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The first research definition of what is meant by 'long Covid' in children and young people has been formally agreed in a new study led by UCL researchers. The definition closely complements that proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO) for long Covid in adults. If widely adopted, it will substantially help strengthen the evidence base on this debilitating condition, say the researchers.

A new revolutionary test for detecting ovarian and breast cancer, which could potentially measure future cancer risk, is being developed by researchers from UCL's Institute for Women's Health. The research is led by Professor Martin Widschwendter (UCL Institute for Women's Health, University of Innsbruck and the European Translational Oncology Prevention and Screening Institute) and is funded by The Eve Appeal and the European Research Council.

Scientists at UCL have developed a novel cancer therapy that uses an MRI scanner to guide a magnetic seed through the brain to heat and destroy tumours. The therapy, demonstrated in mice, is called "minimally invasive image-guided ablation" or MINIMA and comprises a ferromagnetic thermoseed navigated to a tumour using magnetic propulsion gradients generated by an MRI scanner, before being remotely heated to kill nearby cancer cells.

Children and adolescents who stammer report elevated symptoms of anxiety compared with non-stammering peers, according to a new review of evidence led by UCL researchers. The study, published in the Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research and also involving the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, combined and re-analysed findings from 11 previous studies that had compared children and adolescents (two to 18 years) who do and do not stammer on symptoms of anxiety and depression.

A group of genes that play an essential role in building components of our cells can also impact human lifespan, finds a new study led by UCL researchers. The genes have previously been found to extend lifespan in small organisms, such as making fruit flies live 10% longer, but this is the first time scientists have demonstrated a link in people as well, as they report in a new Genome Research paper.

Care home residents infected with the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 are half as likely to be admitted to hospital compared to residents infected with the Delta variant, suggest preliminary findings from the Vivaldi study led by UCL researchers. The study, funded by the UK Department of Health and Social Care and published on the preprint site medRxiv, looked at the proportion of SARS-CoV-2 cases leading to hospital admission among elderly care home residents in England, comparing data before the arrival of Omicron with cases occurring after.

Our changing environment, as well as changing gene-environment interactions, could explain increasing rates of short-sightedness over time in the UK, reports a new study led by UCL researchers. In a new paper published in PLOS One , researchers showed that, within the study, there were a higher number of people diagnosed with short-sightedness within the younger population than those born between 1939 and 1944.

More than a third of care home residents and a quarter of care home staff in England showed evidence of infection with SARS-CoV-2 during the first two waves of the pandemic, according to a new study led by UCL researchers. The study, published in The Lancet Healthy Longevity , looked at blood samples from nearly 5,000 residents (with a median age of 87) and staff (with a median age of 48) at 201 care homes across England between June 2020 and May 2021.

Harmful changes in supporting cells, called astrocytes, have been identified in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) by UCL and Francis Crick Institute researchers. The two new publications, in Brain and Genome Research , suggests that the star-shaped astrocytes may be a key target for new ALS treatments.

Levels of depression and anxiety rose sharply over December in the UK, especially among young adults, reaching similar levels to lockdown at the start of 2021, according to new findings from the Covid-19 Social Study led by UCL researchers. The research also found that confidence in devolved governments' handling of Covid-19 fell in England and Wales over the same period (between the end of November and start of January), but remained steady in Scotland.

New therapies for autoimmune rheumatic diseases (AIRDs) that are designed to better regulate lipid (fat) metabolism, could significantly reduce the harmful side-effects caused by conventional treatments, finds a new large-scale review led by UCL researchers. AIRDs affect millions globally and include rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and Sjögren's syndrome - all with high rates of morbidity.

Male mosquitoes beat their wings faster when swarming at sunset to better detect females and increase their chance of reproducing, finds a novel study led by UCL scientists. Published in  Science Advances , the findings provide a vital new insight into how mosquitoes, driven by their internal circadian clock, combine changes in wing beats with their acute auditory senses to successfully mate.

The global burden of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), a group of common lung conditions that affects more than 300* million people, could be significantly reduced with a simple health assessment, concludes a large-scale international study led by UCL researchers. COPD includes serious lung conditions, such as emphysema and chronic bronchitis, and is the world's third leading cause of morbidity with more than three million deaths a year.

Smokers may become more socially isolated and lonely than non-smokers as they get older, according to a new study co-led by UCL researchers that suggests the idea of smoking as a sociable pastime may be a myth. Previous research has found that people who are isolated and lonely are more likely to smoke.

A once-a-day antiretroviral medicine that is low-cost and easy for children to take is also more effective at suppressing HIV than standard treatments, according to a global trial led by researchers at UCL. The study, published today in The New England Journal of Medicine , found that dolutegravir-based regimens, which are already widely used to treat adults, reduced the chances of treatment failure among young people aged three to 18 by around 40% compared to standard treatments.

Adding abiraterone to the standard treatment for locally advanced prostate cancer, where the cancer has a high chance of spreading, could halve the risk of death from the disease, according to the results of a UCL-led trial. The researchers suggest that hormone therapy using abiraterone with prednisolone, could significantly reduce prostate cancer deaths and improve outcomes for thousands of people every year.

The SARS-CoV-2 Alpha (B.1.1.7) variant mutated to evade our 'innate immune system', helping establish it as the world's first 'Variant of Concern', finds a new study led by researchers at UCL and the Quantitative Biosciences Institute, University of California San Francisco. Published in  Nature , the study shows the Alpha variant, first identified in the UK, evolved to make more of its 'antagonism proteins' that nullify the body's first line of defence, known as the 'innate immune system'.

Fundamental differences in the immune response of adults and children can help to explain why children are much less likely to become seriously ill from SARS-CoV-2, finds a new study by researchers at UCL and the Wellcome Sanger Institute. The study is the most comprehensive single-cell study to compare SARS-CoV-2 infection in adults and children across multiple organs.

The differences in Covid-19 infection risk between ethnic minority healthcare workers and their white colleagues is likely due to home and work factors rather than biology, finds the largest and most detailed study on the subject, co-led by researchers at UCL. Previous research has shown that healthcare workers from ethnic minority groups are at a disproportionately higher risk of contracting Covid-19 than their white colleagues.

A Covid-19 booster vaccination markedly increases immune response in residents and staff within care homes, according to a new preprint study co-led by UCL researchers, making it vital that people living and working in these settings get their third jab. Age and frailty are already recognised as major risk factors for severe Covid-19 outcomes, with elderly residents of long-term care facilities suffering much higher rates of mortality during the pandemic than the general population.