Deep dust project works to unravel Earth's climate past in Oklahoma's Anadarko Basin

Grant and Award Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA

 

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PHOTO OF THE ANADARKO BASIN FIELD SITE.

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CREDIT: PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA.

A team of researchers at the University of Oklahoma will explore the Permian sediment of Oklahoma’s Anadarko Basin, which contains dust deposits from Earth’s deep-time past. The Anadarko Basin includes the most complete continental record of low-latitude Pangea, enabling researchers to better understand the collapse of one of Earth’s greatest glaciations, a period of colder temperatures leading up to the largest extinction in Earth’s history.

The principal investigator of the research venture, known as the Deep Dust project, is Lynn Soreghan, Ph.D., professor in the School of Geosciences, Mewbourne College of Earth and Energy. The Deep Dust project was recently awarded a $2.3 million grant from the National Science Foundation and includes researchers from OU’s School of Geosciences, the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, and the Oklahoma Geological Survey, including several early-career scientists. Several other universities are collaborators on the NSF project. Researchers include principal investigator Lynn Soreghan, Xiaolei Liu, Gilby Jepson, Sarah George, Rick Lupia, Jaqueline Lungmus and Molly Yunker.

Oklahoma’s Anadarko Basin continued to collect sediment through the entire Paleozoic era, and the sediment that accumulated in the basin in Permian time contains a record of land environments, giving researchers a link to Earth’s continental past.

“I’m very excited because we are poised to access a globally unique record of continental conditions during an interval of remarkable upheaval in Earth’s climatic and biospheric systems,” Soreghan said. “Much of this sediment was dominated by dust that fell out of the atmosphere, which forms a very high-resolution archive of continental conditions.”

Photo of the Anadarko Basin field site.

Photo of the Anadarko Basin field site.

CREDIT

Image provided by the University of Oklahoma.

The outcome of the project, obtaining a complete sediment core, will provide a record of Earth’s history unlike any other obtained thus far, allowing scientists to solve puzzles about Earth’s systems, including how tectonic and climatic shifts influence biological systems.

“The Earth experiences tectonic, climatic and biological system shifts all the time, but because these events happen slowly over time, it can be hard to understand how they influence one another during our relatively short lifespans,” Molly Yunker, program administrator for the Oklahoma Geological Survey, said. “Hopefully, by peering back through time and looking at sediment cores from roughly 300-250 million years ago, we can better understand how the Earth may change in the future.”

The project began with workshops attended by scientists from 14 countries, one in Oklahoma in 2019 and a second in France in 2020. During the workshops, international researchers from various disciplines shared ideas and created a plan and goals for the project. Together, the group secured a grant for $1.5 million from the International Continental Drilling Program.

“The aim is to interrogate this interval of enormous environmental change and the resultant effects on Earth’s biosphere,” Soreghan said. “These sorts of efforts often take up to a decade to bring to fruition. I first began working on assembling the seismic data to start this process in 2016.”

The project will also include community outreach to share scientific ideas with the public, educators, museums and students.

“There are numerous outreach plans, and I’m excited to collaborate with many different types of scientists and researchers, both here and abroad, to carry out these plans,” Yunker said. “It’s a phenomenal opportunity to learn with and from others and to engage in a wide range of outreach activities.”

 

Scientists outline a bold solution to climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice

Peer-Reviewed Publication

OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY

CORVALLIS, Ore. – An international team of scientists led by Oregon State University researchers has used a novel 500-year dataset to frame a “restorative” pathway through which humanity can avoid the worst ecological and social outcomes of climate change.

In addition to charting a possible new course for society, the researchers say their “paradigm shifting” plan can support climate modeling and discussion by providing a set of actions that strongly emphasize social and economic justice as well as environmental sustainability.

Oregon State’s William Ripple, former OSU postdoctoral researcher Christopher Wolf and collaborators argue their scenario should be included in climate models along with the five “shared socioeconomic pathways,” or SSPs, that are used by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“We understand that our proposed scenario may be a major challenge to implement given current trends in emissions, a lack of political will and widespread social denial, but its merits can’t even be honestly debated if it’s not included in the suite of options,” said Ripple, distinguished professor of ecology in the OSU College of Forestry. “We’re arguing for radical incrementalism: achieving massive change through small, short-term steps. And we’re offering a much-needed contrast to many other climate scenarios, which may be more aligned with the status quo, which isn’t working.”

Ripple and co-authors from the United States, the Netherlands and Australia present their restorative pathway in a paper published today in Environmental Research Letters. They say the pathway is inspired by a unique compilation of Earth system variables that vividly illustrate how humanity’s resource demands have exploded since 1850, indicating ecological overshoot.

“The supporting data underscore the urgent need for action,” said Wolf, now a scientist with Corvallis-based Terrestrial Ecosystems Research Associates. “The growth in human population, gross domestic product and energy consumption, primarily reliant on fossil fuels, has led to an extraordinary surge in greenhouse gas emissions, dramatically altering land use and triggering a massive biodiversity decline.”

The authors note that current climate change modeling relies on multiple assumptions and factors related to policy options and societal developments. An international team of climate scientists, economists and energy systems modelers developed the SSPs, which  are used to derive greenhouse gas emissions scenarios under different sets of policies that assume continued and significant GDP growth through 2100.

“The SSPs describe plausible developments that in the future would lead to different challenges for climate change mitigation and adaptation,” Wolf said. “They’re based on five narratives that describe alternative socioeconomic developments, some more sustainable than others. Our scenario focuses on reducing the consumption of primary resources to a level that keeps environmental pressures within planetary boundaries, with per capita GDP stabilizing over time.”

Wolf, Ripple and collaborators took a long-term look back at a range of variables: fossil fuel emissions, human population, GDP, land use, greenhouse gas concentrations, global temperature, vertebrate wildlife species abundance, income inequality and meat production.

Collectively, the data paint a comprehensive picture of the profound changes Earth has undergone, say the authors, who include Jillian Gregg of Terrestrial Ecosystems Research Associates, Detlef P. van Vuuren with the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and Manfred Lenzen of the University of Sydney.

“The income share variable extends back to 1820 and shows how the top 10% have consistently received at least 50% of all income, illustrating global economic inequality over the long term,” Ripple said. “The restorative pathway would represent a more equitable and resilient world with a focus on nature preservation as a natural climate solution; societal well-being and quality of life; equality and high levels of education for girls and women, resulting in low fertility rates and higher standards of living; and a rapid transition toward renewable energy.”

Unlike some of the current shared socioeconomic pathways, the restorative pathway does not rely on the development of carbon capture technologies, nor does it assume continued economic growth as the SSPs do.

“By prioritizing large-scale societal change, our proposed pathway could limit warming much more effectively than pathways that support rising resource consumption by wealthy nations,” Ripple said. “We aim to bend the curves on a wide range of planetary vital signs with a holistic vision for addressing climate change, biodiversity loss and socioeconomic injustice. Our work presents a case for how humanity can embark on the journey of saving the world from these environmental and social crises.”

In October 2023, Ripple, Wolf and 10 other U.S. and global scientists published research in BioScience that showed the Earth’s vital signs have worsened beyond anything humans have yet seen, to the point that life on the planet is imperiled.

Ripple is also the co-author of another BioScience paper, published today, that examines climate change and the related biodiversity crisis from a cosmic perspective using “long-term planetary thinking,” he said.

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JOURNAL

Environmental Research Letters

DOI

10.1088/1748-9326/ad059e 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Literature review

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

An environmental and socially just climate mitigation pathway for a planet in peril

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

9-Jan-2024

 

Novel chemical recycling system for vinyl polymers of cyclic styrene derivatives

Researchers propose a new strategy for obtaining monomer precursors via depolymerization of cyclic α-substituted styrene-based vinyl polymers

Peer-Reviewed Publication

SHINSHU UNIVERSITY

 

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RESEARCHERS FROM SHINSHU UNIVERSITY DEVELOPED A TWO-STEP RECYCLING PROCESS FOR DEPOLYMERIZING THE CYCLIC STYRENE-BASED VINYL POLYMERS AND RECOVERING THE MONOMERS VIA SINGLE-STEP CHEMICAL MODIFICATION OF MONOMER PRECURSOR.

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CREDIT: YASUHIRO KOHSAKA FROM SHINSHU UNIVERSITY

Chemical recycling of widely used vinyl polymers (VPs) is one of the key technologies required for realizing a sustainable society. In this regard, a team of researchers from Shinshu University have recently reported a new chemical process that facilitates the depolymerization of cyclic styrene-based VPs, resulting in the recovery of a monomer precursor. This highly efficient chemical recycling system can help with effective resource circulation and the development of new plastic recycling technologies.

Vinyl polymers (VPs) are one of the most widely used plastic materials. They are found everywhere, from poly(vinyl chloride) pipes and surgical gloves to disposable polystyrene plates. Given the global call for a move towards sustainability, would it not be great to chemically recycle this widely used polymer for realizing a sustainable society?

Recently, a team of researchers led by Associate Professor Yasuhiro Kohsaka from the Faculty of Textile Science and Technology (FTST) and Research Initiative for Supra-Materials (RISM), both at Shinshu University, undertook a study to find a way out for achieving this. In their recent breakthrough published online in ACS Macro Letters on 27 November 2023 and co-authored by Yota Chiba from the FTST at Shinshu University, the team presented a new strategy for effectively depolymerizing the VPs of cyclic styrene derivatives to retrieve a monomer precursor.

Traditionally, chemical recycling of VPs has always been challenging. The conventional approach to recycling any polymer is reversing the polymerization process, which entails breaking a single large molecule made up of repeating monomeric units down to its parent monomeric components. Depolymerizing VPs is difficult because the covalent carbon–carbon bonds holding together the monomer units are very stable and therefore tough to break. Studies have proposed ways to break the carbon–carbon backbone of VPs, but most of them fail to ensure quantitative and selective scission (bond breaking) of its main chain, which is crucial to the effective recovery of monomers.

“Polymers that are stable have poor recyclability, and the ones that are easily recyclable are unstable in nature,” says Dr. Kohsaka. “We overcame this trade-off by forgoing conventional strategies that try to reverse the polymerization reaction to recover monomers and developing a two-step recycling process. In the first step, degradation of the polymer to a monomeric precursor was achieved, which was followed by the recovery of the monomer by chemical modification.” 

The team chose VPs made of cyclic α-substituted styrene derivatives, such as 3-methylene phthalide, as their molecule for testing chemical recyclability and investigating the ring-opening reaction of the pendant groups in the presence of a base like sodium hydroxide. They found that the opening of the rings due to saponification increased the steric hindrance around the pendant groups, which led to main-chain scission and depolymerization of the VP into monomer precursors. These recovered precursors were then converted to monomers via single-step chlorination and spontaneous intramolecular esterification. The researchers further discovered that the same cyclic monomer structure that facilitated depolymerization was also responsible for promoting polymerization owing to reduced steric hindrance around the vinylidene group. These findings led the researchers to conclude that cyclic α-substituted styrene derivatives have the potential for chemical recycling.

At a broader level, this study has opened new avenues for resource circulation, one of the foundational pillars of a sustainable society, by providing a facile method of polymerization and depolymerization of ubiquitous VPs. The researchers believe that their findings can provide useful fodder for further research on not just the depolymerization of plastic materials but also the development of new recyclable plastics.

“The aim of our research was to aid the mission of developing efficient plastic recycling technology, which is a tool that humanity desperately needs against the backdrop of environmental pollution caused by plastics. While we cannot remove all the plastic that already exists on this planet, we can at least make the best use of plastic resources available to us with our new chemical recycling strategy,” concludes Dr. Kohsaka.

 

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About Shinshu University

Shinshu University is a national university founded in 1949 and located nestling under the Japanese Alps in Nagano known for its stunning natural landscapes. Our motto, "Powered by Nature - strengthening our network with society and applying nature to create innovative solutions for a better tomorrow" reflects the mission of fostering promising creative professionals and deepening the collaborative relationship with local communities, which leads to our contribution to regional development by innovation in various fields. We’re working on providing solutions for building a sustainable society through interdisciplinary research fields: material science (carbon, fiber and composites), biomedical science (for intractable diseases and preventive medicine) and mountain science, and aiming to boost research and innovation capability through collaborative projects with distinguished researchers from the world. For more information visit https://www.shinshu-u.ac.jp/english/ or follow us on X (Twitter) @ShinshuUni for our latest news.

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JOURNAL

ACS Macro Letters

DOI

10.1021/acsmacrolett.3c00573 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Chemically Recyclable Vinyl Polymers by Free Radical Polymerization of Cyclic Styrene Derivatives

 

Prestigious American Historical Review showcases UT class where video games meet history

NEWS RELEASE 9-JAN-2024

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE AT KNOXVILLE

 

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TORE OLSSON

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CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE

Tore Olsson put his students in touch with American history through his popular and award-winning class “Red Dead America: Exploring America’s Violent Past Through the Hit Video Games.” Now this engagement has reached beyond the classroom—the historical profession’s most prestigious journal, the American Historical Review, just published a major feature on the class as an example of creative and innovative history teaching.

Olsson is an associate professor and director of graduate studies in UT’s Department of History. His focus as a historian is the United States since the Civil War, with a particular interest in the US South, rural history, and transnational history. His December 2023 AHR article, “Teaching History with Video Games,” explores his inspiration to channel this focus into a college course. While playing the video game Red Dead Redemption II during the pandemic, he realized that he could apply interest in the wildly popular game toward teaching the real US history.

“My epiphany, therefore, was simple,” wrote Olsson. “Why not try teaching an undergraduate class that uses the fictional content of the game as a gateway to exploring some of the thorniest dilemmas that wracked the United States between the 1870s and 1920s?”

A February 2021 social media post announcing the new course went viral. By August of the same year, the class launched with 60 students—double the usual size for such a class. His innovative success with the class earned him a James R. and Nell W. Cunningham Outstanding Teaching Award at the College of Arts and Sciences Annual Awards Banquet in February 2023.

Olsson’s American Historical Review article details how his class examines the American history presented in the game with assigned readings and written assignments exploring the varied historical contexts, chronology, and repercussions of historical events.

“It was a tremendous honor and thrill to be invited by the AHR’s editor to write about my class in the pages of the journal,” said Olsson. “This is a big affirmation from the academy that what’s going on at UT is the most ground-breaking teaching and research work in the profession.”

Olsson enjoyed the class so much that he wrote a book based on it aimed at a wider audience of video gamers and history buffs. Red Dead’s History: A Video Game, An Obsession, and America’s Violent Past, to be published by St. Martin’s Press in August 2024. It examines how well the game’s scenarios fare as recreations of history, exploring the real violence and political turbulence between 1870 and 1920, and what can be learned to understand contemporary American culture.

Olsson teaches the course (HIUS 310) again in spring 2024—with a few seats still available for curious undergraduate Vols.

Read Olsson’s article in American Historical Review.

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JOURNAL

The American Historical Review

DOI

10.1093/ahr/rhad488 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

News article

ARTICLE TITLE

Teaching History with Video Games

 

Volume of grey brain matter significantly lower in people with Early Onset Psychosis

Peer-Reviewed Publication

KING'S COLLEGE LONDON

New research from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience has found an association between a reduction in grey matter in the brain and Early Onset Psychosis (EOP).

The study, published in Molecular Psychiatry, is the largest ever brain imaging study in EOP and has provided unprecedented levels of detail about the illness. It shows that, in contrast to other mental health disorders, people with EOP have a reduced volume of grey matter across nearly all regions of their brain. Researchers hope that this detailed mapping could be used to assist in future diagnosis, as well as to track the effects of treatment in patients with EOP.

EOP occurs before the age of 18 during a critical period of development in the brain. Individuals diagnosed with the illness are likely to experience severe and long-lasting symptoms that respond less well to treatment. Despite this, research into EOP has been limited in sample size and statistical power.

The study represents an international effort, combining brain scans from Norway, Spain, Canada, Italy, Australia & UK, 482 individuals with EOP being compared to 469 healthy controls. An analysis of the data revealed that individuals with EOP had lower volumes of grey matter in almost all regions of the brain compared to the healthy controls, with a marked effect in the left median cingulate – an area of the brain associated with the formation and processing of emotions, learning and memory.

Dr Matthew Kempton, Reader in Neuroimaging Psychiatry at King’s IoPPN and the study’s senior author said, “Early Onset Psychosis can have a devastating impact on a person’s life and wellbeing, but our understanding of the illness is still sadly relatively limited. This study, the largest neuroimaging analysis of EOP to date, used newly developed technologies to combine scans from different sites to examine hundreds of thousands of data points measuring volume in the brain. We found that people with EOP experience a lower volume of grey matter in nearly all regions of their brains compared to people without the illness. This detailed map will hopefully provide the basis for future research, as it could help as a diagnostic tool, and even track the effectiveness of treatments.”

Further analysis of the data revealed that those individuals who developed EOP at a later age had lower volumes of grey matter in a number of small brain regions compared to those with an earlier age of onset.

Shuqing Si, the study’s first author from King’s IoPPN said, “Grey matter’s primary purpose is to process information in the brain and plays a significant role in day to day functions like memory, emotions and movement. This study used specially created software (ENIGMA-VBM) developed at King’s that can accurately map where there have been local increases and decreases in brain volume. It’s allowed our team to process significantly more data and has meant that our sample reflects brain scans from many parts of the world. The effectiveness of this software means we’re now investigating the brains of those with several other disorders.”

This study represents independent research, partly funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College London.

Ends

For more information, please contact Patrick O’Brien (Media Manager)

Mapping gray and white matter volume abnormalities in early-onset psychosis - an ENIGMA multicenter voxel-based morphometry study (DOI 10.1038/s41380-023-02343-1 ) (Shuqing Si, Anbreen Bi, Zhaoying Yu, Cheryl See, Sinead Kelly, Sonia Ambrogi, Celso Arango, Inmaculada Baeza, Nerisa Banaj, Michael Berk, Josefina Castro-Fornieles, Benedicto Crespo-Facorro, Jacob J. Crouse, Covadonga M. Díaz-Caneja, Anne-Kathrin Fett, Adriana Fortea, Sophia Frangou, Benjamin I. Goldstein, Ian B. Hickie, Joost Janssen, Kody G. Kennedy, Lydia Krabbendam, Marinos Kyriakopoulos, Bradley J. MacIntosh, Pedro Morgado, Stener Nerland, Saül Pascual-Diaz, Maria Picó-Pérez, Fabrizio Piras, Bjørn Rishovd Rund, Elena de la Serna, Gianfranco Spalletta, Gisela Sugranyes, Chao Suo, Diana Tordesillas-Gutiérrez, Daniela Vecchio, Joaquim Radua, Philip McGuire, Sophia I. Thomopoulos, Neda Jahanshad, Paul M. Thompson, Claudia Barth, Ingrid Agartz, Anthony James, Matthew J Kempton) was published in Molecular Psychiatry.

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JOURNAL

Molecular Psychiatry

DOI

10.1038/s41380-023-02343-1 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Mapping gray and white matter volume abnormalities in early-onset psychosis - an ENIGMA multicenter voxel-based morphometry study

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Jan-2024

COI STATEMENT

PT and NJ were funded in part by Biogen, Inc., for research unrelated to this manuscript. GS has received speaker fees from Angelini Pharma for a topic unrelated to this manuscript. AF has received educational support from Otsuka-Lundbeck, Janssen Cilag and Rovi, unrelated to this manuscript. CA has been a consultant to or has received honoraria or grants from Acadia, Angelini, Biogen, Boehringer, Gedeon Richter, Janssen Cilag, Lundbeck, Medscape, Menarini, Minerva, Otsuka, Pfizer, Roche, Sage, Servier, Shire, Schering Plough, Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma, Sunovion and Takeda. CDC has received honoraria from Exeltis and Angelini unrelated to this manuscript. IB has received honoraria and travel support from Angelini, Otsuka-Lundbeck and Janssen. IA has received speaker's honorarium from Lundbeck. PM has received in the past 3 years grants, CME-related honoraria, or consulting fees from Angelini, AstraZeneca, Bial, Biogen, DGS-Portugal, FCT, FLAD, Janssen-Cilag, Gulbenkian Foundation, Lundbeck, Springer Healthcare, Tecnimede, Viatris and 2CA-Braga. IBH is the Co-Director, Health and Policy at the Brain and Mind Centre (BMC) University of Sydney, Australia. The BMC operates an early-intervention youth service at Camperdown under contract to headspace. IBH has previously led community-based and pharmaceutical industry-supported (Wyeth, Eli Lily, Servier, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Janssen Cilag) projects focused on the identification and better management of anxiety and depression. He is the Chief Scientific Advisor to, and a 3.2% equity shareholder in, InnoWell Pty Ltd, which aims to transform mental health services through the use of innovative technologies.

 

UK

No laughing matter: Leadership critical to help address NHS retention crisis

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF BATH

Frontline healthcare workers in busy hospitals feel that they are “just rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic” according to new research into the impact of under-resourced and high-pressure emergency hospital departments in the UK.

A study from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine and University of Bath, led by clinical psychologist Dr Jo Daniels in collaboration with colleagues at UWE Bristol and the University of Bristol, argues that hospitals need better leadership to help change cultures and support people’s basic needs.

In addition to reflections from current frontline doctors, nurses and advanced clinical practitioners, the research also features exclusive interviews with household names in the UK: former doctors turned comedians. Adam Kay, Harry Hill and Phil Hammond all offer reflections on why they left, and how they hope the NHS can be better managed in the future to avoid others from doing likewise.

In February 2023 a University of Bath IPR report concluded that as many as one in seven healthcare workers were actively trying to leave the NHS. According to the Royal College of Nursing, almost 27,000 people left the register in the past year, with more than half leaving earlier than planned citing burnout, workload, and concerns over care quality.

The new study, funded by UKRI and published today in the Emergency Medicine Journal, investigated perceived barriers to implementing better working practices and conditions for emergency medicine clinicians in the UK.

Building on previous work from the team looking at the toll of Covid for healthcare workers, its analysis highlights multiple issues associated with poor retention. These include a culture of blame and negativity in hospitals, untenable working environments, compromised leadership, as well as a perceived general lack of support leading to burnout and low morale.

Across the board, participants reported feeling undervalued due to their basic demands being unmet. These ranged from ‘sharing toilets with patients’, to poorly functioning IT systems, or the absence of rest spaces and staff rooms. A lack of private space within hospitals meant many also found it hard to decompress.

In an accompanying video to the research, comedian and former doctor Adam Kay describes a toxic culture where it was a ‘a badge of honour to work as hard as possible’, where staff felt blamed, disempowered to seek support as they should be ‘unbreakable’, and where expectations set were unrealistic.

A lack of formal training for consultants in charge of busy wards was also highlighted by a number of participants, as was the need for more ‘visible, compassionate leadership.’ Reflections from people interviewed suggested leadership training should be embedded as part of medical training.

‘We need to say to doctors, one really interesting career pathway for you is to get involved in NHS management and clinical leadership. And not in a way that says ‘we have gone over to the dark side.’ -  Phil Hammond.

When considering how staff continue to work in such difficult conditions for so many years, Harry Hill emphasised the ‘force for good’ that has traditionally motivated NHS staff. Yet he suggested, after repeated reorganisations and a lack of support, this was wearing thin:

‘When I was a doctor, doctors…were held in some esteem by society. That's gone to a large extent’ – Harry Hill

Lead author Dr Jo Daniels of the University of Bath explained: “At a time of national crisis in the NHS, with over-stretched resources leading to long waiting times for patients and burnout for staff, our study asked what more could be done to improve the current challenges of staff retention.

“A common thread that emerged across our interviews was the critical importance of leadership in hospitals. Those in leadership positions are powerful agents of change, and have pivotal influence over team functioning, staff wellbeing and patient outcomes. However, lines of accountability and communication with executive management needs to be clarified, opened up and improved. 

“A new focus on leadership training and ongoing support for those in leadership roles will be critical to this. Given its central importance and the scope for leadership improving wellbeing at work, we have a prime opportunity now to address the problems which force staff to leave the workforce. Harnessing the potential in our leaders is where our focus should now lie.”

Dr Adrian Boyle, President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine said: “Working in Emergency Medicine can, by its very nature, be a high pressure and stressful job. Our members, and their colleagues, who go above and beyond for their patients day in day out, should not also have to battle a system which is meant to be there to nurture and support them. We thank Dr Daniels, her team, and all the clinicians who gave their time to take part in this important piece of research.

“What it reinforces is that the NHS must get better at caring for its workforce - its people are its greatest asset, and everything must be done to ensure their welfare. This research will now be shared with policymakers and will form part of the College’s advocacy work to help inform and bring about the cultural shift that is so needed in our A&Es.”

Moving ahead, the team involved in the study will also work with the professional bodies to help improve training and policies.

Dr Daniels added: “We have outlined specific steps that can be taken by NHS trusts, but we need to start with recognition of how important this role is, and how vital it is that those in leadership positions are supported to lead. Without strong leadership, we can expect poor outcomes for all.”

The recommendations within the paper and the associated Royal College of Emergency Medicine ‘PiPP Key Recommendations’ publication form the basis of a new parliamentary briefing Acute Insight Series: the impact of staff burnout and how to improve retention which call the government to action.’ 

To access the research Perceived barriers and opportunities to improve working conditions and staff retention in emergency departments: a qualitative study published in the Emergency Medicine Journal see https://dx.doi.org/10.1136/emermed-2023-213189

To learn more about the research with RCEM and key recommendation see https://rcem.ac.uk/psychologically-informed-practice-and-policy-pipp/ .   

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JOURNAL

Emergency Medicine Journal

DOI

10.1136/emermed-2023-213189 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

ARTICLE TITLE

Perceived barriers and opportunities to improve working conditions and staff retention in emergency departments: a qualitative study

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Jan-2024

 

Duke-NUS scientists discover potential nasal COVID-19 vaccine candidate that offers better and longer protection

Peer-Reviewed Publication

DUKE-NUS MEDICAL SCHOOL

• Novel findings from a preclinical head-to-head comparison show that administering a COVID-19 vaccine as a nasal spray rather than a subcutaneous injection enhances the body’s long-term immune memory, thereby increasing the vaccine’s overall effectiveness.

• This research could pave the way for a COVID-19 vaccination strategy that depends on fewer boosters to achieve the same level of protection against SARS-CoV-2 viruses.

SINGAPORE, 10 January 2024 – A team of scientists, led by Duke-NUS Medical School, has discovered a potential intranasal vaccine candidate that provides improved, longer-lasting immunity against SARS-CoV-2 viruses compared to when given as an injection. By triggering an immune response directly at the point of entry, the intranasal vaccine candidate enhanced long-term immune memory of the virus, which could translate to a reduced need for booster shots.

There is growing evidence that intranasal vaccines provide greater protection at mucosal surfaces, making this a vaccination route that could reduce break-through infections and subsequent transmission of the virus.

To delve into this, the research team, which includes collaborators from Duke-NUS’ parent universities—Duke University and the National University of Singapore—among others, compared the immune responses from nasal and subcutaneous administration of the vaccine, as well as immunity from the vaccine with and without the use of adjuvants—substances added to vaccines to enhance the body's immune response.

Published in eBioMedicine, the findings showed nasal administration of the vaccine candidate boosted mucosal antibody response, as expected. Additionally, and more importantly, it enhanced longer-lasting mucosal and systemic immune protection through preferential induction of airway-resident T cells and central memory T cells.

“Our data show that, compared to subcutaneous vaccination, the intranasal route improved the response of certain immune cells, known as T cells, which reduced disease severity,” explained Associate Professor Ashley St John, from Duke-NUS’ Emerging Infectious Diseases Programme, who is the lead author of the study. “Not only that, but it also resulted in a greater number of T central memory cells compared to subcutaneous vaccination, which could lead to longer-lasting protection.”

T central memory cells play a vital role in safeguarding the body upon re-exposure to a virus. They enhance the immune system’s memory, inducing long-lasting protective immune responses. This ability to retain this long-term memory of the virus suggests less need for a pathogen challenge to achieve the same level of protection against the virus, potentially translating into fewer boosters.

The research team also found that the use of adjuvants in the vaccine to promote immune response influenced the characteristics of T cells, as well as their activation and production of cytokines—tiny proteins that regulate cell communication and control inflammation—with different adjuvants leading to different T-cell responses.

Another notable finding from the study was that a type of antibody, called IgG, that circulates widely in the bloodstream is more effective at neutralising variants of the virus, including newly emergent ones, when induced through the nasal vaccine route. These discoveries provide important scientific evidence that improved immunity responses from both T cells and IgG antibodies contribute to greater and long-lasting protection of intranasal vaccines from COVID-19.

“While the acute phase of the pandemic may be behind us, the rise of new variants, including JN.1, which has triggered an increase in hospital admissions locally, demonstrates that we have room in our arsenal of vaccines and treatments for even better tools. This study shows that mucosal vaccination holds promise for improving COVID-19 vaccine efficacy with potentially fewer boosters needed,” said Professor Patrick Tan, Senior Vice-Dean for Research at Duke-NUS.

A patent has been filed on the discovery, which covers the invention of the vaccine composition formulated for mucosal delivery, paving the way for an industry partnership to potentially develop mucosal vaccines against COVID-19 and other pathogens that also target mucosal surfaces.

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JOURNAL

EBioMedicine

DOI

10.1016/j.ebiom.2023.104924 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Mucosal SARS-CoV-2 vaccination of rodents elicits superior systemic T central memory function and cross-neutralising antibodies against variants of concern

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

18-Dec-2023

COI STATEMENT

ALS is an inventor on a patent relating to mucosal vaccination against COVID-19. LFW and TCW are co-inventors on a patent for the sVNT assay and receive royalties from the cPass kit.