Archive for April, 2010

Professor Sir Brian Hoskins and Imperial scientists in the Grantham Institute for Climate Change are working on

• understanding what greenhouse gas emissions are doing to the climate and to life on this planet
• how we can reduce these emissions
• how we can reduce the impact of the climate changes
• understanding the financial impacts of extreme climate events

See recent news on climate change research at Imperial.

Lord Robert Winston, Professor of Science and Society at Imperial, says: “Imperial scientists are attempting to incorporate new genes into the cells which make the sperm of young pigs, so that when these animals are adult and mate, they will have offspring whose tissues can be tolerated by the human immune system”.

• Professor Andrew George’s group in the Faculty of Medicine’s Molecular Immunotherapy Laboratory is examining the use of genetic modification to induce tolerance, including during xenotransplantation.

To answer this question we need to find the oldest mineral grains in our solar system, grains formed before our planet existed, when our solar system was no more than a disk of dust and gas spinning around the young Sun.

Dr Matt Genge of the Department of Earth Science and Engineering is searching for clues in cosmic dust, using some of the world’s most powerful microscopes to look at tiny crystals only a few thousand atoms in size.

Academics like Zen Makuch, Reader in Law at Imperial’s Centre for Environmental Policy, are working on how best to apportion and share responsibility for the carbon content of the world’s goods and services. In this way, international climate change negotiations are more likely to succeed.

Professor Alan Fenwick OBE and his team have addressed several tropical diseases, such as schistosomiasis and intestinal worms, that they believe can be cured by annual doses of inexpensive drugs. They are treating millions of children in sub-Saharan Africa, who are at high risk of serious disease,  to prove the drugs are well tolerated and improve their quality of life.

• Schistosomiasis Control Initiative

Is there a common cause behind catastrophic changes such as mass extinctions, earthquakes and financial crashes? Imperial scientists are investigating the common features of a range of diverse situations where intermittent abrupt big events occur with dramatic consequences.

• Henrik Jeldtoft Jensen, Professor of Mathematical Physics in the Department of Mathematics leads a research programme on complexity and networks in Imperial’s Institute of Mathematical Sciences
• Download a leaflet about complexity science.

Scientists from diverse disciplines across Imperial are joining forces to develop and evaluate new solutions to improve health in poorer communities. Research ranges from HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, and the emerging epidemics of diabetes and cardiovacular disease, to better delivery of healthcare and disease prevention.

• Institute for Global Health
• Wellcome Centre for Clinical Tropical Medicine
  at Imperial College London.

Imperial scientists are revealing that water and carbon dioxide delivered by meteorites to the early Earth contributed to the formation of a habitable environment, without which life could not have evolved.

• Researchers in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering (ESE) suggest that large bombardments of meteorites approximately four billion years ago could have helped to make the early Earth and Mars more habitable for life by modifying their atmospheres.
• Two recent papers by ESE offer new evidence to
  suggest that life may exist on Mars.

Yes, but we need to find ways of making knowledge accessible across language boundaries.

• Imperial scientists like Dr Jorge Díaz-Cintas are asking how we can make knowledge available to everyone by looking different translation technologies in his research.

• Dr Díaz-Cintas also teaches on Imperial’s MSc course in Scientific, Technical and Medical Translation with Translation Technology which prepares students for the professional translation world, and covers a range of applications
  from medical reports and research papers, through
  patents and product documentation, to publicity material, audiovisual programmes, web pages and software.

The Imperial Blast Biomechanics and Biophysics Research Group is investigating how bones break after high-speed impacts.

• This is especially relevant today as  improvised explosive devices (IEDs) have become the leading cause of death of UK and coalition troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• The Group is also looking at the development of improved protective measures has become a core research focus in reducing the injury burden of the combat soldier.