University of Manchester scientists play key role in discovery of new heavy-proton particle at CERN

University of Manchester

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Artist’s illustration of this heavy proton-like particle.

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Credit: Chris Parkes

Scientists from the University of Manchester have played a leading role in the discovery of a new subatomic particle at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The particle, known as the Ξcc⁺ (Xi‑cc‑plus), is a new type of heavy proton-like particle containing two charm quarks and one down quark.

The result is the first particle discovery made using the upgraded LHCb detector, a major international project involving more than 1,000 scientists across 20 countries. The UK made the largest national contribution to the upgrade, with significant leadership from Manchester.

The newly observed Ξcc⁺ is a heavier relative of the proton, which was famously discovered in Manchester by Ernest Rutherford and colleagues in 1917-1919. The proton contains two up quarks and a down quark. The new discovery replaces the up quarks with their heavier relatives the charm quarks. It also extends a legacy begun in the 1950s, when Manchester physicists were the first to identify a member of the Ξ (Xi) particle family.

Professor Chris Parkes, head of the University’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, led the international collaboration during the installation and first operation of the LHCb Upgrade detector. He also led the UK contribution to the project for over a decade, from approval through to delivery.

The Manchester LHCb group designed and built key components of the upgraded tracking system, the silicon pixel detector modules assembled in the University’s Schuster Building. These detectors are central to precisely reconstructing the particle decays in which the Ξcc⁺ signal was observed.

Professor Parkes, said: “Rutherford’s gold‑foil experiment in a Manchester basement transformed our understanding of matter, and today’s discovery builds on that legacy using state‑of‑the‑art technology at CERN. Both milestones demonstrate just how far curiosity driven research can take us. This discovery showcases the extraordinary capability of the upgraded LHCb detector and the strength of UK and Manchester contributions to the experiment.”

Dr Stefano De Capua, from The University of Manchester, who led the silicon detector module production, added: “The detector is a form of ‘camera’ that images the particles produced at the LHC and takes photographs 40 million times per second. It utilises a custom designed silicon chip that also has a variant for use in medical imaging applications.”

The Ξcc⁺ particle was identified through its decay into three lighter particles (Λc⁺ K⁻ π⁺), recorded in proton‑proton collisions at the LHC in 2024, the first year of full operation of the LHCb Upgrade experiment. A clear peak of around 915 events was observed at a mass of 3619.97 MeV/c², consistent with expectations based on a previously discovered partner particle, the Ξcc⁺⁺.

This observation resolves a question that had remained open for more than two decades since an unconfirmed claim of the observation of this particle was made. The particle has now been discovered by LHCb at a mass incompatible with this earlier claim and a mass that is compatible with the theoretical expectations based on the partner particle.

In the next phase of the LHC programme, The University of Manchester is playing a leading role in LHCb Upgrade 2, which is planned to take advantage of the High-Luminosity LHC accelerator. 

Details of the Ξcc⁺ discovery are presented at the Rencontres de Moriond Electroweak conference.

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Dr Stefano de Capua testing the LHCb silicon detector modules in the Schuster Laboratory clean-rooms at the University of Manchester.  https://cds.cern.ch/record/2814453

credit: Amy O’Connor/STFC UKRI

 

Climate action could prevent over 13 million premature deaths, but equity choices matter for global health

University of Texas at Austin

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A new study published in The Lancet Global Health reveals a previously underappreciated tension at the heart of international climate negotiations: policies designed to protect developing countries from bearing an unfair share of the cost of cutting carbon emissions could inadvertently deprive those same countries of millions of life-saving air quality improvements. The leaders of the study also identify a promising way to resolve this dilemma.

The study, conducted by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin, Emory University, Princeton University, and collaborators across six countries, modeled multiple approaches to achieving the Paris Agreement’s target of limiting warming to two degrees Celsius to assess policy impacts on emissions, air quality, health outcomes, and economic welfare across 178 countries through the end of the century. The researchers found that climate action consistent with the two-degree-Celsius target would avoid more than 13.5 million premature deaths from air pollution between 2020 and 2050 — overwhelmingly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). However, the total amount and distribution of those health gains would depend critically on how the global mitigation burden is shared.

Under a least-cost approach — where emissions are cut wherever it is cheapest to do so — LMICs shoulder a significant share of the mitigation effort but also reap the largest air quality benefits. Under an equity-based approach — where wealthier nations take on more of the burden — LMICs pay less, but nearly four million fewer premature deaths are avoided in those countries, because less fossil fuel reduction occurs where air pollution is worst.

“We show that there is a difficult tension between international distributive climate justice and the goal of saving lives via air pollution co-benefits,” said Mark Budolfson, associate professor of philosophy and geography and the environment at The University of Texas at Austin, and co-lead author of the study. “Within the current Paris Agreement climate regime involving Nationally Determined Contributions to global emissions reductions, shifting mitigation from poor countries to rich countries has the perverse effect of reducing the number of lives saved via air quality improvements in poor countries — possibly by millions.”

The researchers also tested a scenario that resolves this tradeoff: an equity-based climate regime in which LMICs invest their mitigation cost savings into conventional air pollution controls, such as end-of-pipe technologies targeting soot, sulfur dioxide, and other pollutants, for example in the smokestacks of power plants. This "Equity + Air Quality" scenario emerged as the most favorable overall, delivering both the fairness benefits of shifting climate costs to wealthier nations and the full life-saving potential of cleaner air in the developing world. Critically, the study found that for almost all LMICs, the savings from reduced climate mitigation costs more than cover the expense of these additional air quality measures.

"There is an urgent need to design justice-centered climate mitigation regimes to ensure that developing countries do not miss an opportunity to realize transformative reductions in air pollution," said Noah Scovronick, another co-lead author of the study. "We identify one attractive way of navigating this tension."

The findings have direct relevance for future rounds of climate negotiations in which countries will update their emission-reduction pledges. The authors note that while their equity-based scenario approximates the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” enshrined in the Paris Agreement, the air quality dimension has been underrepresented in those discussions.

“Our research shows the benefits of looking at development and climate policy together,” said Navroz K. Dubash, professor at Princeton University. “Designing policy to proactively address trade-offs between limiting emissions in an equitable manner while addressing air pollution yield the best outcome.”

“Understanding the complex trade-offs involved between different climate mitigation strategies is politically important, but analytically challenging,” co-lead author Wei Peng, assistant professor at Princeton, added. “We need new modeling frameworks that can evaluate policy choices and their impacts across geographic scales and across climate, health, and cost dimensions."

The study used a chain of state-of-the-art models — including the Global Change Analysis Model (GCAM) for energy and emissions, GEOS-Chem for atmospheric chemistry, and the GIVE model for climate damages — to trace the links from policy choices through emissions, air quality, health outcomes, and economic welfare across 178 countries through the end of the century.

The study was funded by a United States National Science Foundation grant (#2420344), with Budolfson as Principal Investigator. In addition to Budolfson, other co-lead authors include Noah Scovronick, Navroz K. Dubash, Wei Peng, Jinyu Shiwang, Maddalena Ferranna, Fabian Wagner, and Frank Errickson.

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Journal

The Lancet Global Health

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Global climate benefits, air quality-related health co-benefits, and costs of different approaches to climate change mitigation in LMICs: a modelling study

Article Publication Date

16-Mar-2026

 

Major step towards a first global system to track health before pregnancy

University of Southampton

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The key health and social indicators needed for a new global system to monitor people’s health before pregnancy have been identified for the first time by researchers at University College London and the University of Southampton.

As more women are becoming pregnant with health conditions that can complicate pregnancy and childbirth, such as obesity, diabetes and mental illness, pre-pregnancy health has been thrown into the spotlight.

In a new paper published in The Lancet, the researchers present, for the first time, a long list of indicators which could be used globally to monitor the health of people of reproductive age - including both men and women* - before pregnancy.

Importantly, these identified metrics reflect not only healthcare professionals’ views but for the first time, also those of the general public.

The researchers had previously looked at relevant health indicators already monitored in England, such as smoking rates and the use of folic acid supplements before pregnancy to reduce birth defects, producing a report on the state of the nation’s preconception health which was published by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities in England in 2022.

In their new research, they asked more than 5,000 people from 13 countries, including Australia, Brazil and Ghana, what factors would matter most to them before a pregnancy.**

They found that answers to their surveys were remarkably consistent across country and gender, with mental health, physical health, supportive relationships and finances prioritised. These are therefore important factors that monitoring systems should reflect, they say.

At an international workshop in Geneva in November they will work with other researchers, clinicians, policy makers and members of the public, to finalise a list of indicators. They will then call on the World Health Organisation, the NHS and other agencies responsible for national health surveillance to incorporate the indicators, where possible, into existing infrastructures to enable monitoring of health before pregnancy globally.

Senior author Professor Judith Stephenson (UCL EGA Institute for Women's Health) said: “This is an ongoing process to prioritise a set of internationally agreed core indicators for monitoring health before pregnancy.

“Our research found over 120 relevant indicators, far too many to include in a routine surveillance system, but through a rigorous collaborative process we have whittled that number down to around 40.

“Indicators relating to conception tend to be from a health professionals’ perspective – we have, for the first time, produced a set of agreed metrics which reflect the views of the general public. Together, these indicators will give us a more holistic view of health before people try to get pregnant.

“A strong international collaboration is now needed to achieve consensus on which core indicators can be compared across low-, middle- and high-income countries.”

Lead author Dr Danielle Schoenaker, from the University of Southampton and the National Institute for Health and Care Research Southampton Biomedical Research Centre, said: “There is growing evidence that supporting people to optimise health before and between pregnancies can improve pregnancy and birth outcomes and also reduce intergenerational inequalities and chronic disease risk.

“But without the right monitoring systems, governments and health services cannot easily see whether their policies and programmes are working.

“The right set of metrics could also steer future investment in care and support before pregnancy and parenthood, with a view to reducing health inequalities and improving health for future families.”

* The indicators cover both women and men, reflecting the paper’s finding that preconception health factors affect all people of reproductive age, not just those who may become pregnant.

** The full list of countries which took part in the researchers’ survey was Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Qatar, Singapore, UK, Ghana, Kenya, Malaysia, South Africa and the USA.

Notes to Editors

For more information or to speak to the researchers involved, please contact Nick Hodgson, UCL Media Relations. T: +44 (0)7769 240209, E: nick.hodgson@ucl.ac.uk or Steve Williams, Media Manager, University of Southampton, press@soton.ac.uk or 023 8059 3212.

Danielle Schoenaker, Jennifer Hall, Sarah Verbiest, Engelbert A. Nonterah, Wendy V. Norman, Ghadir Fakhri Al-Jayyousi, Hanan F. Abdul Rahim, Nadira Sultana Kakoly, Ana Luiza Vilela Borges, Danielle Mazza, Chee Wai Ku, Jerry Kok Yen Chan, Ilse Delbaere, Shane A. Norris, Eric Steegers, Geraldine Barrett, Gabriella Conti, Judith Stephenson, for the international Core Indicators for Preconception Health and Equity (iCIPHE) Alliance, ‘Measuring progress in pregnancy planning and preconception health’  will be published in The Lancet on Monday 16 March 2026, 23:30 UK time and is under a strict embargo until this time.

The DOI will be https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(26)00192-3 and the paper will be published here as soon as the embargo lifts.

The 12 areas the indicators cover are:

• Wider determinants of health: Education, employment, ethnicity, migrant status, deprivation; plus system‑level factors such as housing, transport and working conditions.
• Health care: Preconception checks, routine health reviews, dental care; access to services, trained providers, insurance coverage.
• Emotional and social health: Social support, domestic abuse, family pressures; availability of support services.
• Reproductive health and family planning: Pregnancy intention, contraception, fertility issues, obstetric history; access to contraception, fertility services and safe abortion.
• Health behaviours and weight: Folic acid supplements, vitamin deficiency, diet, activity, sleep, smoking, alcohol, substances, BMI; food fortification policies, food insecurity, green space access.
• Environmental exposures: Exposure to hazardous substances; air pollution, water safety and sanitation.
• Preventive health screening: Cervical screening and access to screening programmes.
• Immunisation and infections: Vaccination status, STIs, malaria, HIV, hepatitis; vaccination coverage and malaria prevention tools.
• Mental health conditions: Diagnosed mental illness, stress levels, past perinatal mental illness; access to mental health services.
• Physical health conditions: Diabetes, hypertension, epilepsy, asthma, Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), endometriosis, cardiovascular disease and others; access to disease-specific check‑ups.
• Medication: Use of medicines unsafe in pregnancy (e.g., valproate, warfarin); access to safer alternatives.
• Genetic risk: Family history of inherited conditions, consanguinity; access to genetic screening.

About University College London (UCL)

UCL is a global top 10 university, set up in London 200 years ago to offer education for all. Today, we gather 60,000 staff and students, from over 150 countries, to create a unique city within a city – a research and innovation powerhouse that leads the world in subjects spanning the arts, sciences, technology and the humanities. We’ve nurtured 33 Nobel Prize winners, because here, brave ideas have the scale and the support they need to succeed. We are University College London. And here, it can happen. 

UCL turns 200 in 2026. Join us for a year of bicentennial events and celebration. 

www.ucl.ac.uk

 

The University of Southampton drives original thinking, turns knowledge into action and impact, and creates solutions to the world’s challenges. We are among the top 100 institutions globally (QS World University Rankings 2025). Our academics are leaders in their fields, forging links with high-profile international businesses and organisations, and inspiring a 24,000-strong community of exceptional students, from over 135 countries worldwide. Through our high-quality education, the University helps students on a journey of discovery to realise their potential and join our global network of over 300,000 alumni. www.southampton.ac.uk

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Journal

The Lancet

DOI

10.1016/S0140-6736(26)00192-3 

Method of Research

Survey

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Measuring progress in pregnancy planning and preconception health’

Article Publication Date

16-Mar-2026

COI Statement

WVN is supported as the Public Health Agency of Canada Chair in Family Planning Public Health Research (CIHR CPP-329455; 2014–2024) and as a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Family Planning Innovation (CRC-2023-00135; 2024–2032). WVN received payment as consultant expert witness from the Ontario Government, Office of the Attorney General, and reports roles on the Board of Directors with the Society of Family Planning (2016–2021) and International Federation of Abortion and Contraception Professionals (FIAPAC; 2024–2027). GC reports support from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement number 819752 DEVORHBIOSHIP – ERC-2018-COG) and the Leverhulme Trust under the Leverhulme Trust Prize. DS is supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) through an NIHR Advanced Fellowship (NIHR302955) and the NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre (NIHR203319). Data collection on public perspectives in Singapore was supported by the KKH Health Services Model of Care Transformation Fund (MoCTF) grant (MoCTF/01/2020, MoCTF/02/2020, and MoCTF/03/2020) and the Lien Foundation Optimising Maternal and Child Health Programme Fund. CWK and JKYC are supported by the National Medical Research Council, Ministry of Health, Singapore (NMRC/MOH-000596-00 [CWK] and NMRC/CSA-SI-008-2016, MOH-001266-01, MOH-001221-01, and MOH-000932-01 [JKYC]). Data collection on public perspectives in the UK was supported by a UCL Global Engagement Funds award to JS, DS, and JH. All other authors declare no competing interests. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the funders. The funders had no role or involvement in the content of this paper, including recruitment, data collection, analysis and interpretation. The authors were not precluded from accessing data presented in this paper, and they accept responsibility to submit for publication.