science wire

Smokers who regularly spend time with vapers (people who use e-cigarettes) are more likely to try quitting smoking, according to a new study carried out by UCL. The research, published today in BMC Medicine and funded by Cancer Research UK, found that smokers who were regularly exposed to vapers (as opposed to other smokers) were around 20% more likely to have reported both a high current motivation to quit and made a recent quit attempt.

Prospective students Current students UCL spinout Orchard Therapeutics, a biotechnology company dedicated to transforming the lives of patients with rare disorders through innovative gene therapies, has raised $225 million (£173 million) through its initial public offering.

A trial for a new gene therapy, known as AXO-Lenti-PD, aimed at improving the supply of dopamine in the brains of people with Parkinson's disease has been launched by researchers at UCL and University College London Hospitals (UCLH). In people affected by Parkinson's disease (PD), parts of the brain become progressively damaged over many years resulting in motor symptoms including tremor, rigidity and bradykinesia (slowness of movement).

High speed internet could be delivered through the lights in homes and offices, revolutionising the way we download and upload information in the future, finds UCL researchers. Academics from UCL, Northumbria University and Newcastle University are developing a new type of organic LED (light-emitting diode) which will communicate with smart devices such as tablets and phones to download and upload huge amounts of data.

Changes in housing costs have dramatically exacerbated the rise in income inequality in Germany since the mid-1990s, according to new UCL research.

NHS patients are being let down by a global health innovation system which fails to deliver the treatments they need at prices that government can afford, according to a new report led by Professor M

The groundbreaking research carried out by the UCL Cancer Institute has been celebrated at a special Royal Society event, marking its 10 year anniversary.

Nice people may be at greater risk of bankruptcy and other financial hardships, compared with their less agreeable peers, because they don't value money as much, according to research by UCL and Columbia Business School. The study by Dr Joe Gladstone (UCL School of Management) and co-author Dr Sandra Matz (Columbia Business School) involved analysing data collected from more than three million participants using multiple methods: two online panels, a national survey, bank account data, and publicly available geographic data.

A referendum on Brexit is clearly possible, but the details matter. Various processes must be put in place to ensure the referendum is legitimate, according to a new report by the UCL Constitution Unit.

Scientists at UCL have joined experts from across the globe in writing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report on limiting global warming to 1.5C.

A small number of elite universities serve as the prime breeding grounds for American power brokers.

Leading UCL oncologist Professor Charlie Swanton has been honoured by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) with a prestigious award, in recognition of his lifetime achievements to lung cancer research.

The first ever live reading of Orwell's iconic text in both London and Paris completes its journey this week.

Egyptian women have been at the forefront of Egypt's political and economic struggles with nearly 3 million protesting against sexual harassment in 2013, yet their fight against social stigmas at home and abroad remains largely unnoticed within Western circles.

UCL is joining forces with Google to launch a £5.5m Prosperity Partnership, which aims to harness the revolutionary power of quantum computers for applications in modelling and simulation.

The European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter leaves the UK this week for testing in Germany, hosting state-of-the-art instruments on board designed by teams including UCL physicists.

Forget wild and chaotic behaviour, heavy metal music culture is inclusive and governed by etiquette and codes of conduct, according to new UCL research.

UCL is leading a new a vaccine research hub, launching today, to affect radical change in the development and manufacturing of vaccines, with the University of Oxford.

Job satisfaction among teachers in England is as low, or lower, than 22 comparable countries across Europe, North America and the Commonwealth, according to new UCL research.

The Orwell Papers, housed at UCL Special Collections, have been formally inscribed to the prestigious UNESCO Memory of the World International Register.

Researchers at UCL will play a leading role in a new world class hub for cancer biotherapeutics, which has been launched by Cancer Research UK.

Professor Helen Chatterjee MBE and Dr Daisy Fancourt have both won awards at the Health Humanities Medal, which celebrates good health and wellbeing through arts and humanities research.

The world-renowned English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), and the spiritual forebear of UCL, famously left his remains to science, but his head and strands of his hair are also the key feature of twenty-six memorial rings that had he had made before his death.