual can be built, one solution, says Dr Roberts, could be using local resources, such as lunar or Martian soil to make building materials. This thinking has led to proposed products like (aka extraterrestrial regolith biocomposites), a material using the local planetary soil and a bio-based binder to make sturdy bricks to build space habitats.

To support this lunar or Martian construction work, artificial intelligence (AI) researchers at Swagֱ�� - who are expert in developing autonomous systems and resilient AI-powered robots - have helped develop sophisticated software to enable ‘co-bots’ to aid astronauts in exploration, in construction and in monitoring these new structures.

This work has been led by Professor Michael Fisher and his colleagues that form the . A specialism at Swagֱ�� involves designing and building AI-powered autonomous robots that can work in the harshest of environment, such as space, and can reliably undertake a wide range of tasks “on their own”.

Previous research in this field has looked to support improved capability of NASA’s Astronaut-Rover teams and the Swagֱ�� team continue their collaboration with NASA. Future manned missions to the Moon and Mars are expected to use autonomous rovers and robots to assist astronauts during extravehicular activity (EVA), including science, technical and construction operations.

“An important feature of the Swagֱ�� work is to develop and apply systems making sure these robots are trustworthy and do what we expect,” explained Professor Fisher.

Once a space habitat has been built, its human occupants will need to survive in their new environment - and NASA researchers have identified hydroponics as a suitable method for growing food in outer space. Swagֱ�� agri-tech experts are looking at the future of food production, which includes the application of hydroponics in vertical farming production.

Dr Beenish Siddique, founder of (below) , a UK government-backed enterprise which is also based in the GEIC, is leading a team to develop a pioneering a hydrogel called GelPonics.

This growth medium conserves water and filters out pathogens to protect plants from disease, while automated technology includes the use of a graphene-based sensor that allows remote monitoring and management of the irrigation management system. This process is much less labour intensive and ultimately the GelPonics system is designed to be used in the harshest of environments.

Combining two strengths – advanced materials and trustworthy automation – to create a USP for space

Space is a fast-growing opportunity for exponential market growth - and provides an arena for the UK engineering sector to apply its world-leading expertise. The R&D being pioneered by experts at Swagֱ�� to deliver revolutionary innovation in space habitat technology provides a model approach.

Swagֱ�� has combined two of its key engineering strengths – advanced materials and autonomous systems – to find a unique proposition on space tech innovation.

Dr Vivek Koncherry says: “If you want to implement nanomaterials - or indeed the next generation of advanced materials - into space application you will also need automation.

“In Swagֱ��, everything comes together – you have expertise in both advanced materials and automated systems. The skilled people we need to work with are based in the same place, which creates a unique proposition.”

Dr Koncherry has built a pilot digital manufacturing line, designed to handle materials of the future by integrating robotics, AI and IoT systems in his state-of-the-art Alchemy Lab based in the GEIC (above). He has an ambition to grow the manufacturing base in Greater Swagֱ�� and from this provide a model to underpin the UK’s national capability to making advanced products.

"Dr Koncherry adds: “Space is at the tipping point of being accessible to the commercial mainstream - the opportunities this provides are boundless. Just like in the original industrial revolution, Swagֱ�� now finds itself with the right innovation at the right time to capitalise on the space revolution.”

To find out more about Swagֱ��’s contribution to the space sector read: 

To illustrate the utility of their platform, they have engineered an enzyme that can successfully degrade poly(ethylene) terephthalate (PET), the plastic commonly used in plastic bottles. 

In recent years, the enzymatic recycling of plastics has emerged as an attractive and environmentally friendly strategy to help alleviate the problems associated with plastic waste. Although there are a number of existing methods for recycling plastics, enzymes could potentially offer a more cost-effective and energy efficient alternative. In addition, they could be used to selectively breakdown specific components of mixed plastic waste streams that are currently difficult to recycle using existing technologies.  

Although promising as a technology, there are considerable hurdles that need to be overcome for enzymatic plastic recycling to be used widely on a commercial scale. One challenge, for instance, is that natural enzymes with the ability to break down plastics typically are less effective and are unstable under the conditions needed for an industrial-scale process.  

To address these limitations, in a paper released today in , researchers from Swagֱ�� have reported a new enzyme engineering platform that can quickly improve the properties of plastic degrading enzymes to help make them more suitable for plastic recycling at large scales. Their integrated and automated platform can successfully assess the plastic degradation ability of around 1000 enzyme variants per day.  

Dr Elizabeth Bell, who led the experimental work at the MIB, says of the platform; “The accumulation of plastic in the environment is a major global challenge. For this reason, we were keen to use our enzyme evolution capabilities to enhance the properties of plastic degrading enzymes to help alleviate some of these problems.  We are hopeful that in the future our scalable platform will allow us to quickly develop new and specific enzymes are suitable for use in large-scale plastic recycling processes.”

To test their platform, they went on to develop a new enzyme, HotPETase, through the directed evolution of IsPETase. IsPETase is a recently discovered enzyme produced by the bacterium Ideonella sakaiensis, which can use PET as a carbon and energy source. 

While IsPETase has the natural ability to degrade some semi-crystalline forms of PET, the enzyme is unstable at temperatures above 40°C, far below desirable process conditions. This low stability means that reactions must be run at temperatures below the glass transition temperature of PET (~65°C), which leads to low depolymerisation rates. 

To address this limitation, the team developed a thermostable enzyme, HotPETase, which is active at 70°C, which is above the glass transition temperature of PET.  This enzyme can depolymerise semi-crystalline PET more rapidly than previously reported enzymes and can selectively deconstruct the PET component of a laminated packaging material, highlighting the selectivity that can be achieved by enzymatic recycling.  

 Professor Anthony Green, Lecturer in Organic Chemistry, said: “The development of HotPETase nicely illustrates the capabilities of our enzyme engineering platform. We are now excited to work with process engineers and polymer scientists to test our enzyme in real world applications.  Moving forward, we are hopeful that our platform will prove useful for developing more efficient, stable, and selective enzymes for recycling a wide range of plastic materials.”

The development of robust plastic degrading enzymes such as HotPETase, along with the availability of a versatile enzyme engineering platform, make important contributions towards the development of a biotechnological solution to the plastic waste challenge. To move this promising technology forward will now require a collaborative and multidisciplinary effort involving biotechnologists, process engineers and polymer scientists from across the academic and industrial communities. With the world facing an ever-mounting waste problem, biotechnology could provide an environmentally sustainable solution. 

Biotechnology is one of the University’s research beacons – exemplars of interdisciplinary collaboration and cross-sector partnerships that lead to pioneering discoveries and improve the lives of people around the world. manchester.ac.uk/biotechnology-research  

The Network will be led by at Imperial College London, and . A strategic advisory board will be chaired by Professor Rachel Oliver from the University of Cambridge.

Professor Curry said “This Network will bridge the gap between the major investments in the NQTP and the Henry Royce Institute and help to secure the UK’s future competitiveness in quantum technologies."
 

Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory of physics that was introduced to explain the behaviour of atoms and subatomic particles. It dominated the twentieth century by enabling the digital revolution that has transformed our economy and society.

We are now poised on the brink of a second revolution where the quantum physics of superposition and entanglement will be exploited at much larger scales. This will lead to transformative technologies for timing, sensing, imaging, communications and computing with applications in major industries including energy, construction, pharmaceuticals, defence, finance, security, telecommunications and information technology.

Like all technologies, quantum devices rely critically upon materials, both at the heart of the quantum system and in the surrounding technology. By comparison with the digital revolution, quantum technologies are currently at the stage of the thermionic valve: remarkable for their time but a long way from today’s products. While the materials of interest include so-called quantum materials such as superconductors and topological insulators, the majority of the needs at the heart of the quantum system will be met by more conventional complex oxides, ferroelectrics, nonlinear optical, 2D materials, engineered impurities in semiconductors, insulating materials, molecular materials, glasses and magnetic alloys, all underpinned by theory & simulation, characterisation and processing.

Professor Peter Haynes said “The EPSRC Materials for Quantum Network is a timely opportunity to harness the UK’s materials research community in addressing the needs of the national quantum programme to develop mature technologies that are sufficiently usable, reliable and cost-effective to take to market."

The Gravitational-wave Optical Transient Observer (GOTO) will help shepherd in a new era of gravitational wave science. Deployed across two antipodal locations to fully cover the sky, GOTO will scour the skies for optical clues about the violent cosmic events that create ripples in the fabric of space itself.

GOTO began when the UK’s University of Warwick and Australia’s Monash University wanted to address the gap between gravitational wave (GW) detectors and electromagnetic signals. Now the international collaboration has 10 partners, 6 of which are in the UK.

The primary science of GOTO is to detect the optical light connected to gravitational wave events. As part of the overall GOTO activity, Swagֱ�� will be using the new telescope to help its astronomers search for unique ‘spider’ pulsars, the name for very fast spinning binary pulsars.

For the gravitational wave science, GOTO needs to scan a large area of the sky repeatedly, both to find these events as they occur but also to build a very accurate reference of what the sky ‘normally’ looks like so that if a gravitational wave counterpart appears one can tell it was not there before. The ability of GOTO will allow researchers to produce extended time-lapses of the sky, which can then be mined for all kinds of other variable sources.

Professor Rene Breton of Swagֱ��, one of the GOTO project partners, says that the science return also goes beyond gravitational waves. “The ‘time-lapse’ picture of the sky it continuously builds up is a gold mine to study variability in other astronomical objects and search for transient phenomena unconnected to gravitational wave events,” he said.

“In our specific case, we're after discovering new by looking for the periodic signature of the heated star orbiting them. Some display unexpected changes and brighten up as mass suddenly start flowing from the companion star towards the pulsar. We don't understand this behaviour as it occurs quickly (somewhere between days to weeks) and has only been observed a couple of times. Having "eyes" scanning the sky is exactly what we think could help us uncover their secrets.”

GOTO has received £3.2 million of funding from the (STFC) to deploy the full-scale facility.

Long hypothesised as a by-product of the collision and merger of cosmic behemoths such as neutron stars and black holes, gravitational waves were finally detected directly by the Advanced LIGO (Laser Interferometry Gravitational-wave Observatory) in 2015.

GOTO is designed to fill this observational gap by searching for optical signals in the electromagnetic spectrum that might indicate the source of the GW – quickly locating the source and using that information to direct a fleet of telescopes, satellites and instruments at it.

As most GW signals involve the merger of massive objects, these ‘visual’ cues are extremely fleeting as must be located as quickly as possible, which is where GOTO comes in.

The idea is that GOTO will act as sort of intermediary between the likes of LIGO, which detect the presence of a gravitational wave event, and more targetable multi-wavelength observatories that can study the event’s optical source.

Professor Danny Steeghs of the University of Warwick, GOTO’s Principle Investigator, said: “There are fleets of telescopes all over the world available to look towards the skies when gravitational waves are detected, in order to find out more about the source. But as the gravitational wave detectors are not able to pinpoint where the ripples come from, these telescopes do not know where to look.”

“If the gravitational wave observatories are the ears, picking up the sounds of the events, and the telescopes are the eyes, ready to view the event in all the wavelengths, then GOTO is the bit in the middle, telling the eyes where to look.”

Following the successful testing of a prototype system in La Palma, in Spain’s Canary Islands, the project is deploying a much expanded, second generation instrument.

Two telescope mount systems, each made up of eight individual 40 cm (16 inch) telescopes, are now operational in La Palma. Combined, these 16 telescopes cover a very large field of view with 800 million pixels across their digital sensors, enabling the array to sweep the visible sky every few nights.

These robotic systems will operate autonomously, patrolling the sky continuously but also focusing on particular events or regions of sky in response to alerts of potential gravitational wave events.

In parallel, the team is preparing a site at Australia’s Siding Spring Observatory, which will contain the same two-mount, 16 telescope system as the La Palma installation.

The plan is to have both sites operational this year to be ready for the next observing run of the LIGO/Virgo gravitational wave detectors in 2023.

The optical search for gravitational wave events is the next step in the evolution of gravitational wave astronomy. It has been achieved once before, but with GOTO’s help it should become much easier.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN is now equipped with new and enhanced data acquisition and computing structures which are now all operational.

Today (July 5) marks the start of the accelerator's third run of data-taking for physics at the facility on the French-Swiss border, near Geneva.

Staff and PhD students in the Particle Physics Group at Swagֱ�� play a central role in both the ATLAS and LHCb experiments (two of the four experiments collecting data from the LHC) from research and development of cutting-edge particle detectors for these experiments to multiple leadership roles in international research groups.

Professor Chris Parkes from Swagֱ�� currently serves a three year term as Spokesperson of the LHCb experiment and said: “We are excited to see the research, development and construction efforts from the past 15 years turn into measurements of unprecedented precision. These will enable us to test the Standard Model of particle physics in unprecedented ways but they will surely also lead to surprising and unexpected discoveries.”

Ten years since the discovery of the Higgs Boson particle was announced to the world, the LHC is today moving ahead to the next stage of fundamental physics experimentation to help humanity’s understanding of the fundamental particles and forces that govern the Universe. Using the upgraded machine, it is hoped that the LHC experiments will provide new insights into the dominance of matter over antimatter and the nature of dark matter.

The beam began circulating in April, after years of upgrades and maintenance work to make it even more powerful. The LHC machine and its injectors had previously been recommissioned to operate with new higher-intensity beams and increased energy.

Beam operators have now announced the beam is stable and ready to start taking data to be used for science. The LHC will now run around the clock for close to 4 years at the record energy of 13.6 trillion electronvolts (TeV).

As part of the international effort, UK teams have to improve the performance of each of the LHC’s four main instruments, as well as work on the beam itself.

Scientists from Swagֱ�� have long held leading roles in CERN through the ATLAS and LHCb projects. University of Swagֱ�� physicists continue to contribute to many ongoing CERN-related projects and over the weekend Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor, visited the site and met with some of the scientists involved.

The UK’s contributions to the upgrade are worth more than £25 million, funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).

Professor Mark Thomson, STFC Executive Chair and particle physicist, said: “The hard work of many highly-skilled scientists and engineers in the UK has been vital to get to this point.

“Today’s news is just the beginning of an exciting few years, as physicists at CERN harness the power of the upgraded machine and vast detectors to push the frontiers of knowledge. Time will tell whether the LHC and its detectors, with their improved capabilities, can provide a first glimpse of physics beyond our current understanding.”

The four big LHC experiments have performed major upgrades to their data readout and selection systems, with new detector systems and computing infrastructure.

The changes will allow them to collect significantly larger data samples, with data of higher quality than in previous runs. The detector expects to record more than double the data during Run 3 than in the two previous physics runs combined. The experiment underwent a complete revamp, including Swagֱ��-built modules for the VELO detector at the heart of the experiment, and looks to increase its data-taking rate by a factor of 5.

Swagֱ�� is also leading on the UK’s contribution to the LHC’s luminosity upgrade (HL-LHC-UK), which will significantly increase the collision rate to discover new particles and make more precise measurements. While Phase 1 of HL-LHC-UK is just finishing, Phase 2 is due to complete in 2026 and involving nine UK institutions. The spokesperson for the project is Professor Rob Appleby from Swagֱ�� and the Cockcroft Institute, “The luminosity upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider is an exciting path to unlock a greater understanding of fundamental physics,” he said.

“The UK is proud to be contributing significant hardware through the project HL-LHC-UK. Both projects deliver hardware to the upgrade, including crab cavity cryostats, diagnostics and cold powering and simulations of performance.”

With the increased data samples and higher collision energy, Run 3 will further expand the already very diverse LHC physics programme.

Thanks to the UK’s subscription to CERN, managed through STFC, UK physicists will have the chance to use the LHC to try to address fundamental questions, such as the origin of the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the universe, the nature of dark matter, and will study the properties of matter under extreme temperature and density.

Scientists will also be searching for candidates for dark matter and for other new phenomena, either through direct searches or – indirectly – through precise measurements of properties of known particles.

Exotic particles, such as these, had only been theorised but not observed until recently. These exotic particles are built out of quarks.

“Like proton or neutrons, the particles that make up the nucleus of the atom, these new particles are made up of quarks”, explained Chris Parkes, Professor of Experimental Particle Physics at Swagֱ��. “However, protons and neutrons are made of three quarks, whereas exotic particles are made of four or five quarks”.

Exotic particles were predicted as possible by theorists about six decades ago, but only relatively recently, in the past 20 years, have they been observed by LHCb and other experiments.

“Finding exotic particles and measuring their properties will help theorists develop a model of how these particles are built, the exact nature of which is largely unknown,” according to Professor Parkes. “It will also help to better understand the theory for conventional particles such as the proton and neutron.”

The results presented today at a seminar, add three new exotic members to the growing list of new particles found by experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). They will help physicists better understand how quarks bind together into these composite particles.

The LHCb collaboration is a collaboration of over 1000 scientists from twenty countries across the world. It has built and operates one of the four big detectors at the CERN LHC particle collider. The collaboration is led by Professor Parkes, while Swagֱ�� has more than twenty members of staff and PhD students working on the project.

The new findings show that the international LHCb collaboration has observed three never-before-seen particles: a new kind of “pentaquark” and the first-ever pair of “tetraquarks”.

Quarks are elementary particles and come in six flavours: up, down, charm, strange, top and bottom. They usually combine together in groups of twos and threes to form hadrons such as the protons and neutrons that make up atomic nuclei. More rarely, however, they can also combine into four-quark and five-quark particles, or “tetraquarks” and “pentaquarks”. Particles made of quarks are known as hadrons.

While some theoretical models describe exotic hadrons as single units of tightly bound quarks, other models envisage them as pairs of standard hadrons loosely bound in a molecule-like structure. Only time and more studies of exotic hadrons will tell if these particles are one, the other or both.

Most of the exotic hadrons discovered in the past two decades are tetraquarks or pentaquarks containing a charm quark and a charm antiquark, with the remaining two or three quarks being an up, down or strange quark or an antiquark. But in the past two years, LHCb has discovered different kinds of exotic hadrons.

Two years ago, the collaboration discovered a tetraquark made up of two charm quarks and two charm antiquarks, and two “open-charm” tetraquarks consisting of a charm antiquark, an up quark, a down quark and a strange antiquark. And last year it found the first-ever instance of a “double open-charm” tetraquark with two charm quarks and an up and a down antiquark. Open charm means that the particle contains a charm quark without an equivalent antiquark.

The discoveries announced today by the LHCb collaboration include new kinds of exotic hadrons. The first kind, observed in an analysis of “decays” of negatively charged B mesons, is a pentaquark made up of a charm quark and a charm antiquark and an up, a down and a strange quark. It is the first pentaquark found to contain a strange quark. The finding has a whopping statistical significance of 15 standard deviations, far beyond the 5 standard deviations that are required to claim the observation of a particle in particle physics.

The second kind is a doubly electrically charged tetraquark. It is an open-charm tetraquark composed of a charm quark, a strange antiquark, and an up quark and a down antiquark, and it was spotted together with its neutral counterpart in a joint analysis of decays of positively charged and neutral B mesons. The new tetraquarks, observed with a statistical significance of 6.5 (doubly charged particle) and 8 (neutral particle) standard deviations, represent the first time a pair of tetraquarks has been observed.

The LHCb experiment hopes to find further exotic particles in the future and start to understand the families in to which they form. The collaboration is starting collecting data with its new detector today for LHC Run 3. Critical elements of this new detector have been designed and assembled in Swagֱ�� over the past seven years.

Based on leading research and expertise on innovative and emerging technologies, experts are calling for sustainability to be at the forefront of humanity’s next phase of space exploration. In On Space, experts ask policymakers to consider space debris, satellite orbits and the investment needed to roll out sustainable space technology on Earth.

Many technologies used to counter climate change, including solar panels, started out as space-age innovations. Future innovations in space technology could be used to further reduce carbon emissions here on Earth.

Dr Aled Roberts explains one of the biggest challenges for off-world habitat construction is the transportation of building materials, which can cost upwards of £1m per brick. A solution could be that ‘local’ resources, such as Lunar or Martian soil, are used to make building materials. , researched at Swagֱ��, is a material is made from bio-based materials and the local planetary soil to make sturdy bricks that can be used to build space habitats.

On the use of this technology on Earth, Aled said: “Given that the construction sector accounts for 39% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, any relatively green construction material technology developed for off-world habitats could be employed as a sustainable alternative on Earth.”

Researchers also stress the need to take care of space, particularly around the Earth’s orbit. Of the 23,000 objects regularly being tracked in orbit by radar, around 15% are active satellites, the rest is space debris.

As more commercial satellites are launched, such as SpaceX’s Starlink satellite cluster, the potential for space debris increases.

Dr Peter Roberts argues that one way to combat the problem of space debris is to coordinate International space policymakers to agree to for commercial operations to lessen humanity’s impact on the space environment. Higher level orbits should be reserved for science, crewed activities, and space exploration.

Professor Emma Bunce, President of the , said: “It is exciting to contemplate the future of the UK space sector, our use of space for the good of our planet, and its robotic and human exploration more widely. The ‘space age’ is still relatively young – just 60 years – but it is clear that our future and that of our planet will be reliant on space technology and the application of space-enabled data.”

As well as sustainability, On Space advocates for the use of advanced materials, such as graphene, in UK space technology, support for research and development into emerging space technologies in the UK and prioritising international collaborations in UK and international space policy.

On Space is available to read on .

Dr Koncherry, who is based at the University‘s world-class materials innovation accelerator, the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre (GEIC), is developing a range of products exploiting breakthrough nanomaterial technology.

But to get this innovation to a mass market, Dr Koncherry recognises that manufacturing systems also need to keep pace – so he has built a pilot digital manufacturing line in the GEIC designed to handle materials of the future by integrating robotics, AI and IoT systems. 

“The first industrial revolution in Swagֱ�� was world famous for its textiles and weaving technologies and we are at the start of the next industrial revolution – but this time we are to use advanced materials and advanced manufacturing processes,” he said.  

“So, if you want to implement nanomaterials or the next generation of materials into the marketplace you will also need automation and the next level of advanced manufacturing to remain competitive at a global scale.

“In Swagֱ��, everything comes together – you have expertise in both advanced materials and automated systems. The skilled people we need to work with are based in the same place, which creates a unique proposition.”

This “unique proposition” has, in fact, already helped Dr Koncherry attract inward investment from North America, with $5 million (£3.6m) being put into his start-up Graphene Innovations Swagֱ�� (GIM).

Dr Koncherry and his team at GIM (including robotics expert Jinseong Park, pictured top) are developing a range of products, including mats and floor coverings made from recycled materials (such as rubber from car tyres) to pioneering pressurised vessels made from a graphene-enhanced composite material. These components can be applied to hydrogen storage on earth or creating a habitat for living in space.  

Dr Koncherry has an ambition to grow the manufacturing base in Greater Swagֱ�� and from this provide a model to underpin the UK’s national capability to making advanced products.  

To find out more about Dr Koncherry’s pioneering work and also how graphene-based composite technology is a key to lightweighting in sectors including aerospace and automotive, watch the film below:

Professor Sarah Haigh has been named winner of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Analytical Division mid-career Award. Based at the University of Swagֱ��, Professor Haigh won the prize for the development of transmission electron microscopy methods for advancing understanding of the dynamic behaviour of 2D materials and nanomaterials.

After receiving the prize, Professor Haigh said: “I’m very excited to have received this prize and thank the RSC for the honour. It is a testament to the hard work of my fantastic research group who very patiently put up with me. I am very grateful to them for their great ideas, persistence, enthusiasm, and collaboration. This prize is evidence that you can continue to succeed in science with a young family even with the huge additional challenges and stresses imposed by the pandemic over the last years.”

Most science and engineering processes occur in liquids or gases. Professor Haigh’s research group uses electron microscopes to study these processes, dynamically, with atomic spatial resolution and chemical sensitivity. Electron microscopes are similar to optical microscopes, but they use electrons instead of light. Electrons can be accelerated to very high speeds, when they have a wavelength 100,000 times smaller than visible light, which gives us the possibility to see atoms.

Applications of their research include studying the early stage synthesis of nanomaterials, the charging and discharging of batteries, the production of electricity from fuel cells or of green fuels from renewable energy, and the corrosion of pipelines or offshore wind turbines. Her research group is particularly interested in the applications for clean energy generation to support the net zero energy transition.

Professor Jason Micklefield has been named winner of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Interdisciplinary Prize. Based at the University of Swagֱ��, Professor Micklefield won the prize for innovative research spanning organic chemistry to molecular genetics, leading to the discovery, characterisation, and engineering of many novel enzymes.  

After receiving the prize, Professor Micklefield said: “I am very pleased to win this award. I am particularly grateful to my very talented research group for their hard work, dedication and excellent research over the years, which has made this possible.”

Nature uses enzymes to catalyse reactions building all of the molecules required for life. Enzymes also break down molecules to release energy that enables all living organisms to move forward. Professor Micklefield’s lab discovers novel enzymes from unusual bacteria in nature. They characterise these enzymes to determine their structures and mechanisms. With this knowledge, they are able to re-programme the enzymes to create variants that can catalyse new reactions. 

These engineered enzymes are used to produce novel antibiotics to combat antimicrobial resistance, antiviral agents that entered clinical trials for COVID-19, anticancer agents and other useful molecules. The enzymatic pathways they develop are cleaner and more sustainable than the traditional chemical synthesis routes that are currently used to prepare pharmaceuticals and other molecules.

Professor Christopher Hardacre has been named winner of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Tilden Prize. Based at the University of Swagֱ��, Professor Hardacre won the prize for outstanding contributions to the areas of liquid and gas phase heterogeneous catalysis.

After receiving the prize, Professor Hardacre said: “I was delighted and honoured but surprised.”

Professor Hardacre’s group focuses on the use of solids as catalysts for the production of commodity and fine chemicals and the removal of pollutants. Catalysts are materials that can lower the energy required for chemical reactions to proceed at the required rate. The group uses them in both the liquid phase and gas phase. The research aims to produce chemicals and fuels more efficiently and selectively. As well as having a direct application in the chemicals and energy sector, catalysis is key to achieving net zero.

Dr Helen Pain, Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry, said: “Great science changes the way we think about things – either through the techniques used, the findings themselves, the products that emerge or even in how we interact with the world and those around us. Importantly, it also allows us to reflect on the incredible people involved in this work and how they have achieved their results. 

“Although we are in the midst of negotiating a particularly turbulent and challenging era, it is important to celebrate successes and advances in understanding as genuine opportunities to improve our lives. The work of the three winners from Swagֱ�� is a fantastic example of why we celebrate great science, and we’re very proud to recognise their contribution today.”

Direct lithium extraction (DLE) is a vital process in the push towards self-sufficiency for the UK and Europe in lithium, a key component in modern battery technology.

Led by Sebastian Leaper, a former PhD student from the Department of Materials at Swagֱ��, has taken Tier 2 membership of the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre (GEIC), with lab space and access to advanced 2D materials facilities and expertise in prototyping. 

The pre-seed funding round has been led by , an investor focused on innovations around sustainability. 

Recovery from battery recycling

Watercycle Technologies has already demonstrated that its solutions can extract lithium from UK-based brines and can recover it from lithium batteries during the recycling process. This investment will allow the business to further develop their prototype solutions and test them at scale at live extraction and recycling locations.

The technology also shows the potential to refine the lithium up to battery-grade, which will allow the processing of battery-grade lithium to occur at production sites around the world. Together, these capabilities could significantly improve the environmental footprint of lithium production for EVs.

Dr Sebastian Leaper, CEO of Watercycle Technologies Limited, explains: “Our lives are increasingly dependent on the ebb and flow of lithium ions. They store and transport an ever-greater portion of the energy we need for our devices, cars and power grid and enable us to transition away from fossil fuels. 

“Access to significant quantities of low-cost, low-carbon lithium is fundamental to tackling climate change and we at Watercycle Technologies are striving to make this possible,” he adds. "We are very grateful for the support of Aer Ventures in this journey, as they share our ambition to help build a sustainable, circular economy for future generations to enjoy."

Chris Rowley, Managing Partner of Aer Ventures, said: “Watercycle Technologies is exactly the type of business we exist to support. With a sustainable vision and a proven technology, the business has the potential to solve one of our major environmental problems – the need for critical minerals to support the transition to Net Zero. 

"With serious commentators such as the International Energy Agency estimating the world could require over 50 times more lithium by 2040 than it produced in 2020, the innovation Watercycle Technologies provides has never been more essential and we are pleased to support the business in taking this game-changing technology to market.”

Andrew Wilkinson, CEO of , said: “This new University of Swagֱ�� spinout has amazing potential to significantly reduce the cost and environmental impact of lithium production. It also enables countries with access to lithium-rich brines and recycled batteries, like the UK, to become self-sufficient in this strategically vital raw material. Although initially focusing on the extraction of lithium salts, Watercycle Technologies’ membranes and systems can easily be adapted to extract other high-value materials and be used in applications such as desalination.”

 is one of Swagֱ��’s  - examples of pioneering discoveries, interdisciplinary collaboration and cross-sector partnerships that are tackling some of the biggest questions facing the planet. #ResearchBeacons.

‘Hot robotic’ systems were originally designed to work in radioactive environments found in decommissioned nuclear reactors - but future assignments for this type of super machine will include deployment in nuclear fusion power, the offshore energy sector, agriculture and even outer space.

As part of an ambitious R&D programme to maintain UK leadership in robotic technologies, Swagֱ�� experts are applying AI technologies to ‘hot robotics’ as they will increasingly need to act independently of human operators as they enter a range of danger zones to carry out highly complex tasks.    

Swagֱ��’s expertise in AI and robotic technologies will be showcased on June 14 as part of a symposium that will put a spotlight on the National Nuclear User Facility Hot Robotics programme Register here:

An important challenge in the nuclear industry is to improve robot autonomy so that the technology can be used to deliver safer, faster and cheaper decommissioning of legacy power stations and other radioactive facilities at sites such as Sellafield and Dounreay.

To support this challenge, the Robotics and AI Collaboration (RAICo) has been established in Cumbria as a joint research programme between Swagֱ��, the UK Atomic Energy Agency (UKAEA), Sellafield Ltd, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and the National Nuclear Laboratory. The aim is to develop advanced robotic and AI solutions and transferring these to sites across the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s estate in the UK.

In addition to supporting the nuclear decommissioning industry, RAICo will also provide a pilot for the development and application of sophisticated robotic systems in other sectors – a recent  estimates that the total UK market size for autonomous robotic systems will reach almost £3.5 billion by 2030. 

Academic engagement into RAICo is being led by Professor Barry Lennox and his team at Swagֱ��. This group leads the (Robotics and Artificial Intelligence for Nuclear) hub and are also part of the Swagֱ�� Robotics and AI Centre.

“The inclusion of AI is because the goal is to develop automated systems that can operate much more efficiently than if they were operated by people,” explained Barry Lennox.

“Within RAICo we are looking at how to improve the operation of remote manipulation and inspection systems. We’re helping Sellafield and other nuclear end-users to develop the next generation of remote surveying and handling equipment so they can improve their operations.”

Professor Lennox explained that Swagֱ�� is a world-leader in designing and developing autonomous systems through the application of AI technologies like machine learning to significantly improve robotic systems.

The Swagֱ��-led RAIN group has built up their expertise after pioneering a series of resilient robotic systems to carry out work in many of the UK’s decommissioned nuclear power stations – doing work that is too dangerous for humans.

Professor Lennox explained: “The prefix ‘hot’ was introduced because we were interested in deploying the robots into active environments - but we’re now looking to expand the hot so it can refer to more general applications, including the space, agriculture and offshore sectors. Many of the challenges are similar, although the robots may end up looking a bit different.”

Enhancing the AI capability of these machines is the next big challenge for his team, added Professor Lennox. “AI introduces lots of additional problems related to ensuring that the AI will do what we expect it to do and not cause damage or risk the safety of humans.”

Expanding beyond nuclear decommissioning, the Swagֱ��-led RAIN team are also establishing joint programmes of work with the UK Atomic Energy Authority to support them in the development of robotic systems for nuclear fusion reactors.

Rob Buckingham, Director UK Atomic Energy Authority and head of their Remote Applications in Challenging Environments (RACE) centre, said: “The next generation of robotics will be essential for the delivery of fusion power and, recognising this, we intend to collaborate widely with the best, such as the robotics research group at Swagֱ��.

“Working with Swagֱ�� on the RAIN programme has reaped huge rewards for both parties so let’s do more.”

Finally, Swagֱ�� researchers have been advising UK policy-makers and energy sector leaders on the safe development of robotic and autonomous systems for work in harsh environments.

  and have recently outlined recommendations in their ‘, calling for greater transparency and easier verification in autonomous decision-making processes, particularly for systems used in situations where there is a risk to human wellbeing. 

 

The Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) is set to explore the evolution of the early Universe and delve into the role of some the earliest processes in fashioning galaxies like our own Milky Way, among many other science goals.

From its , the SKAO will oversee the delivery and operations of two cutting-edge, complementary arrays with 197 radio telescope dishes located in South Africa and more than 130,000 low-frequency antennas in Western Australia.

Professor Ben Stappers leads the Swagֱ�� team developing the Pulsar Search software. This programme will enable some of the most exciting SKAO experiments, testing General Relativity and aiming to detect Gravitational Waves.

Swagֱ�� will also lead the development of the software for the Monitor, Control and Calibration System of the SKA-LOW telescope. This telescope will be an array of over 130,000 antennas, which will, amongst other experiments, detect the very first stars to be born in the Universe.

Underpinning these incredible instruments is the thinking power of its software system, telling the telescopes where to look and when, diagnosing any issues and translating the telescope signals into useable data from which discoveries can be made.

The UK has already played a vital role in the software for the telescopes during the design phase, and is now set to continue leading this area as the telescopes are constructed.

Science Minister George Freeman said: “It is no surprise that the UK’s outstanding scientists are playing such a vital role in shaping the future of this cutting-edge global observatory, backed by £15 million government funding.

“As well as providing the foundation for new galaxy-level discoveries, this award will help to guarantee future contracts for UK industry, secure skilled jobs and develop a highly-transferrable technology in the UK – channelling more money back into the UK economy.

“This reflects the incredible skill of our science community, who are working hand-in-hand with industry to ensure the UK continues to grow as a global science superpower.”

The SKAO headquarters is based at Jodrell Bank, near Swagֱ��, and its expansion was co-funded by the UK Government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), through STFC.

The UK government, through STFC, is the largest contributor to the SKAO and currently has a commitment to support 15% of the total cost of construction and initial operations from 2021 to 2030.

Professor Mark Thomson, Executive Chair of STFC and member of the SKAO Council, said: “The UK continues to play a leading role in the SKAO and the development of its telescopes.

“For any large scientific endeavour, the linchpin of its success lies in the infrastructure. Without the power to process and organise the vast amounts of information these telescopes will gather, we could not make the important discoveries.

 “With the skills and expertise of our researchers and colleagues in industry, the UK will deliver the computing brain and nervous system of the telescopes to enable the observations and unlock the science.”

Building the next generation of telescopes

The SKAO , which is expected to be completed by the end of the decade, with the telescopes anticipated to operate for over 50 years.

As one of the largest scientific endeavours in history, the SKAO brings together more than 500 engineers and 1,000 scientists in more than 20 countries.

The telescopes will be able to survey the sky much faster than existing radio telescopes, and so will require powerful computing to ingest and process in real time the expected data rate of 8 terabits of data per second and to support the regional processing centres managing more than 700 petabytes a year.  At these challenging scales, high performance computing and software design are a cornerstone of the project.

Specialised cutting-edge software is being designed to control and monitor the telescope operations, and to allow detailed calibration and processing the huge amounts scientific data.

Working with industry

As well as utilising the expertise from UK’s research and academia, software development also relies on vital input from industry partners.

STFC’s Conrad Graham, UK project manager, said: “Involvement with the SKA project brings significant benefits for the UK, not just in terms of direct economic returns on investment, but also via innovation and technological spin offs, driven by the requirements of the project.

“The award of new contracts will provide opportunities for UK industry to engage with the project across all areas of SKA software design.

 “As a result of the UK’s participation and the SKAO’s policy of fair work return, the UK is leading on seven high-value construction contracts, which will see the creation of significant new opportunities for UK industry.”

Professor Dongarra is currently a Turing Fellow at Swagֱ�� and collaborations with Swagֱ�� colleagues include work on batched computations, mixed precision arithmetic algorithms, and the PLASMA software.

As a leading ambassador of high-performance computing, Dongarra led the field in persuading hardware vendors to optimize these methods, and software developers to target his open-source libraries in their work. Ultimately, these efforts resulted in linear algebra-based software libraries achieving nearly universal adoption for high performance scientific and engineering computation on machines ranging from laptops to the world’s fastest supercomputers. These libraries were essential in the growth of the field—allowing progressively more powerful computers to solve computationally challenging problems.

“Today’s fastest supercomputers draw headlines in the media and excite public interest by performing mind-boggling feats of a quadrillion calculations in a second,” explains President Gabriele Kotsis. “But beyond the understandable interest in new records being broken, high performance computing has been a major instrument of scientific discovery. HPC innovations have also spilled over into many different areas of computing and moved our entire field forward.

“Jack Dongarra played a central part in directing the successful trajectory of this field. His trailblazing work stretches back to 1979, and he remains one of the foremost and actively engaged leaders in the HPC community. His career certainly exemplifies the Turing Award’s recognition of ‘major contributions of lasting importance.’”

Professor Andrew Hazel, Head of Department, said: "Jack Dongarra's pioneering work has made it possible for researchers around the world to access high-performance computing. The Department of Mathematics is delighted that his fundamental contributions have been recognised by the ACM Turing Award."

“Jack Dongarra's work has fundamentally changed and advanced scientific computing,” said Jeff Dean, Google Senior Fellow and SVP of Google Research and Google Health. “His deep and important work at the core of the world's most heavily used numerical libraries underlie every area of scientific computing, helping advance everything from drug discovery to weather forecasting, aerospace engineering and dozens more fields, and his deep focus on characterizing the performance of a wide range of computers has led to major advances in computer architectures that are well suited for numeric computations.”

Dongarra will be formally presented with the ACM A.M. Turing Award at the annual ACM Awards Banquet, which will be held this year on Saturday, June 11 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco.

Dongarra has a 25% FTE appointment in the Department of Mathematics as Turing Fellow. He is a member of the Numerical Linear Algebra group and his work in Swagֱ�� has been funded by EPSRC and EU Horizon 2020 grants. He has also held Knowledge Transfer Partnerships with NAG Ltd., funded by Innovate UK.

The partnership, which has seen the launch of and subsequent development of the high-performance graphene-enhanced footwear, is now in the spotlight for its success in taking fundamental research to a successful global hit product.

Officially launched in 2018, the collaborative partners announced that they had been able to develop a graphene-enhanced rubber through a research project which began behind the scenes in 2016.

They developed G-GRIP rubber outsoles for running, hiking and fitness shoes that in testing outlasted 1,000 miles, are scientifically proven to be 50% harder wearing, and deliver the world’s toughest grip.

Subsequently, graphene was infused into the midsole foam as well, to provide superior and long-lasting energy return that supercharges feet. The G-FLY foam midsole was launched in 2021.

Aravind Vijayaraghavan, Professor of Nanomaterials at Swagֱ��, said: “This partnership is an excellent example of how a university research group and a SME can collaborate closely to take cutting edge technology from lab to market at a rapid pace. It demonstrates the significant benefits that graphene can bring to everyday products and impact our daily lives.”

Now Innovate UK has honoured the recently completed between the two organisations with the highest possible grade of ‘Outstanding’. The project has set the bar high, resulting in not only a world-leading product range, but also a highly effective partnership that is boosting the University’s commercial reputation – and that of a fellow northern brand.

inov-8 founder Wayne Edy said: “This powerhouse forged in Northern England has taken the world of sports footwear by storm. We’re combining science and innovation together with entrepreneurial speed and achieving incredible things.”

Graphene is the lauded atomically thin material, first isolated from graphite by Swagֱ�� scientists, leading to the award of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010. At just one atom thick it is lightweight yet incredibly strong, meaning it has many unique properties. inov-8 was the first brand in the world to use the material in sports footwear, and both G-GRIP and G-FLY are patent-pending technologies.

That footwear has since gone on to win multiple awards. The TRAILFLY G 270 and TRAILFLY ULTRA G 300 MAX were both named ‘Trail Running Shoe of the Year’ in the Runner’s World UK Gear Awards for 2020 and 2021 respectively. Graphene-enhanced shoes have also been worn by athletes to set records, especially over ultramarathons distances. Damian Hall wore them to set a new fastest time for the 185-mile Wainwright’s Coast to Coast trail in 39 hours and 18 minutes, as did Jasmin Paris to famously win the 268-mile Spine Race outright and set a new record time that still stands.

The ongoing research and innovation has now also seen the KTP Associate, Dr Nadiim Domun, hired by inov-8 as a Senior Materials Engineer to retain his expertise and to continue the graphene technology development through close collaboration with Swagֱ��.

Graphene has the potential to change lives in so many ways. Athletic equipment is just one current success story for the versatile material. Water filtration, aviation and consumer electronics are among the many applications that are exciting scientists, product developers and the public the world over.

2021 saw Swagֱ�� placed at the top of the table for the UK's Knowledge Transfer Partnerships and become partner of choice for innovation in businesses.

It proposes different phase-out dates for oil and gas producing countries in line with the Paris Agreement’s goals and commitment to a fair transition. Taking into account countries’ differing levels of wealth, development and economic reliance on fossil fuels, it says the poorest nations should be given until 2050 to end production but will also need significant financial support to transition their economies.

The report, by Professor Kevin Anderson, a leading researcher at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, and Dr Dan Calverley, warns that there is no room for any nation to increase production, with all having to make significant cuts this decade. The richest, which produce over a third of the world’s oil and gas, must cut output by 74% by 2030; the poorest, which supply just one ninth of global demand, must cut back by 14%.

Kevin Anderson, Professor of Energy and Climate Change at Swagֱ��, said: “Responding to the ongoing climate emergency requires a rapid shift away from a fossil fuel economy, but this must be done fairly. There are huge differences in the ability of countries to end oil and gas production, while maintaining vibrant economies and delivering a just transition for their citizens.  We have developed a schedule for phasing out oil and gas production that – with sufficient support for developing countries – meets our very challenging climate commitments and does so in a fair way.

“The research was completed prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Our first thoughts are with the Ukrainian people and indeed with all of those caught up in the war. But the resulting high energy prices also remind us that oil and gas are volatile global commodities, and economies that depend on them will continue to face repeated shocks and disruption. The efficient and sensible use of energy combined with a rapid shift to renewables will increase energy security, build resilient economies, and help avoid the worst impacts of climate change.”

The report, commissioned by the International Institute for Sustainable Development, notes that some poorer nations are so reliant on fossil fuel revenues that rapidly removing this income could threaten their political stability. Countries like South Sudan, Congo-Brazzaville, and Gabon, despite being small producers, have little economic revenue apart from oil and gas production.

By contrast, it observes: “Wealthy nations that are major producers, typically remain wealthy even once the oil and gas revenue is removed.” Oil and gas revenue contribute 8% to US GDP but without it the country’s GDP per head would still be around $60,000 – the second highest globally.

When countries signed the UN Paris Agreement, they agreed that wealthy nations should take bigger and faster steps to decarbonise their economies and also provide financial support to help poorer countries move away from fossil fuels. This principle has been applied to coal power generation, with the UN calling on wealthy OECD countries to phase our coal use by 2030 and the rest of the world by 2040.

The report, , applies similar principles to oil and gas. It quantifies how much future production is consistent with the Paris climate targets and what this implies for the 88 countries responsible for 99.97% of all oil and gas supply. It sets viable phase-out pathways for five different groups of countries based on their differing capacities to make a rapid and just transition away from fossil fuels.

For a 50% chance of limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5°C, it finds that:

• 19 Highest Capacity countries, with average non-oil GDP per person (GDP/capita) of over $50,000, must end production by 2034, with a 74% cut by 2030. This group produces 35% of global oil and gas and includes the USA, UK, Norway, Canada, Australia and the United Arab Emirates.
   
• 14 High Capacity countries, with average non-oil GDP/capita of nearly $28,000, must end production by 2039, with a 43% cut by 2030. They produce 30% of global oil and gas and include Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Kazakhstan.
   
• 11 Medium Capacity countries, with average non-oil GDP/capita of $17,000, must end production by 2043, with a 28% cut by 2030. They produce 11% of global oil and gas and include China, Brazil and Mexico.
   
• 19 Low Capacity countries with average non-oil GDP/capita of $10,000, must end production by 2045, with an 18% cut by 2030. They produce 13% of global oil and gas and include Indonesia, Iran and Egypt.
   
• 25 Lowest Capacity countries, with average non-oil GDP/capita of $3,600, must end production by 2050 with a 14% cut by 2030. They produce 11% of global oil and gas and include Iraq, Libya, Angola and South Sudan.

Dr Dan Calverley said: “There is very little room for manoeuvre if we want to limit warming to 1.5°C. Although this schedule gives poorer countries longer to phase out oil and gas production, they will be hit hard by the loss of income. An equitable transition will require substantial levels of financial assistance for poorer producers, so they can meet their development needs while they switch to low-carbon economies and deal with growing climate impacts.”

Commenting on the report, Connie Hedegaard, former European Commissioner for Climate Action and Danish Minister for Climate and Energy, said: “While it is largely understood that there needs to be an urgent phase-out of coal production globally, this report illustrates only too clearly why there also needs to be a phase-out of oil and gas production. And it shows that the pace and end date of the wind-down needs to be rapid. This urgency has only been tragically underscored by recent geopolitical events, which have made it abundantly clear that there are numerous reasons why the world needs to get off its dependence on fossil fuels and accelerate the transition to clean energy”.

Saber H. Chowdhury, Member of the Bangladesh Parliament and Honorary President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, said: "The science is conclusive - fossil fuels need to be phased out now and a fossil fuel free future world realised soon. Wealthy nations have the means to transition fastest and have a moral duty to do this. At same time, they have an obligation to support countries in the global south with finance and technology to assist them in transitioning to renewables to secure their energy needs."

The proposed schedules for winding down oil and gas production depend on a rapid global phase-out of coal. The report notes that many poorer countries rely on domestic coal production for their energy needs: nearly three quarters of all the world’s coal is produced and consumed in developing countries. However, to achieve 1.5°C without even tighter reductions on oil and gas, coal production must peak in developing countries by 2022 and end by 2040, while developed countries must phase out all coal production by 2030.

The awards event, held on Monday 14 March at the Samsung KX venue in London’s King’s Cross, was a precursor to the main CogX Festival, an annual conference held every summer in the capital, focusing on advanced technology, data science and AI.

The winners were decided by of academics and tech industry experts, who ran the rule over entries in six categories: Recognising Leadership, Best Innovation, Best Tech Product, Global Goals, Outstanding Research and Achievements and Best Climate Innovation.

Among 24 prizes on offer in the Innovation categories, four went to graphene-related products and projects, all four being part of the Graphene@Swagֱ�� community, as follows:

Best Climate Change Innovation in Carbon Emissions and Clean Energy

- low-carbon concrete developed by Nationwide Engineering Group and Swagֱ��’s Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre and Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering.

Best Innovation (Food Tech):

- technologies around vertical farming to minimise water waste, energy consumption and cost, led by Dr Beenish Siddique.

Best Innovation (Diagnostics): 

Dr Rob Wykes at - for work around epilepsy using graphene to develop flexible, highly sensitive neural probes.

Best Innovation (Space):

Graphene Space Habitat – design concept and composites technology for space habitation by Dr Vivek Koncherry and global architects Skidmore, Owings and Merrill.

Chief Executive of Graphene@Swagֱ�� James Baker said: “I’m really pleased for the companies and groups involved in these projects. Sometimes we haven’t been as quick as we might to put ourselves forward for these sorts of awards, so it’s great to see to see recognition for the hard work that’s gone into all of these innovations. I look forward to us playing our part in the conference in June.”

Dr Rob Wykes said he was delighted to win the award. “Dissemination of this collaborative scientific work to a larger audience through the CogX platform will bring to the public’s attention the advantages of graphene-based brain interface devices,” he added.

“This work specifically highlights the innovation of graphene micro-transistor arrays, and their superior ability to record a wide range pathological brain signals associated with several common neurological conditions, in particular epilepsy. We believe that future clinical translation of this technology will result in a diagnostic tool that promises to improve patient management and treatment options.”

In addition to the awards, CogX invited Alex Bornyakov, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister for Digital Transformation, to explain how the UK tech community can help the humanitarian crisis in eastern Europe. Bornyakov was introduced by Chris Philp MP, Minister for Tech and the Digital Economy, who gave opening remarks and a call-to-action for the UK community.

The CogX Festival runs from 13-15 June. Find out more about how you can get involved at .

 is one of Swagֱ��’s  - examples of pioneering discoveries, interdisciplinary collaboration and cross-sector partnerships that are tackling some of the biggest questions facing the planet. #ResearchBeacons.

This funding helps to keep the UK at the forefront of answering some of the biggest and most complex questions in science and supports the next generation of UK particle physicists.

As part of the latest particle physics experiment grants from STFC 18 UK universities will be able to carry out world-leading particle physics research over the next three years.

The particle physics group at Swagֱ�� will benefit from £4.6 million of new funding. The Swagֱ�� team exploits the data collected by two of the main experiments at the LHC, which collide protons at the highest energies currently accessible by accelerators. They also study the properties of the neutrino and search for dark matter using state-of-the-art liquid-argon detectors.

Andrew Pilkington, Professor of Particle Physics at Swagֱ�� said: “An important part of our research is to exploit the data collected by large international experiments, as this allows us to learn more about the fundamental particles that exist in nature.

“At the ATLAS experiment at the LHC, we search for new types of particles (or particle interactions) that are not predicted by the Standard Model of Particle Physics, including dark matter and anomalous Higgs boson interactions. At the LHCb experiment, we study the properties of the charm and bottom quarks, to better understand the matter-antimatter asymmetry observed in the Universe. At the SBND and Microboone experiments, we study the properties of the neutrino and search for new species of neutrino. At the Muon g-2 experiment, we study the possible anomalous interactions of the muon with external magnetic fields.

“We also play a major role in the design and construction of future particle physics experiments, from the upgrades of LHC experiments to the next generation of neutrino and dark matter experiments.”

Particle physics studies the world at the smallest possible distance scales and the highest achievable energies, seeking answers to fundamental questions about the structure of matter and the composition of the Universe.

Ten years after the UK researchers’ contribution to the Nobel Prize winning detection of the Higgs boson, some of the questions that the community is working to answer are:

·       What is the Universe made of and why?

·       What is the underlying nature of neutrinos?

·       Why is there an imbalance between matter and antimatter in the Universe?

·       How can we detect dark matter?

·       Are there any new particles or particle interactions we can find?

Professor Grahame Blair, STFC Executive Director for Programmes, said: "STFC continues to support the experimental particle physics community in the UK in answering fundamental questions about our Universe.

“The grants are vital in supporting technicians, engineers and academics in their skills and expertise in the field, all while encouraging career development in fundamental research with both universities and international collaborators. 

“This investment underpins the UK physics community and enables continued UK leadership in the field of experimental particle physics.”

Research teams funded by the UK are working on solving ground-breaking challenges in particle physics, including the race to detect dark matter, the investigation of neutrino oscillations and the search for proton decay – all key questions in fundamental physics which we still do not have answers to.

Ofgem announced on 1 March 2022 the funding award for the  feasibility study and Dr Tony Chen will investigate the technical feasibility of a SF₆-free GIL solution in providing high-capacity transmission connections over long-distance.

Current generation of GIL are filled with sulphur hexafluoride (SF₆), a potent greenhouse gas with a global warming potential that is 23,500 times more harmful than CO₂. The project will explore SF₆ alternatives with significantly lower carbon footprint.

The feasibility stage will be undertaken by Dr Chen at Swagֱ�� which hosts the largest academic High Voltage Laboratory in the country, with facilities that can test power equipment up to 600 kV DC, 800 kV AC, and 2 MV impulse.

Dr Chen, Lecturer in High Voltage Engineering within the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, said: “Now is the time for innovation and to develop a grid of the future that manages soaring demand for electricity, while lowering the potential environmental impact and ensuring the UK has access to affordable and resilient electricity supply.

“At Swagֱ��, we are committed to delivering a just and prosperous net zero energy, and are honoured to work alongside National Grid Energy Transmission and the other project partners who share the same technical and civic ambitions.” 

‘Siting Implications of Nuclear Energy: A path to net zero’, maps the nine actions required to understand the whole nuclear energy lifecycle better, to help ensure the sector can realistically and responsibly deliver the scale of development required. 

Authored by the senior leadership team at , home to the largest and most advanced nuclear research capability in UK academia, the paper considers how policymakers and industry decision makers should tackle key issues such as spent fuel and waste management strategies, safety standards for licensing (and de-licensing) sites, the kind of legacy we might tolerate from our nuclear sector and the role of local communities in determining the suitability of sites for nuclear development.

Professor Francis Livens, Director of the Dalton Nuclear Institute explains: “In the UK, nuclear energy seems at last to be returning to the fore after decades of comparative, if productive, obscurity. With the expansion necessary to help deliver our net zero ambition and the new applications envisaged for nuclear energy, the limited number of nominated nuclear sites in the UK is insufficient. Delivering on these ambitions will therefore require new nuclear sites to be identified, and new communities to accept nuclear facilities. 

“This is not a trivial task, and common to all discussions about nuclear energy generation is the ever-present question of waste. Now would be a good time to ask ourselves questions concerning our future waste policy.

“Delivery of nuclear energy is a complex process, and we must aim to understand the whole lifecycle if we are to make the right decisions. This report aims to further discussion on the matter and provides recommendations on how to use nuclear energy responsibly to deliver net zero.” 

Co-author Professor Gregg Butler continues: “It is only by addressing this issue now, taking time to understand the impact of the whole lifecycle, that we can achieve the scale of siting required. 

“In this paper, we set out recommendations for a future waste policy that – once in place – will ensure the path is clear for nuclear energy to deliver on its net zero potential.”

The paper has been co-authored by Dr William Bodel, Prof Gregg Butler and Prof Adrian Bull. Read

 at Swagֱ�� is a world-leading cross-disciplinary nuclear research institute, providing research across the whole fuel cycle, delivering impact to industry, governments and regulators, and supporting the UK’s long term nuclear ambition.

 is one of Swagֱ��’s  - examples of pioneering discoveries, interdisciplinary collaboration and cross-sector partnerships that are tackling some of the biggest questions facing the planet. #ResearchBeacons

An epic deep space cosmic ballet of two giant black holes orbiting one another every two years has been observed for the first time by an international team of astronomers. Locked in an epic cosmic waltz 9 billion light-years away the two supermassive black holes appear to be orbiting around each other every two years.

The two massive bodies are each hundreds of millions of times the mass of our sun and separated by a distance of roughly fifty times that between our sun and Pluto. When the pair merge in roughly 10,000 years, the titanic collision is expected to shake space and time itself, sending gravitational waves across the universe.

The astounding new research was published in The Journal of Astrophysical Letters today. The evidence, collected over decades, shows the cosmic event taking place within a fiercely energetic object known as a quasar. Quasars are active cores of galaxies in which a supermassive black hole is siphoning material from a disk encircling it. In some quasars, the supermassive black hole creates a jet that shoots out at near the speed of light. The quasar observed in the new study, PKS 2131-021, belongs to a subclass of quasars called blazars in which the jet is pointing towards the Earth. Astronomers already knew that quasars could possess two orbiting supermassive black holes, but finding direct evidence for this has proved difficult.

Professor Keith Grainge from Swagֱ��’s Jodrell Bank said: "This is a mind boggling story that has been 45 years in the making. Nine billion light years away there two monster black holes, each many millions of times more massive than our Sun, orbiting round each other. We can see this with radio telescopes because one of the black holes is emitting a radio jet towards us and we see it brightening and fading as they rotate one another."

The researchers argue that PKS 2131-021 is now the second known candidate for a pair of supermassive black holes caught in the act of merging. The first candidate pair, within a quasar called OJ 287, orbit each other at greater distances, circling every 9 years versus the two years it takes for the PKS 2131-021 pair to complete an orbit.

The tell-tale evidence came from radio observations of PKS 2131-021 that span 45 years. According to the study, a powerful jet emanating from one of the two black holes within PKS 2131-021 is shifting back and forth due to the pair's orbital motion. This causes periodic changes in the quasar's radio-light brightness.

Professor Grainge has been involved in this work since 2006 when he helped with re-commissioning the OVRO-40m telescope, which has provided much of the radio data in the paper. “Since then I have been involved with a programme of using the OVRO-40m to monitor the radio flux of ~1500 blazar candidates (a blazar is a particular type of active galactic nucleus, AGN) every 3 or so days. One of these sources turned out to have this interesting periodic variability which makes it a good candidate for a binary supermassive black hole system.” said Grainge.

"When we realised that the peaks and troughs of the light curve detected from recent times matched the peaks and troughs observed between 1975 and 1983, we knew something very special was going on," says Sandra O'Neill, lead author of the new study and an undergraduate student at Caltech.

Professor Tony Readhead from Caltech, who leads the collaboration, compares the system of the jet moving back and forth to a ticking clock, where each cycle, or period, of the sine wave corresponds to the two-year orbit of the black holes (the observed cycle is actually five years due to light being stretched by the expansion of the universe). "The clock kept ticking," he says, "The stability of the period over this 20-year gap strongly suggests that this blazar harbours not one supermassive black hole, but two supermassive black holes orbiting each other."

Ripples in Space and Time

Most, if not all, galaxies possess monstrous black holes at their cores, including our own Milky Way galaxy. When galaxies merge, their black holes "sink" to the middle of the newly formed galaxy and eventually join together to form an even more massive black hole. As the black holes spiral toward each other, they increasingly disturb the fabric of space and time, sending out gravitational waves, which were first predicted by Albert Einstein more than 100 years ago.

The National Science Foundation's LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory), which is managed jointly by Caltech and MIT, detects gravitational waves from pairs of black holes up to dozens of times the mass of our sun. However, the supermassive black holes at the centres of galaxies have masses that are millions to billions of times that of our sun, and give off lower frequencies of gravitational waves than what LIGO detects.

In the future, pulsar timing arrays—which consist of an array of pulsing, dead stars precisely monitored by radio telescopes—should be able to detect the gravitational waves from supermassive black holes of this heft (the upcoming LISA mission would detect merging black holes from a thousand to ten million times the mass of the sun). So far, no gravitational waves have been registered from any of these heavier sources but PKS 2131-021 provides the most promising target yet.

The scholarship aims to increase opportunities for women and girls studying in those fields and will cover full tuition fees and most expenses associated with study overseas including flights, visa and a monthly stipend, with provision also made for accompanying children.

According to data from the (UNESCO), fewer than 30% of researchers worldwide are women and only 30% of female students select STEM-related fields in higher education. Globally, female students’ enrolment is particularly low in information and communications technology (3%), natural science, mathematics and statistics (5%), and engineering, manufacturing and construction (8%).

David Polya, Associate Dean for Internationalisation and Professor of Environmental Geochemistry at Swagֱ��, said: “As the world’s top university in the Times Higher Education (THE) 2021 impact rankings for action on sustainable development goals (SDGs), Swagֱ�� is one of the world’s leading research institutes. This scholarship is symbolic of our core social responsibility goals. With the new scholarship offering we hope we can help to further address the gender imbalance seen within STEM subjects alongside giving a passport to a successful career and a lifetime of achievement. We are also particularly proud of our further involvement, led by Dr Laura Richards, partnering with the British Council and India’s Department of Science and Technology (DST) on the GATI (Gender Advancement through Transforming Institutions) project advancing women in STEM in India.”

Swagֱ��, led by President and Vice-Chancellor, Dame Nancy Rothwell, has a proud history of innovation in STEM. Swagֱ�� was the birthplace of the nuclear age, when Ernest Rutherford's pioneering research led to the splitting of the atom. The computer revolution started here in June 1948 when a machine built by Tom Kilburn and Sir Freddie Williams, known affectionately as 'The Baby', ran its first stored program. More recently, it is known as the University that isolated graphene, the material of the future, and for its leading role in informing climate change and energy policy, notably through the Head of the School of Engineering, Professor Alice Larkin.

Barbara Wickham, Country Director British Council India, said: “Based on the overwhelmingly positive experience and feedback from earlier scholarships, we are excited to offer this fourth round of scholarships for women in STEM. With the UK widely recognised as home to some of the world’s top-ranked universities offering quality programmes in STEM, we hope to enable women from across India to access a master’s degree or an academic fellowship at leading UK universities. The British Council is committed to girls’ education and addressing gender imbalance in science, technology and innovation, including in academia. Since 2018, over 180 Indian women have been able to pursue a master’s in STEM subjects in the UK and these new scholarships will support even more women in making transformational changes in their lives and then go on to make a mark in the world and inspire future generations.”

Potential students are encouraged to apply ahead of the deadline on 10^th April 2022 and applicants must be in receipt of a University of Swagֱ�� offer. Applicants must demonstrate a case for financial support and that they are active in the field of study with work experience or with a proven interest in the course area they are applying for. In addition, they must demonstrate plans for future contribution to capacity-building and socio-economic advancement, and a plan and passion to engage other women and girls in STEM.

For more information and to apply visit: .

Swagֱ�� offers a range of alternative scholarships for STEM and other subject areas. More information can be found at /study/international/finance-and-scholarships/funding/

is a Horizon 2020 funded project led by Swagֱ�� and involving eight industrial and academic partners – is driving the development of a range of technologies that could enable satellites to do just that, allowing them to operate at altitudes below 450km, in Very Low Earth Orbits (VLEO).

Remote sensing satellites currently operate at about 500-800km above the Earth, above the residual atmosphere that exists at lower altitudes. But this means that observations of the ground must also take place over this range, either limiting resolution or requiring large telescopes to be used.

Project leader Dr Peter Roberts, said: “Molecules travel kilometres before they hit another gas molecule which means all of the aerodynamics is driven by individual gas molecules interacting with the satellite surface directly. It then becomes an issue of surface chemistry and physics, with those molecules hitting the surface, how they translate momentum into it and how they’re scattered off.”

The advent of lower orbit operating satellites could bring a range of benefits including reduced latency for communications satellites; improved imaging resolution for remote sensing systems and an ability to use much smaller payloads, thus reducing launch costs. Use of lower orbits could, also make it easier to recover satellites at the end of their operating lives, ensuring they don’t add to the growing problem of space debris.

The C2I awards, now in their sixth year are run by The Engineer. The awards were established to uncover and celebrate great examples of technology-led engineering collaboration across a range of different disciplines and sectors. This year the DISCOVERER project was among the winners in the aerospace and defence category.

Although the challenges in developing low-orbit satellites are significant, the multidisciplinary team – which brings together physicists, chemists, materials scientists, and assorted experts in space flight and satellite design – has already made a number of key breakthroughs.

Aerodynamic materials are key to DISCOVERER with a large portion of the work has focussed materials that are resistant to erosion in VLEO. Material developments have focussed on Such materials, combined with appropriate satellite geometries, can significantly reduce drag whilst also generating usable aerodynamic lift to enable aerodynamic attitude control. Developments here have focussed on 2D, beyond graphene materials for which Swagֱ�� University has a patent pending.

The DISCOVERER team has already overcome many of the key technical obstacles to sustained operation of satellites in VLEO. Roberts claims that the development and commercialisation of technologies that enable satellites to operate in VLEO could be key to helping the UK deliver on its stated ambition to capture 10 per cent of the £400bn global space market by 2030.

The obvious next step, he said, is to build a demonstrator satellite that applies these technologies and goes beyond the capabilities of the existing SOAR satellite. “In orbit demonstration is key,” said Roberts, “If any of these technologies are going to become commercial propositions industry really needs to know that they are going to work.”

The DISCOVERER project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 737183. This publication reflects only the author’s views and the European Commission is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.

Advanced materials is one of Swagֱ��’s research beacons - examples of pioneering discoveries, interdisciplinary collaboration and cross-sector partnerships that are tackling some of the biggest challenges facing the planet. #ResearchBeacons

Creating a reliable source of oxygen could help humanity establish liveable habitats off-Earth in an era where space travel is more achievable than ever before. Electrolysis is a popular potential method which involves passing electricity through a chemical system to drive a reaction and can be used to extract oxygen out of lunar rocks or to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. This can be useful for both life support systems as well as for the in-situ production of rocket propellant.

Until now however, how lower gravitational fields on the Moon (1/6^th of Earth’s gravity) and Mars (1/3^rd of Earth’s gravity) might affect gas-evolving electrolysis when compared to known conditions here on Earth had not been investigated in detail. Lower gravity can have a significant impact on electrolysis efficiency, as bubbles can remain stuck to electrode surfaces and create a resistive layer.

New research published today in demonstrates how a team of researchers from Swagֱ�� and the University of Glasgow undertook experiments to determine how the potentially life-giving electrolysis method acted in reduced gravity conditions. The team boarded a zero-g parabolic flight to escape the Earth's gravity in order to accurately conduct their experiments.

Lead engineer of the project, Gunter Just, said: “We designed and built a small centrifuge that could generate a range of gravity levels relevant to the Moon and Mars, and operated it during microgravity on a parabolic flight, to remove the influence of Earth’s gravity.

“When doing an experiment in the lab, you cannot escape the gravity of Earth; in the almost zero-g background in the aircraft, however, our electrolysis cells were only influenced by the centrifugal force and so we could tune the gravity-level of each experiment by changing the rotation speed. The centrifuge had four 25 cm arms that each held an electrolysis cell equipped with a variety of sensors, so during each parabola of  around 18 seconds we did four simultaneous experiments on the spinning system.

“We also operated the same experiments on the centrifuge between 1 and 8 g in the laboratory. In this configuration we had the arms swinging so that the downwards gravity was accounted for. It was found that the trend observed below 1 g was consistent with the trend above 1 g, which experimentally verified that high gravity platforms can be used to predict electrolysis behaviour in lunar gravity, removing the limitations of needing costly and complex microgravity conditions. In our system, we found that 11% less oxygen was produced in lunar gravity, if the same operating parameters were used as on Earth.”

The additional power requirement was more modest at around 1%. These specific values are only relevant to the small test cell but demonstrate that the reduced efficiency in low gravity environments must be taken into account when planning power budgets or product output for a system operating on the Moon or Mars. If the impact on power or product output was deemed too large for a system to function properly, some adaptations could be made that may reduce the effect of gravity, such as using a specially structured electrode surface or introducing flow or stirring.

This new investment recognises AEH's breakthrough contribution to a more sustainable future by using a unique hydrogel - branded GelPonic and developed in the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre (GEIC) - as a growing medium that is biodegradable and fully sustainable.

The pioneering technology will reduce the use of fresh water in agriculture and therefore enable nations like the UK to grow a wider range of indigenous foods – so reducing  “food miles” – while enabling better yields for farmers in developing nations, where poor quality soils and limited rainfall put pressure on water supply and productivity.

Investment in Greater Swagֱ��

Terra Sana's investment will provide AEH with capability to fully develop its vertical farming system and to set up a manufacturing facility in Greater Swagֱ��. The new funding is for an initial sum of £1.5m with a follow-on option to subscribe for £2m in 18 months – and it builds on a £1m investment already made by Innovation UK to AEH.

CEO and founder Beenish Siddique said the new funding was welcome as it will accelerate already established sales opportunities for its GelPonic systems on a global basis. Beenish added that this major investment could provide a boost to female entrepreneurs. 

AEH is based in the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre (GEIC), the world-leading materials innovation accelerator based at Swagֱ��. The company was initially supported through the programme, and the move to the GEIC came after AEH Director Dr Farid Khan arranged initial match funding for the subsequent £1m Innovate UK grant.

Ray Gibbs, Chairman of AEH, said: “Setting up AEH in the GEIC gave the company a platform to fast-track its product development. Fundamentally, the government-backed grant awarded in 2020 has been vindicated, with the original investment now being trebled with private sector funding. What’s more, this private backing is new investment coming into Greater Swagֱ�� and the UK from North America and offers us both UK and international sales opportunities for our GelPonic products.“

Richard Willett, an investor in Terra Sana, has taken a board position in AEH along with Professor Robert Field, Director of the Swagֱ�� Institute of Biotechnology, at Swagֱ��, who will sit on the technical advisory board.

Richard said: “We are delighted to invest in AEH with Beenish as the visionary behind the company. This international partnership will open new overseas market opportunities, including the fast-growing North American market, where Terra Sana has strong links and already established orders. The AEH gel offers significant opportunities in improving soil in impoverished regions and we see enormous potential in the North American vertical farming market that is forecast to reach over $6,500 million by 2028 [1].”

Notes to editors

1)     

About Terra Sana (TS)

TS is a newly formed Canadian company set up to invest in and operate highly advanced indoor growing facilities, biotechnology and vertical farming. It aims to incorporate revolutionary and scalable products and systems that will make an effective, measurable and sustainable impact on solving the global challenge of scarce water and food shortages against a forecast growth in world population to 10 billion by 2050. It is setting up hi-tech greenhouse growing in Mexico designed to meet food produce orders secured from the USA.

About AEH Innovative Hydrogel Limited;

AEH is a start-up founded in late 2018 by entrepreneur Dr Beenish Siddique, who developed a food-based fully recyclable hydroponic gel. Beenish won initial funding from the Eli and Brit Harari Graphene Enterprise competition.  The initial focus on the novel hydrogel growing media is designed to reduce food production costs, improve quality and lower environmental impact. This award winning agri-tech business had a major breakthrough in 2020 when it won a £1m+ grant from Innovate UK to develop a new GelPonic system for vertical farming, offering significantly reduced costs, carbon emissions and water consumption. AEH is based in the University of Swagֱ��’s . 

Its technical validation is being performed by the UK backed organisation. CHAP brings together scientists, farmers, advisors and pioneers to advance crop productivity and yield around the world. 

Professor Robert Field has been appointed to the AEH Technical Advisory Board and heads up the .

 is one of Swagֱ��’s  - examples of pioneering discoveries, interdisciplinary collaboration and cross-sector partnerships that are tackling some of the biggest questions facing the planet. #ResearchBeacons.

New research published today in describes the use of natural enzymes and earth-abundant and non-toxic transition metal-catalysts to forge organic molecules, creating what is known as an amide bond, in a more efficient and sustainable manner.

Amide bonds are very important both in natural and non-natural molecules. All living organisms are made up of proteins that are held together by amide bonds which link carbon and nitrogen atoms of amino acid building blocks. Amide bonds are also present in many important pharmaceuticals that help to keep the population healthy, agrochemicals that increase crop yields and materials such as textiles.

Traditional chemical processes used to create amide bonds are unsustainable, rely on non-renewable ingredients, harmful and wasteful reagents, along with dangerous solvents, all of which lead to difficulties in purification and waste processing. To overcome these problems a team of scientists from the University of Swagֱ�� created a new method for combining natural and synthetic catalysts to overcome these issues.

Professor of Chemical Biology in the Swagֱ�� Institute of Biotechnolgy (MIB) who led the team said: “We are confident that the integrated approach we have developed can deliver important chemicals using environmentally friendly conditions at an industrial scale.

“We used bacterial cells with enzymes produced inside. Using cells prevents the enzymes coming into contact with the metal catalyst which can cause mutual deactivation. This enables very efficient production of diverse and important amide products.”

Research Fellow and co-author of the study added: “The main advantage is our process can be carried out in water instead of organic solvents that are normally used, which are toxic, flammable, harmful to user and damaging to the environment. Additionally, most existing methods are not selective, require multiple steps and lead to by-products. Our method overcomes these issues, delivering the valuable amides product we need in a clean and high yielding single process.”

The researchers used nitrile hydratase enzymes in combination with non-toxic and earth abundant copper metal catalysts. It is not normally possible to combine these different catalysts as they inactivate each other, hence they are usually used in costly multi-step processes. The team found that by using bacterial cells with the enzyme inside they were able to overcome the compatibility issues and develop an integrated process providing a more direct and environmentally friendly route. The researchers envisage that such integrated processes can revolutionise the way we make molecules for a more sustainable future.

The paper: Merging Enzymes with Chemocatalysis for Sustainable Amide Bond Synthesis. L. Bering, E. J. Craven, S. A. Sowerby Thomas, S. A. Shepherd & J. Micklefield, is published in 2022

Swagֱ�� is one of only six Strategic Partner Universities that BAE Systems engages with and the only one based in the North-West. The partnership is governed by a strategic framework agreement to establish a long-term relationship in research, education and consultancy.

Speaking at an event today alongside Charles Woodburn, the CEO of BAE Systems, and Jeremy Quin, Minister of State for Defence Procurement, Professor Luke Gerghiou,Deputy Vice-President and Vice-Chancellor of Swagֱ�� said: “The UK is not punching its full weight in defence R&D because government spend is too concentrated, with over half performed in the South of England. This reduces the diversity of ideas which lead to innovation.

“Having a greater range of talent and a more diverse workforce is even more important as we enter the cyber world. Levelling up this investment will not just bring more quality jobs to the North, it will also give us better defence.”

The University and BAE have notably worked together in the aerospace sector with design and testing benefitting from the University’s geographical location, close to the BAE sites at Warton and Samlesbury. The partnership is also closely linked on the ground-breaking project which is working to re-design aircraft as we know them.

The relationship has evolved over the last couple of years to expand into data science, AI and cyber through the establishment of the Data Analytics Accelerator program, a five year sponsored program initiated in 2021 to support upskill of BAE staff in the areas of data science and support acceleration of research in this field.

BAE Systems employs approximately 10,000 people across Lancashire. Spending £70 million with more than 220 suppliers in the region in 2020, the Company supported almost 1,000 jobs in the local supply chain.

BAE Systems’ significant UK footprint across more than 50 sites and extensive supply chain mean it supported 143,000 jobs across the country and contributed more than £10 billion to UK GDP, equivalent to 0.5% of the domestic economy.

Charles Woodburn, BAE Systems Chief Executive, said: “Our sector not only supports our national defence and security, but also provides unparalleled economic value which drives the UK’s prosperity. The investment we make in highly skilled jobs, research & development and our extensive supply chain supports thousands of companies and tens of thousands of people and the communities in which they live.”

More than two-thirds of the Company’s UK employees are in engineering-related roles and the research found that the highly skilled and technical nature of their work results in an average productivity of £83,000 per employee. That’s 17% more than the UK manufacturing sector and almost 30% higher than the average across the whole economy.

GIIM, a company dedicated to the acceleration and deployment of graphene research, will be headquartered at the (GEIC), part of Swagֱ��, United Kingdom.

The partnership with the GEIC enables GIIM to equip a private lab in the facility, with access to highly specialised applications labs and equipment, plus the unique academic and engineering expertise of the world-leading graphene and 2D materials community at the University.

GIIM is part of the global group . (GII), led by entrepreneur investors Tom Hirsch (CEO and Growth Officer) and Mark Diamond (Chairman).

Now CEO UK and Europe of GIIM, Dr Koncherry was formerly a post-doctoral Impact Research Fellow in the University’s Department of Materials. His two start-ups were spun into the GEIC: (recycled rubber flooring) and Graphene Space Habitat, designed by global architects Skidmore, Owings and Merrill ().

Dr Koncherry benefited from the support of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) Bridging the Gap programme and his work led him to win first prizes at the Eli Harari Graphene Enterprise Awards and the EPSRC Future Composites Manufacturing Hub researchers’ competition in artificial intelligence and internet-of-things. This background fuelled the creation of GIIM, with its first base at the GEIC lab, and the proposed establishment of a larger manufacturing facility in Swagֱ��.

GIIM joins the GEIC with the backing of around $5 million (£3.6m) of overseas investment, with a further significant investment in the pipeline for advanced manufacturing capability for construction material in . This funding is subject to the development of new graphene-based products – which is set to include sustainable building materials made from recycled materials – and the investment package is being led by GII (Graphene Innovations Inc) [1].    

With the funding the Swagֱ��-based GIIM plans to hire at least 10 people in the first half of 2022, with plans for further appointments later in the year ….

“The accelerated research and global commercialisation of graphene-based products like batteries, solar cells, hydrogen fuel tanks, space habitat, recycled rubber, and sustainable construction materials using advanced robotics, conducted by GIIM’s elite team, will truly put Swagֱ�� on the world map as the epicentre for commercial graphene research and innovation.” Tom Hirsch (CEO, GII).

"We are excited to see how this international investment into GIIM can help create Swagֱ��-based, high-value, sustainable jobs in the UK that in turn can create global impact and address important strategic areas like international space exploration at a large scale. This further supports the Swagֱ�� region in general as a hotbed of graphene activities and international sales to benefit the UK economy.” Mark Diamond (Chairman, GII).

“We are delighted to extend our partnership with Dr Vivek Koncherry, an example of the exceptional talent that exists at Swagֱ��, who we have supported initially as an SME/Spin-in company through our Bridging the Gap programme and now through investment as a key Tier 1 partner to the GEIC. We look forward to further developing this relationship and supporting the GIIM business in its acceleration of graphene-enhanced products and capabilities to the market.” James Baker, CEO of Graphene@Swagֱ��.

“GIIM’s partnership with the GEIC further adds to Greater Swagֱ��’s credentials as a globally unrivalled concentration of graphene expertise. We’re looking forward to welcoming the diverse talent GIIM will attract to the city region and to supporting this exciting wave of innovation. Not only will it revolutionise technologies internationally, but it will also help us to explore habitation beyond Earth in a sustainable way.” Tim Newns, Chief Executive of MIDAS Greater Swagֱ��’s inward investment agency.

“At GIIM, we believe anything is possible for creating global impact through our innovative work. I am grateful to the support of James Baker, Swagֱ��, Greater Swagֱ�� and the new colleague’s Tom Hirsch, Mark Diamond and others for facilitating the work done as a run-up to the successful stage where we are at today.” Dr Vivek Koncherry (CEO, GIIM UK and Europe).

 is one of Swagֱ��’s  - examples of pioneering discoveries, interdisciplinary collaboration and cross-sector partnerships that are tackling some of the biggest questions facing the planet. #ResearchBeacons.

Notes to Editors

[1] Graphene Innovations Inc (GII) is a global graphene investment and entrepreneurship company that will lead on bringing products developed by GIIM to North American markets. Greater Swagֱ��-based GIIM will focus on new product development in the UK and be responsible for retailing these products to UK and European markets. 

The graphene depth neural probe (gDNP) consists of a millimetre-long linear array of micro-transistors imbedded in a micrometre-thin polymeric flexible substrate. The transistors were developed by a collaboration Swagֱ��’s and UCL’s Institute of Neurology along with their Graphene Flagship partners.

The paper, published today in , shows that the unique flexible brain probes can be used to record pathological brain signals associated with epilepsy with excellent fidelity and high spatial resolution.

Dr Rob Wykes of Swagֱ��’s team said: “Application of this technology will allow researchers to investigate the role infraslow oscillations play in promoting susceptibility windows for the transition to seizure, as well as improving detection of clinically relevant electrophysiological biomarkers associated with epilepsy.”

The flexible gDNP devices were chronically implanted in mice with epilepsy. The implanted devices provided outstanding spatial resolution and very rich wide bandwidth recording of epileptic brain signals over weeks. In addition, extensive chronic biocompatibility tests confirmed no significant tissue damage and neuro-inflammation, attributed to the biocompatibility of the used materials, including graphene, and the flexible nature of the gDNP device.

The ability to record and map the full range of brain signals using electrophysiological probes will greatly advance our understanding of brain diseases and aid the clinical management of patients with diverse neurological disorders. Current technologies are limited in their ability to accurately obtain with high spatial fidelity ultraslow brain signals.

Epilepsy is the most common serious brain disorder worldwide, with up to 30% of people unable to control their seizures using traditional anti-epileptic drugs. For drug-refractory patients, epilepsy surgery may be a viable option. Surgical removal of the area of the brain where the seizures first start can result in seizure freedom; however, the success of surgery relies on accurately identifying the seizure onset zone (SOZ).

Epileptic signals span over a wide range of frequencies –much larger than the band monitored in conventionally used scans. Electrographic biomarkers of a SOZ include very fast oscillations as well as infraslow activity and direct-current (DC) shifts.

Implementing this new technology could allow researchers to investigate the role infraslow oscillations play in promoting susceptibility windows for the transition to seizure, as well as improving detection of clinically relevant electrophysiological biomarkers associated with epilepsy.

Future clinical translation of this new technology offers the possibility to identify and confine much more precisely the zones of the brain responsible for seizure onset before surgery, leading to less extensive resections and better outcomes. Ultimately, this technology can also be applied to improve our understanding of other neurological diseases associated with ultraslow brain signals, such as traumatic brain injury, stroke and migraine.

The paper: Full bandwidth electrophysiology of seizures and epileptiform activity enabled by flexible graphene micro-transistor depth neural probes. Nature Nanotechnology, 2021.

January

The world’s finest fabric: 2021 started with an award win as a team of University scientists were honoured with the  for weaving threads of individual molecules together to create the ‘world’s finest fabric’, overtaking finest Egyptian linen.

February

Mysterious gamma-ray source identified: The start of the year continued with a spectacular space discovery as a rapidly rotating neutron star was found to be at the core of a celestial object now known as PSR J2039-5617. The astronomers’ findings were uniquely boosted by the Einstein@Home project, a network of thousands of civilian volunteers lending their home computing power to the efforts of the Fermi Telescope’s work.

March

£7bn innovation investment: A major investment boost for the North was announced in March to the tune of £7 billion to support economic growth in the region. Swagֱ�� will be joined by leading innovators from business, science, academia and local government in developing the Innovation GM partnership as the basis of a formal collaboration deal with Government, suggesting it could create 100,000 jobs.

April

Solved: The Brazil nut puzzle: April saw researchers finally crack the age-old ‘Brazil nut puzzle’. For the first time they captured the complex dynamics of particle movement in granular materials, helping to explain why mixed nuts often see the larger Brazil nuts gather at the top. The findings could have vital impact on industries struggling with the phenomenon, such as pharmaceuticals and mining.

May

Graphene solves concrete’s big problem: In May, graphene met concrete in another world first which could revolutionise the concrete industry and its impact on the environment. In a joint venture, with Nationwide Engineering the team has laid the floor slab of a new gym with graphene-enhanced 'Concretene', removing 30% of material and all steel reinforcement. Depending on the size of onward projects, it is estimated to provide a 10-20% saving to its customers.

June

Plans for ID Swagֱ�� revealed: Summer began with the announcement that The University had found a partner to deliver the ambitious £1.5 billion ID Swagֱ�� project. The project will look to re-develop the North Campus to become a globally significant innovation district with specialist infrastructure to commercialise scientific discovery and R&D innovation.

July

New technology to help achieve Net Zero: July saw new efforts to help the world achieve its Net Zero targets with the aim of converting CO2, waste and sustainable biomass into clean and sustainable fuels and products. Catalysts are involved in helping to manufacture an estimated 80% of materials required in modern life, so are integral in manufacturing processes. As a result, up to 35% of the world’s GDP relies on catalysis. To reach net zero, it will be critical to develop new sustainable catalysts and processes.

August

Breakthrough in metal bonding: In summer we reported that scientists managed to successfully make actinide metals form molecular actinide-actinide bonds for the first time, opening up a new field of scientific study in materials research. Reported in the journal Nature, a group of scientists from Swagֱ�� and Stuttgart universities successfully prepared and characterised long-sought actinide bonding in an isolable compound.

September

Using astronaut blood to build space houses: September saw blood, sweat, tears and space with a discovery that astronaut blood could be the key to creating affordable housing in space. In their study, published in Materials Today Bio, a protein from human blood, combined with a compound from urine, sweat or tears, could glue together simulated moon or Mars soil to produce a material stronger than ordinary concrete, perfectly suited for construction work in extra-terrestrial environments.

October

New era of physics thanks to neutrino experiment: A two-decade long physics question was explored in October with a discovery that could cause a radical shift in our understanding of the universe. A major new physics experiment used four complementary analyses to show no signs of a theorised fourth kind of neutrino known as the sterile neutrino. Its existence is considered a possible explanation for anomalies seen in previous physics experiments.

November

New study shows link between weather and COVID-19 transmission: It wouldn’t be a 2021 news round-up without mention of COVID-19. A new meta-analysis of over 150 research papers published during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the link between the weather and the spread of the illness. The research, published in the journal Weather, Climate, and Society, started with 158 studies that were published early in the pandemic using data before November 2020. It was discovered that early data was often inconsistent as they were affected by seasonal cycles and weather conditions impacting on the spread of the virus.

December

Challenging Einstein with stars: Rounding off another unusual year we saw scientists across the globe collaborate to challenge one of Einstein’s greatest theories – the theory of relativity. Using seven radio telescopes and taking 16 years the team successfully observed a double-pulsar system which demonstrated new relativistic effects that, while expected had never been observed and proved before.

Thirty-year-old Ciara, who is a Lecturer in Aerospace Systems at Swagֱ��, won this prestigious award at the ceremony.

Ciara carries out engineering research projects in the areas of astrodynamics and space mission design, working with industry and policy makers to design space systems that can help support life on Earth. She also teaches University courses and supervises student projects in space system design, to support the education and development of the next generation of engineers. Ciara’s public engagement aims to make complex ideas accessible to everyone, through hands-on examples, podcasts, radio interviews, written articles and public talks.

On winning, Ciara said: “These awards that the IET run are so incredibly important, and I am completely shocked to have won – it is more than I could ever have imagined. Engineers are the people that change the world and make a difference – they problem solve, they find a solution and they make amazing things happen. Being a finalist has been a whirlwind and I am so excited to see what happens next. I’d like to say a special thanks to my parents for their support – I always say it was my Dad that took me out to show me the stars, but it was my Mum that taught me to reach them.”

The IET Young Woman Engineer of the Year Awards celebrate women working in modern engineering – and aim to help change the perception that engineering is predominantly a career for men by banishing outdated engineering stereotypes of hard hats and dirty overalls.

As well as highlighting female engineering talent, these prestigious engineering industry awards seek to find role models who can help address the UK science and engineering skills crisis by promoting engineering careers to more girls and women. Just 14.5% of those working in engineering and technical occupations are women (source: Engineering UK).

Dr Laura Norton, Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at the IET, said: “Engineers develop products and services for everyone, yet just 14.5% of the sector’s workforce are women. Awards like this are crucial for raising the profile of women within engineering and providing real-life role models to younger generations to encourage greater diversity within the industry.

“I’d like to congratulate our fantastic winners and finalists of this year’s Awards. They are a real credit to the engineering profession and will make excellent role models to young girls who might be thinking about a career in engineering and technology.

“It’s vital we champion engineering careers to the next generation – it’s a diverse, creative and exciting career, which offers the opportunity to change lives, or even the world.”

This year’s YWE Awards were sponsored by BAE Systems, Boeing, BP, Collins Aerospace, Capgemini, Frazer-Nash Consultancy, GCHQ, Leonardo, MBDA, Northrop Grumman, Nucleargraduates, Ofcom, RAF, Rolls-Royce, Royal Mail, RS Components Grass Roots, Teledyne and Thales.

In a first for the intelligence, cyber and security agency, the new partnership will see GCHQ publish its own research jointly with the universities. Previously all research written by the intelligence services has been kept within national security circles only.  

The move signals a further move towards collaboration between GCHQ, academia and industry, as laid out in the Integrated Review. This partnership will allow research and knowledge related to national security issues to be shared more widely in order to help further the UK’s science capabilities, enabling faster innovation in a range of strategic areas including technology, behavioural sciences and criminology.

This approach will allow the agency to tap into fresh perspectives from across the institutions, to bring creative thinking to national security priorities in order to enhance the safety, security and prosperity of British citizens.

Professor Colette Fagan, Vice-President for Research at The University of Manchetser said: "We are delighted to be part of this important and innovative partnership and look forward to mobilising the digital research expertise of Swagֱ�� to tackle critical national security challenges.

"Across our Digital Futures platform, and through our Centre for Digital Trust and Society, our thriving interdisciplinary community of researchers will explore the many facets of digital security and make a distinctive contribution to addressing the pressing challenges of keeping our communities safe and secure in an uncertain, digital age."

The institutions involved in the pilot partnership with GCHQ are Lancaster University, the University of Swagֱ��, Swagֱ�� Metropolitan University and the University of Salford. The partnership will see GCHQ working with institutions holistically; based on their proximity rather than focus on a specific discipline.

GCHQ’s Director General for Technology, Gav Smith said: “Working more collaboratively with key partners, like universities, is crucial for the future of the intelligence services. 

“It allows us to combine the expertise and perspectives from across sectors to innovate faster and more effectively to meet the challenge of an increasingly complex set of national security challenges.” 

In addition to creating stronger links with universities, the agency hopes to attract a new, more diverse workforce by encouraging students from courses involving subjects like computer science, maths, behavioural science, criminology and linguistics to consider careers with the UK intelligence community. 

This latest announcement is one of a series of academic collaborations led by the agency. Last year it announced funding for five academics through its . The scheme offers applicants from academia, science and industry the opportunity to work with GCHQ on some of the biggest national security challenges with successful applicants including academics working on counterterrorism and cyber security. The research will add to the intelligence community’s existing knowledge to improve understanding and better equip them to tackle some of the biggest threats facing the UK.

The research programme will contribute to the North West region’s “cyber corridor”. The corridor includes the National Cyber Force’s new HQ in Samlesbury, Lancashire, which draws together personnel from GCHQ, the MoD, the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), under one unified command for the first time to conduct cyber operations to keep the country safe. 

Additionally, NCSC jointly with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) jointly recognises 19 universities who have been identified as .

The Institute of Physics (IOP) is the professional body and learned society for physics, and the leading body for practising physicists, in the UK and Ireland.

Its annual awards proudly reflect the wide variety of people, places, organisations and achievements that make physics such an exciting discipline.

The IOP awards celebrate physicists at every stage of their career; from those just starting out through to physicists at the peak of their careers, and those with a distinguished career behind them.

received the James Chadwick Medal and Prize for distinguished, precise measurements in particle physics, particularly of the W boson mass and the muon’s anomalous magnetic moment.

received the Henry Moseley Medal and Prize for exceptional contributions to the observational study of the first galaxies in the universe, where she has provided the benchmark for future studies with new facilities.

Rebecca will join Swagֱ�� in January as an STFC Ernest Rutherford Fellow from The University of Oxford.

also won a 2021 Technician Award for his outstanding contribution to provision of world-class radio astronomy instrumentation at Jodrell Bank Observatory and the e-MERLIN National Facility for use by UK and international astronomers.

Congratulating this year’s Award winners, Institute of Physics President, Professor Sheila Rowan, said: “On behalf of the Institute of Physics, I warmly congratulate all of this year’s Award winners.

“Each and every one of them has made a significant and positive impact in their profession, whether as a researcher, teacher, industrialist, technician or apprentice.

“Recent events have underlined the absolute necessity to encourage and reward our scientists and those who teach and encourage future generations. We rely on their dedication and innovation to improve many aspects of the lives of individuals and of our wider society."

The ECLIF3 study, involving , , German research centre , and SAF producer , marks the first time 100% SAF has been measured simultaneously on both engines of a commercial passenger aircraft – an Airbus A350 aircraft powered by Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engines.

In-flight emissions tests and associated ground testing on the ECLIF3 programme began earlier this year and have recently resumed. The interdisciplinary team, which also includes researchers from the National Research Council of Canada and Swagֱ��, plans to publish its results in academic journals towards the end of next year and in 2023.

Findings from the study will support efforts currently underway at Airbus and Rolls-Royce to ensure the aviation sector is ready for the large-scale use of SAF as part of the wider initiative to decarbonise the industry. Aircraft are currently only allowed to operate on a 50% blend of SAF and conventional jet fuel, but both companies support the drive to certify 100% SAF use.

In April, the A350 flew three flights over the Mediterranean Sea pursued by a DLR Falcon chaser plane to compare in-flight emissions of both kerosene and Neste’s hydro-processed esters and fatty acids (HEFA) sustainable fuel. The team also carried out compliance tests using 100% SAF and no operational issues were experienced.

In-flight emission tests using 100% SAF and a HEFA/Jet A-1 fuel blend resumed this month, while ground-based emissions testing to quantify the benefits of SAF on local air quality were also performed. The research team found SAF releases fewer particulates than conventional kerosene at all tested engine operating conditions, which points to the potential for reduced climate impact and improvement in air quality around airports.

In addition, SAF has lower density but higher energy content per kilogram of fuel compared to conventional kerosene, which brings some aircraft fuel-efficiency advantages due to lower fuel burn and less fuel mass to board to achieve the same mission. Detailed analysis by the team is on-going.

“Engines and fuel systems can be tested on the ground but the only way to gather the full set of emissions data necessary for this programme to be successful is to fly an aircraft in real conditions,” said Steven Le Moing, New Energy Programme Manager at Airbus. “In-flight testing of the A350 offers the advantage of characterising direct and indirect engine emissions, including particulates from behind an aircraft at high altitude.”

Simon Burr, Rolls-Royce Director of Product Development and Technology, Civil Aerospace, said: “This research adds to tests we’ve already carried out on our engines both on the ground and in the air which have found no engineering obstacle to our engines running on 100% SAF. If we are to truly decarbonise long-haul air travel, then 100% SAF is a critical element and we are committed to supporting its certification for service.”

The DLR Falcon chaser aircraft is equipped with multiple probes to measure emissions at cruise level down to a distance of only 100 metres from the A350 and feed them into scientific instrumentation for analysis.

“SAF has been shown to have a significantly lower carbon footprint over its life cycle compared to conventional jet fuel and now we are seeing it is advantageous in reducing non-CO₂ effects too,” said Markus Fischer, DLR’s Divisional Board Member for Aeronautics. “Tests such as these are continuing to develop our understanding of 100% SAF, its use in flight and its potential positive effects on climate change. We look forward to studying the data from the second series of ECLIF3 flights, which restarted with a first chase flight above the Mediterranean earlier this month."

In 2015, DLR performed the ECLIF1 campaign, investigating alternative fuels with its Falcon and A320 ATRA research aircraft. These investigations continued in 2018 with the ECLIF2 campaign which saw the A320 ATRA flying with a mixture of standard jet fuel and up to 50% HEFA. This research showed the advantageous emission performance of fuel mixtures up to 50% SAF and paved the way for the 100% SAF test flights for ECLIF3.

Researchers from Swagֱ�� have discovered a new way of manipulating key assembly line enzymes in bacteria which could pave the way for a new generation of antibiotic treatments.

New research published today in , describes how CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing can be used to create new nonribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) enzymes that deliver clinically important antibiotics. NRPS enzymes are prolific producers of natural antibiotics such as penicillin. However, up until now, manipulating these complex enzymes to produce new and more effective antibiotics has been a major challenge.

The antimicrobial resistance () infections are estimated to cause 700,000 deaths each year globally and are predicted to rise to 10 million, costing the global economy $100 trillion, by 2050. AMR also threatens many of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with an extra 28 million people that could be forced into extreme poverty by 2050 unless AMR is contained.

The Swagֱ�� team says the gene editing process could be used to produce improved antibiotics and possibly lead to the development of new treatments helping in the fight against drug-resistant pathogens and illnesses in the future. , Professor of Chemical Biology at the Swagֱ�� Institute of Biotechnology (), UK, explains: “The emergence of antibiotic-resistant pathogens is one of the biggest threats we face today.”

“The gene editing approach we developed is a very efficient and rapid way to engineer complex assembly line enzymes that can produce new antibiotic structures with potentially improved properties.”

Microorganisms in our environment, such as soil dwelling bacteria, have evolved nonribosomal peptide synthetase enzymes (NRPS) that assemble building blocks called amino acids into peptide products which often have very potent antibiotic activity. Many of the most therapeutically important antibiotics, used in the clinic today, are derived from these NRPS enzymes (e.g. penicillin, vancomycin and daptomycin).

Unfortunately, deadly pathogens are emerging which are resistant to all of these existing antibiotic drugs. One solution could be to create new antibiotics with improved properties that can evade the resistance mechanisms of the pathogens. However, the nonribosomal peptide antibiotics are very complex structures which are difficult and expensive to produce by normal chemical methods. To address this, the Swagֱ�� team use gene editing to engineer the NRPS enzymes, swapping domains that recognise different amino acid building blocks, leading to new assembly lines that can deliver new peptide products.

Micklefield added: “We are now able to use gene editing to introduce targeted changes to complex NRPS enzymes, enabling alternative amino acids precursors to be incorporated into the peptide structures. We are optimistic that our new approach could lead to new ways of making improved antibiotics which are urgently needed to combat emerging drug-resistant pathogens.”

The research paper is published in Nature Communications:

by; W. L. Thong, Y. Zhang, Y. Zhuo, K. J. Robins, J. K. Fyans, A. J. Herbert, B. J. C. Law & J. Micklefield* Nature Commun. 2021.

Professor Danielle George MBE, Immediate Past President of the (IET) and #EngineeringKidsFutures ambassador, has sent an open letter to the Prime Minister signed by more than 150 others including; Major Tim Peake, Carol Vorderman MBE, will.i.am, and representatives from Rolls Royce, Vodafone and the MOD, to appeal to the Government to work together with educators and industry to develop practical support for teachers of our youngest children and embed engineering in their existing science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) learning.

Children eagerly learn about science and maths, but the connection to engineering - the link between these subjects, their purpose and application to the world in which we live - is not currently being made. We need to ensure there are clearer learning outcomes for these subjects linked to engineering.

It’s vital that the Government joins this campaign and commits to securing our future as a nation of innovators. Innovators whose skills will be more crucial than ever in the coming decades as we tackle the global challenges posed by achieving net zero and meeting our COP26 pledges.

Reports from the IET this summer estimate a shortfall of over 173,000 workers in the STEM sector: an average of 10 unfilled roles per business in the UK. What is more, the Institution’s latest Skills Survey identifies that half (49%) of engineering businesses are experiencing difficulties in the skills available to them when trying to recruit.

However, this challenge has not appeared overnight. It is a growing issue that the IET has tracked for the last 15 years – longer than the time it takes for a primary aged-child to complete their education. Future skills need addressing now.

The solution? Simply embed engineering into primary school learning to help bridge the growing skills gap within UK workforces and support #EngineeringKidsFutures.

Professor Danielle George MBE, Immediate Past President, the IET and Engineering Kids’ Futures ambassador, commented of the campaign: “To ‘build back better’ and fully embrace the ‘green industrial revolution’ promised by the government it is essential to start with solid foundations. By adding more focus on misunderstood terms like engineering and technology, where we know there is a perception problem, it will help young people from all backgrounds learn vital engineering and tech skills early on and increase their career aspirations.

“We propose collaboration between the Government, STEM education supporters, academia, and industry to provide teachers with the tools to showcase that science, design & technology and maths have vital elements of engineering within them and proactively encourage the teaching of engineering in our primary schools.

“This focus and support for schools is fundamental if we want to futureproof the next generation of engineers. And these benefits extend far beyond the classroom – from higher earnings to better job satisfaction, our research shows that those in STEM careers can hit life goals such as financial independence much sooner than their peers.”

Together with representatives from world leading institutions – including The Engineering Council, WISE, Engineering Development Trust, and Engineering in Motion amongst others – and STEM pioneers the IET has signed an open letter to government calling for Engineering Kids’ Futures to be formally introduced into schools by the next academic year (in 2022). This letter has also been signed by leaders at many of the UK’s leading engineering and technology employers – including Rolls Royce, Thames Water and EON.

Find out more about the Engineering Kids’ Future campaign and how you can get involved via the IET website:

The newly created hybrid yeast strains have been shown to successfully breed and produce offspring with specific desirable characteristics required for the beverage manufacturing process.

Naturally, hybrid yeasts are infertile, and their specific characteristics cannot be passed on. This previously required brewers to use selective methods to achieve the desired traits and has meant that the fermentation industries have so far missed out on potential new characteristics that the large genetic diversity of yeast hybrids affords.

The type of yeast used in the fermentation process influences how a beer tastes once it has been brewed. There are currently two main categories of yeasts, ale and lager, plus hundreds of variations used by modern day brewers in a booming global industry. Developing yeasts to give new flavours has been a goal of many brewers since the 1800s.

Now, as reported in the (PNAS), Professor Daniela Delneri, Professor of Evolutionary Genomics at the  and her team have succeeded in producing fertile yeast hybrids that are able to breed and generate a large number of progenies with diverse genetic traits.

Professor Delneri, lead author of the research said: “This research tackles the fundamental issue of hybrid sterility and multigenerational breeding. With my colleague Professor Ed Louis at the University Leicester, we were able to overcome species barriers and pinpoint the genetic traits unique to the hybrids. This technology has the ability to revolutionise the current practices for strain selection by allowing, via breeding, the rapid creation of efficient tailored yeasts carrying specific, novel, and important traits.

"As well as opening opportunities in food and drink production, this approach could be used to develop novel yeast “cell factories” that could be used in the field of industrial biotechnology to sustainably biomanufacture pharmaceuticals, chemicals and fuels.”

This research demonstrates how the potential for enhancing natural biodiversity and developing new hybrids is greater than expected and will offer new ways for industry to generate new and exciting consumer choices.

This research was carried out as part of a BBSRC-funded project in collaboration with SAB-Miller and – the world’s largest brewer. It also featured as part of the EU .

Dr. Philippe Malcorps, AB-InBev ‘yeast guru’, said "We are excited by these findings and pleased to have been able to support this research. The proof of concept opens doors to new innovations we can bring to our portfolio offering exciting new flavours via fermentation."

have been announced including; Swagֱ��, Jena and Stuttgart in Germany and Milan in Italy. The new units join a network of world-class institutions across 14 European countries and Israel.

Swagֱ�� has recently strengthened its position as a centre for research into AI fundamentals and impactful applications of AI to improve health, security and sustainability. Last year the University appointed AI Chairs in each of its faculties followed by several excellent machine learning faculty appointments in the department of Computer Science.

Swagֱ�� has been a partner of the Alan Turing Institute since 2018 and is home to 33 Turing Fellows. It has a thriving community of data science and AI researchers, with over 900 researchers affiliated to its Institute for Data Science and AI (IDSAI). Swagֱ��’s ELLIS unit brings together experts in AI fundamentals with experts in the application of AI in other fields, with particular strengths in health, and will connect with other leading experts in the ELLIS network across Europe. 

Magnus Rattray (IDSAI Director and ELLIS Health Programme Fellow) said: “Swagֱ�� continues to grow as a centre of excellence for AI research and the new ELLIS unit will further strengthen this activity. Our new Chair in AI, Samuel Kaski, was recently awarded a Turing AI World-leading Researcher Fellowship with an ambitious programme of research on human-AI teams with applications to drug design, synthetic biology and digital twins.

“Through the new ELLIS unit Swagֱ�� will be able to better link machine learning researchers across Europe with impactful applications across many disciplines.” 

Swagֱ��’s ELLIS unit brings together experts in AI fundamentals with experts in the application of AI in other fields. Their research focus will be probabilistic modelling and Bayesian inference, AI technologies that work better with people, ML for digital health and medicine, and privacy-preserving ML.

Swagֱ�� has established a strategic partnership in a shared professorship with the director of the ELLIS unit Helsinki, Samuel Kaski from Aalto University, Finland. This Northern link will be used in the future to set up the ELLIS units in Swagֱ�� and Helsinki as a twin unit, with tight collaboration already under way through research collaboration and exchange, which will be opened up to the rest of the ELLIS network.

Researchers from (MIB), led by Professor Nicholas Turner, Dr Sarah Lovelock and Professor Anthony Green, have developed an efficient biocatalytic manufacturing route to Molnupiravir. Experimental work was led by Dr Ashleigh Burke who developed a new enzyme, cytidine aminotransferase, to allow the production of a key Molnupiravir intermediate.

The unique approach of the Swagֱ�� team is currently being further developed with industrial partners at multi-Kg scale to enable adoption by generic pharmaceutical manufacturers at large scale.

Professor Anthony Green said: “We are hopeful that our work will contribute to the challenge of developing a low-cost manufacturing route to Molnupiravir to allow the widest possible access to this promising COVID-19 therapy.”

The research undertaken by Swagֱ�� team has been to allow pharmaceutical manufacturers around the world to take advantage of this development.

Sterling Pharma Solutions, a pharmaceutical contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO), has been engaged to support scale-up development and manufacturing activities utilising the novel enzyme developed by the Swagֱ�� team. Sterling’s CEO, Kevin Cook, said: “We are incredibly proud to be working in partnership will all those involved to help improve global access to what looks to be a very promising, life-saving treatment.”

In order to maximise the impact of the new enzyme technology, Prozomix Ltd, a biocatalyst discovery and contract manufacturing organisation (CMO), will employ foundation funds to produce high-quality cytidine aminotransferase and distribute it globally free-of-charge. Any company can obtain a sample by emailing Molnupiravir@prozomix.com.

Prozomix's Managing Director, Professor Simon Charnock, said: "Establishing a new and widely employable biocatalytic route for an API has arguably never been as urgent, we feel most privileged to play our part in this collaboration."

PET plastic has long been a concern due to the sheer volume of plastic created globally and its impact through non-recycled waste on the environment of drinking bottles, take-away containers and micro plastics.

Part of the reason plastic is difficult to break down is its chemical structure, which is made up of monomers – small molecules which are bonded together to form polymers. To date there have been many studies on the ability of bacteria to degrade PET plastic down into the constituent monomers. However, there has been limited study on the ability of these bacteria to recognise and uptake the corresponding monomers into their cells.

In new research published today in the journal, , researchers from studied the recognition potential of a key protein involved in cellular uptake of the monomer terephthalate (TPA), by the solute binding protein TphC.

and often plastic packaging is used only once. Despite a rise in home and industrial recycling efforts there still exists a systemic problem but also a business opportunity. Developing microbial degradation of plastics could be key in tackling this global issue.

The Swagֱ�� team used biochemical and structural techniques to determine how the substrate, TPA is recognised by TphC. Dr Neil Dixon, lead author of the research said: “Understanding how bacteria recognise and degrade xenobiotic chemicals, is important both from an ecological and biotechnological perspective. Understanding at a molecular level how these plastic breakdown products are imported into bacteria cells means that we can then use transporters in engineered cells for bioremediation applications to address pressing environment concerns.”

Using techniques which allowed the team to visualise the TphC in both open and closed conformations upon TPA binding, they then used genome mining approaches to discover homologous transporter proteins and also enzymes involved in TPA breakdown and assimilation.

These mined genomic parts provide a genetic resource for future biotechnological and metabolic engineering efforts towards circular plastic bio-economy solutions. There is great interest and potential in the use of engineered enzymes and microbes to degrade and assimilate waste plastic.

These new findings will now support the development engineered microbial cells for bio-remediation and bio-based recycling of plastic waste.

The paper, , is published in the journal Nature Communications.

Biotechnology is one of Swagֱ��’s - examples of pioneering discoveries, interdisciplinary collaboration and cross-sector partnerships that are tackling some of the biggest questions facing the planet. #ResearchBeacons

New results from the MicroBooNE experiment at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory deal a blow to a theoretical particle known as the sterile neutrino. For more than two decades, this proposed fourth neutrino has remained a promising explanation for anomalies seen in earlier physics experiments. Finding a new particle would be a major discovery and a radical shift in our understanding of the universe.

However, released by the international MicroBooNE collaboration and presented during a seminar today all show the same thing: no sign of the . Instead, the results align with the , scientists’ best theory of how the universe works. The data is consistent with what the Standard Model predicts: three kinds of neutrinos—no more, no less.

“MicroBooNE has made a very comprehensive exploration through multiple types of interactions, and multiple analysis and reconstruction techniques,” said Bonnie Fleming, physics professor at Yale University and co-spokesperson for MicroBooNE. “They all tell us the same thing, and that gives us very high confidence in our results that we are not seeing a hint of a sterile neutrino.”

is a 170-ton neutrino detector roughly the size of a school bus that has operated since 2015. The international experiment has close to 200 collaborators from 36 institutions in five countries. They used cutting-edge technology to record spectacularly precise 3D images of neutrino events and examine particle interactions in detail—a much-needed probe into the subatomic world.

Swagֱ�� is one of the leading institutes on MicroBooNE. Professor Justin Evans, co-spokesperson of the experiment, has been leading this analysis for the past two years. The Swagֱ�� group, which also includes Professor Stefan Soldner-Rembold, has been heavily involved in the operation of the MicroBooNE detector and the analysis of the data. Of particular note, the Swagֱ�� group is leading a broad programme of searches for physics beyond the Standard Model with MicroBooNE, including searches for new heavy neutral leptons, and new particle sectors that couple to the Standard Model particles through the Higgs boson.

MicroBooNE is part of the Swagֱ�� group’s world leading liquid-argon neutrino-physics programme, in which we are also leading the construction of the new Short-Baseline Near Detector (SBND) that will sit in the same neutrino beam as MicroBooNE and a third detector called ICARUS, to form an exciting new facility called the Short-Baseline Neutrino programme at Fermilab. And looking further to the future, the Swagֱ�� group are playing a leading role in the construction of DUNE, the upcoming international flagship experiment that will enable us to understand the neutrino, and its role in the evolution of the universe, at an even deeper level.

Professor Justin Evans said: “What we have achieved here with MicroBooNE is a transformative step for the field of neutrino physics. The questions of short-baseline anomalies - unexpected appearance or disappearance of activity consistent with electron neutrinos - have been with us for two decades now, and those anomalies can be interpreted as the existence of new types of neutrino.

“Today, MicroBooNE has released results in which, with three independent analyses, we have studied, with exquisite precision, the interactions of neutrinos traveling over short baselines; and we have revealed a clear picture in which we see no excess of electron-neutrino-like interactions. This illustrates the power of the liquid-argon technology, and heralds the start of a new era of precision for neutrino physics, in which we will deepen our understanding of how the neutrino interacts, how it impacted the evolution of the universe, and what it can reveal to us about physics beyond our current Standard Model of how the universe behaves at the most fundamental level."

are one of the fundamental particles in nature. They’re neutral, incredibly tiny, and the most abundant particle with mass in our universe—though they rarely interact with other matter. They’re also particularly intriguing to physicists, with a number of unanswered questions surrounding them. These puzzles include why their masses are so vanishingly small and whether they are responsible for matter's dominance over antimatter in our universe. This makes neutrinos a unique window into exploring how the universe works at the smallest scales.

MicroBooNE’s new results are an exciting turning point in neutrino research. With sterile neutrinos further disfavored as the explanation for anomalies spotted in neutrino data, scientists are investigating other possibilities. These include things as intriguing as light created by other processes during neutrino collisions or as exotic as dark matter, unexplained physics related to the Higgs boson, or other physics beyond the Standard Model.

Neutrinos come in three known types—the electron, muon and tau neutrino—and can switch between these flavors in a particular way as they travel. This phenomenon is called “neutrino oscillation.” Scientists can use their knowledge of oscillations to predict how many neutrinos of any kind they expect to see when measuring them at various distances from their source.

Neutrinos are produced by many sources, including the sun, the atmosphere, nuclear reactors and particle accelerators. Starting around two decades ago, data from two particle beam experiments threw researchers for a loop.

MiniBooNE scientists also saw more particle events than calculations predicted. These strange neutrino beam results were followed by reports of missing electron neutrinos from radioactive sources and reactor neutrino experiments.

Sterile neutrinos emerged as a popular candidate to explain these odd results. While neutrinos are already tricky to detect, the proposed sterile neutrino would be even more elusive, responding only to the force of gravity. But because neutrinos flit between the different types, a sterile neutrino could impact the way neutrinos oscillate, leaving its signature in the data.

But studying the smallest things in nature isn’t straightforward. Scientists never see neutrinos directly; instead, they see the particles that emerge when a neutrino hits an atom inside a detector.

The MicroBooNE detector is built on state-of-the-art techniques and technology. It uses special light sensors and more than 8,000 painstakingly attached wires to capture particle tracks. It’s housed in a 40-foot-long cylindrical container filled with 170 tons of pure liquid argon. Neutrinos bump into the dense, transparent liquid, releasing additional particles that the electronics can record. The resulting pictures show detailed particle paths and, crucially, distinguish electrons from photons.

MicroBooNE’s first three years of data show no excess of electrons—but they also show no excess of photons from a background process that might indicate an error in MiniBooNE’s data.

MicroBooNE ruled out the most likely source of as the cause of MiniBooNE’s excess events with confidence and ruled out electrons as the sole source with greater than 99% confidence, and there is more to come.

MicroBooNE still has half of its data to analyse and more ways yet to analyse it. The granularity of the detector enables researchers to look at particular kinds of particle interactions. While the team started with the most likely causes for the MiniBooNE excess, there are additional channels to investigate—such as the appearance of an electron and positron, or different outcomes that include photons.

Neutrinos are surrounded by mysteries. The anomalous data seen by the earlier MiniBooNE and LSND experiments still need an explanation. So too does the very phenomenon of neutrino oscillation and the fact that neutrinos have mass, neither of which is predicted by the Standard Model. There are also tantalising hints that neutrinos could help explain why there is so much matter in the universe, as opposed to a universe full of antimatter or nothing at all.

Liquid argon will also be used in the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, a flagship international experiment hosted by Fermilab that already has more than 1,000 researchers from over 30 countries. DUNE will study oscillations by sending neutrinos 800 miles (1,300 km) through the earth to detectors at the mile-deep Sanford Underground Research Facility. The combination of short- and long-distance neutrino experiments will give researchers insights into the workings of these fundamental particles.

The SynHiSel programme has received a total of £9m in funding, from the , part of UK Research and Innovation, and from industrial and University partners.

The project, the biggest of its kind to date, will investigate how to develop more efficient ways of separating chemicals – processes that underpin crucial parts of everyday life including clean water treatment, CO₂ removal and food and pharmaceutical production.

It is estimated that these separations currently consume 10-15 percent of total energy usage, and that they could be made 10 times more efficient by creating new highly selective membranes. This could cut annual worldwide carbon dioxide emissions by 100 million tonnes and save £3.5 billion in energy costs.

Professor Peter Budd, Swagֱ�� said: “Both scientific ingenuity and engineering skill are needed in the development of new membranes and processes for sustainable and efficient separations. We are delighted to be working with some wonderful collaborators to explore new opportunities for membrane technology.”

The programme’s principal investigator Professor Davide Mattia, of the says the project aims to help the UK lead in developing new high value, high efficiency chemical processing techniques.

Prof Mattia says: “Some of the biggest challenges we face – how to develop drugs and vaccines, ensure food security and quality, and how to make sure the water we drink is clean – all require some form of chemical separation. We want to improve our understanding of highly selective membrane technology to create value in manufacturing and make processes more sustainable.”

Swagֱ�� has a proud record of developing innovative materials that offer the prospect of membranes with unprecedented selectivity and productivity for molecular separations on a large scale. Highly permeable polymers referred to as ‘Polymers of Intrinsic Microporosity’ (PIMS) invented by chemists in Swagֱ�� nearly 20 years ago, are at the forefront of research into efficient gas separations. Graphene, first isolated by physicists at Swagֱ�� around the same time, has led to graphene-based membranes with enormous potential for producing clean water from dirty water.

Through the SynHiSel programme grant, researchers in chemistry and chemical engineering at Swagֱ�� will work together with membrane scientists across the UK to help tackle global challenges such as cleaning our air, cleaning our water, and enabling industry to operate more sustainably. A focus on real-world applications is facilitated by the support of industrial partners ranging from multinational companies to small enterprises such as the Swagֱ�� spin-out, .

The programme will bring together chemical and process engineers, chemists, materials scientists and experts in scaling-up of industrial manufacture. Prof Mattia says that this breadth of expertise will allow the team to be more inventive in its approach.

Ian Metcalfe, Professor of Chemical Engineering at Newcastle University and deputy director of the programme, added: ‘Our membrane work was originally funded by an earlier EPSRC Programme Grant, SynFabFun, which was a great success. It is wonderful to see the team develop, to bring in new investigators and to move on to new challenges as SynHiSel.”

As well as new scientific innovation, the SynHiSel programme aims to develop a new generation of talent in the field, by acting as the virtual UK national membrane centre. The academic and industrial partners will create an initial cohort of 11 new PhD studentships, and PhDs and post-doctoral research associates will gain valuable experience as part of the multidisciplinary research groups and be given dedicated training and professional development opportunities.

Industrial partners including Evonik Industries AG, Dupont Teijing Films (UK), Pall Europe, BP, ExxonMobil, and Cytiva Europe will work with the team to ensure the industrial potential of the new processes and tools they develop. UK-based SMEs including Exactmer, Nanotherics, RFC Power, Watercycle Technologies, Laser Micromachining and the University of Bath spinout Naturbeads will also collaborate with the programme research team.

The SynHiSel programme team comprises: Prof Davide Mattia and Prof John Chew, University of Bath; Dr Patricia Gorgojo and Prof Peter Budd, University of Swagֱ��; Prof Ian Metcalfe and Dr Greg Mutch, Newcastle University; Prof Neil McKeown and Prof Maria-Chiara Ferrari, University of Edinburgh; Prof Andrew Livingston, Queen Mary University of London; Prof Kang Li and Dr Qilei Song, Imperial College London.

The innovative device enables rooms to heat up quicker and minimises energy bills, reducing fuel poverty and the carbon footprint of UK homes.

Thermocill^TM is a discreet window board that directs air from a room’s radiator up and against the window panes creating a warm curtain in front of the glazing.

Researchers from the (MACE) at the University have supported development of a prototype and applied computer modelling to optimise, calculate and verify effectiveness of the unique green-tech.

Dr Amir Keshmiri, a Reader in Fluid Dynamics who led this project at MACE said: “Thermocill is an innovative concept based on the fundamentals of fluid mechanics and heat transfer and our results have demonstrated the effectiveness of this device in changing the flow in the room and the thermal comfort”.

Researchers from the Sustainable Materials Innovation Hub (SMI Hub) have also worked closely with the University to help investigate the suitability and sustainability of different materials for .

The Hub conducted an assessment of the suitability of different materials for manufacturing Thermocill, which included investigations of the mechanical and physical properties as well as recyclability and sustainability.

Other innovative materials will also be considered for future development of the product including hemp, the use of which is becoming more widely recognised for its potential to help fight climate change.

Professor Michael Shaver, SMI Hub Director and Professor of Polymer Chemistry at Swagֱ�� said: “Households are huge sources of carbon emissions so it’s important that innovative solutions are developed to help reduce their impact. We are proud to advise the company on the sustainability of their plastic choices for both current and future products."

Award-winning entrepreneur and inventor of Thermocill, Keith Rimmer, said: “Both Swagֱ�� and the SMI Hub have played a key role in helping to support the development of Thermocill, from the initial idea and concept through to real-world application. Finding a sustainable material to make the product from has always been a critically important element, to maximise the positive environmental impact of Thermocill.

“With the first major production run taking place soon we’re at an exciting stage in this journey and it’s very exciting that together, we’ve developed a product that will have a positive impact on energy efficiency and fuel poverty very soon.”

Performance of the product has also been verified by the t, with headline benefits including a 14 per cent reduction in the energy needed to heat up a room and a 150kg reduction in CO2 emissions per year for each household where Thermocill is installed.

A council in the North West has agreed to initially install Thermocill in 2,000 homes across their 22,000 properties, which will lead to 300 tonnes of CO2 emission savings and 16 tonnes of materials saved from going to landfills.

Chris Clarkson, MP for Heywood and Middleton, was on a fact-finding mission to the (GEIC) at the University on Tuesday 5 October.

The MP watched a demonstration of the newly developed graphene-enhanced concrete – called Concretene, developed by the GEIC and industry partners – being poured into specially designed moulds to help create the world’s first set of benches using the breakthrough concrete mix. The unique ‘G’-branded benches will form part of a ‘living lab’ at the GEIC, as well being located in public spaces on the University campus.

“The work done by the GEIC, Swagֱ�� and partners like Nationwide Engineering show that British innovation is not just alive and well, but leading the world." said Chris Clarkson.

"Applications like Concretene promise to be a game changer, reducing costs, emissions and building times in construction. It was a privilege to join the team to learn more and I’m passionate about making sure that Swagֱ��’s graphene revolution is at the heart of levelling up our region.”

Concretene is expected to transform the construction industry – one of the biggest contributors to global CO² levels - and to help the UK establish leadership in advanced materials for the built environment.

This follows breakthrough research by Swagֱ�� engineers who added tiny amounts of graphene to concrete and have with industry partners Nationwide Engineering that this allows for removal of up to 30% of material from a build project without impacting on its strength or integrity. This means Concretene is not only much greener but also cheaper to use.

We were delighted to showcase this technology to Chris Clarkson, especially as Britain is looking demonstrate its commitment to achieving a zero-carbon economy on the eve of the UK hosting the COP26 climate change summit,” said James Baker, CEO of Graphene@Swagֱ��.

“The new Swagֱ��-based technology can also contribute to levelling up by positioning our region as a global R&D centre for sustainable materials for the construction industry – attracting investment, creating new businesses and offering high-wage jobs.”

The breakthrough product has been developed both at the GEIC and the University’s (MACE) in partnership with Nationwide Engineering, an innovation-led construction company co-founded by a Swagֱ�� graduate.

Alex McDermott, an alumnus of MACE and co-director of Nationwide Engineering, said: “Our partnership with the University has fast-tracked the development of Concretene, going from lab to product in 18 months. We’re ahead of everyone else in the world with the scale-up of this technology, and we need investment to accelerate the accreditation process so we can roll it out across the building supply chain, stay ahead of the competition and bring real benefits to UK plc.

He added: “It’s very important we are based in Swagֱ�� - this is the home of graphene and there’s nowhere better in the world to lead this research.”

• In early September, the Concretene team laid a concrete slab outside the GEIC as part of ongoing research to monitor performance of the new concrete in real-world conditions and to help certify the product in readiness to scale further and deploy in major build projects in the UK and beyond. Additional commercial pours are scheduled for the autumn in Swagֱ�� and further afield as the product gains momentum in the industry.

This highly coveted prize is awarded annually to independently funded students for "a record of outstanding accomplishments during their PhD in any discipline" and is the highest award given to graduate students studying outside China.

During his PhD, which was funded by the University of Swagֱ�� President’s Doctoral Scholarship Scheme, Jinzghen investigated the chemistry of actinide-nitrides, probing their synthesis, electronic structure, and reactivity, and unusual small molecule activation at transient low-valent thorium. After his PhD, Jingzhen remained in the Liddle Group where he is currently a postdoctoral researcher.

Jingzhen said: “I am absolutely humbled and delighted to be a recipient of this award. The list of previous winners is full of highly talented individuals, so I am deeply honoured to have been selected.”

A community of specialists at Swagֱ�� have teamed up with global architect firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) to research the design and manufacturing of space habitats for the space industry.

With projections that the global space economy , the innovation will raise the technology readiness level (TRL) of new lightweight composites using 2D materials for space applications.

In an international collaboration, Dr Vivek Koncherry and his team – supported by the Swagֱ��-based – are creating a scaled prototype of a space habitat with pressurised vessels designed to function in a space environment.

SOM, the architects behind the world’s tallest building - Burj Khalifa in Dubai - are contributing design and engineering expertise to the space architecture. Daniel Inocente, SOM’s senior designer in New York, said: “Designing for habitation in space poses some of the greatest challenges - it means creating an environment capable of maintaining life and integrating crew support systems.

“As architects, our role is to combine and integrate the most innovative technologies, materials, methods and above all the human experience to designing inhabited environments,” added Inocente. “Conducting research using graphene allows us to test lightweight materials and design processes that could improve the efficacy of composite structures for potential applications on Earth and future use in space.”

In the next five to 10 years most governments are expected to want a permanent presence in space to manage critical infrastructure, such as satellite networks – as well as considering the potential opportunity of accessing space-based resources and further scientific exploration.

Dr Koncherry said: “A major barrier to scaling up in time to meet this demand is the lack of advanced and automated manufacturing systems to make the specialist structures needed for living in space. One of the space industry’s biggest challenges is overcoming a lack of robotic systems to manufacture the complex shapes using advanced materials.”

The solution is incorporating graphene for advanced structural capabilities, such as radiation shielding, as well as developing and employing a new generation of robotic machines to make these graphene-enhanced structures. This technology has the potential to revolutionise high-performance lightweight structures – and could also be used for terrestrial applications in the aerospace, construction and automotive sectors.

James Baker, CEO Graphene@Swagֱ��, said: “The work being led by Dr Koncherry and his colleagues is taking the development of new composites and lightweighting to another level, as well as the advanced manufacture needed to make structures from these new materials. By collaborating with SOM there are opportunities to identify applications on our own planet as we look to build habitats that are much smarter and more sustainable.”

The space habitat launch coincides with a series of world firsts for graphene in the built environment currently happening here on Earth – including the first external pour of graphene-enhanced Concretene and  - all supported by experts in the city where the super strong material was first isolated.

Tim Newns, Chief Executive of MIDAS, Swagֱ��’s inward investment agency, said: “This exciting piece of research further underlines the breadth of applications where advanced materials and in particular graphene can revolutionise global industries such as the space industry. In addition to world-leading expertise in graphene, facilities such as the new , will also support the development of advanced machines and machinery required to bring these applications to reality.”