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A new study led by researchers at Oxford and Guangdong Centre for Diseases Control and Prevention describes the epidemiology and genetic make-up of the COVID-19 outbreak in China's most populous region, and shows how early and intensive testing and tracing helped to interrupt local transmission of the virus.

University of Oxford researchers have begun testing a COVID-19 vaccine in human volunteers in Oxford today. Around 1,110 people will take part in the trial, half receiving the vaccine and the other half (the control group) receiving a widely available meningitis vaccine. Of the first two volunteers to take part today, one will likewise receive the vaccine and the other the control.

Researchers at the are looking for volunteers from across the globe to take part in a new study looking into how social distancing has affected their lives during the Covid-19 pandemic. Volunteers can complete the online survey, which will track people's feelings and experiences over a 3-month period.

Periods of lockdown during the COVID-19 situation likely to exacerbate problems with mood regulation, say experts at the. Mood varies from hour-to-hour, day-to-day and healthy mood regulation involves choosing activities that help settle one's mood. However, in situations where personal choices of activities are constrained, such as during periods of social isolation and lockdown, this natural mood regulation is impaired which might result in depression.

University of Oxford researchers working in an unprecedented vaccine development effort to prevent COVID-19 have started screening healthy volunteers (aged 18-55) today for their upcoming ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine trial in the Thames Valley Region. The vaccine based on an adenovirus vaccine vector and the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is already in production but won't be ready for some weeks still.

Serologic tests are blood tests that look for antibodies in your blood, and would allow scientists to decipher what fraction of the British public have already had COVID-19 and recovered, and provide an improved estimate of the number remaining at risk of serious illness. The research led by Professor Sunetra Gupta and Dr Jose Lourenco from Oxford's Department of Zoology, used a well-understood and widely studied modelling approach.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 25 March 2020 A mobility and epidemiological study from a global consortium of researchers, led by the University of Oxford, Northeastern University and Harvard Medical School, has shown that travel restrictions from and within Wuhan and Hubei from 23 rd January worked to prevent the wider spread of COVID-19.

Three Oxford-based COVID-19 projects are among the first to benefit from a share of £20 million in government investment. The three projects include work on an effective vaccine, enabling pre-clinical and clinical vaccine trials, as well as supporting researchers to develop manufacturing processes to produce a vaccine at a million-dose scale. Another project will examine how existing treatments could be repurposed to treat coronavirus.

Scientists from the University of Oxford's Engineering Science Department and the Oxford Suzhou Centre for Advanced Research (OSCAR) have developed a rapid testing technology for the novel corona virus SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19). The team, led by Prof. Zhanfeng Cui and Prof. Wei Huang, have been working to improve test capabilities as the virus spreads internationally.

As global research efforts intensify to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, what do we know about the disease, and what are our research priorities' What we know Coronaviruses are a group of viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds, and respiratory tract infections in humans. Typically, these infections are mild, but rarer forms such as Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) can be lethal.

Study explores role of human induced climate change in the 2019-2020 South-Eastern Australian bushfire season. The World Weather Attribution (WWA) initiative has released the  first analysis  of the role climate change played in the 2019/2020 bushfire season in South-Eastern Australia, which showed that the risk of intense fire weather has increased by 30% since 1900 as a result of anthropogenic climate change.

The genes that help you smell could also be assisting the spread of colon cancer. Humans have around 400 "smell-sensing" genes which activate in a combination of ways to allow us to smell the ranges of smells that we do. However, the genes have been found to be expressed in parts of the body other than the nose, with their role previously remaining a mystery.

How individuals respond to government advice on preventing the spread of COVID-19 will be at least as important, if not more important, than government action, according to a new commentary from researchers at the University of Oxford and Imperial College London in the UK, and Utrecht University and the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands.

The results of a first-in-human clinical trial of gene therapy to treat a common cause of genetic blindness have shown partial reversal of sight loss in some patients. X-linked retinitis pigmentosa, caused by mutations in RPGR gene, is the most common cause of blindness in young people. The inherited mutations lead to degeneration of light sensitive cells (photoreceptors) beginning in early childhood leading to severe sight loss.

The NASA InSight lander, which is supported by the UK Space Agency, has recorded 400 likely 'Marsquakes' in the first year of its mission. The seismic vibrations on Mars were detected by a set of silicon sensors developed in the UK for InSight's Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS). Imperial College London, Oxford University, University of Bristol and STFC RAL Space worked in partnership, with £4 million in funding from the UK Space Agency, to develop three sensors which are sensitive enough to detect motion at sub-atomic scales.

Researchers from The George Institute for Global Health at the University of Oxford have found that while having high cholesterol levels does not influence your risk of aortic or mitral valve regurgitation, it does increase your risk of developing another major heart valve disease - aortic stenosis.

Researchers from the University of Oxford have discovered that the Himalayan wolf is a unique wolf characteristically adapted to the harsh life in the Asian high altitudes where low oxygen levels challenge all life forms. The Himalayan wolf is considered an ancient wolf as it evolved prior to the contemporary grey wolf which is found in large parts of North America and Eurasia.

A study by University of Oxford researchers, published today in Social Science & Medicine , has found that ride-hailing provider, Uber, is associated with a 9% decline in serious road accident injuries in the UK. However, that relative improvement is counterbalanced by the fact that there was an increase in slight road accident injuries in London.

Research published today in the  Journal of Medical Ethics  found that the way informed consent is currently taken causes unnecessary 'nocebo' harms. The requirement of informed consent means that it is an ethical requirement to warn patients about risks of taking part in clinical trials. But recent research shows that the way in which patients are told about these risks can actually cause harm.

Researchers have used a new technique to identify six previously unknown cell types in human Fallopian tubes, paving the way for faster identification and treatment of ovarian cancer. Researchers at the University of Oxford are now closer to finding the cell of origin of ovarian cancer, and their ultimate aim of developing a much needed screening tool for ovarian cancer.