COVID-19 infectivity, Silicon Valley visit and more: News from the College

Here’s a batch of fresh news and announcements from across Imperial.

From COVID-19 breakthroughs, to understanding threats to trees, here is some quick-read news from across the College. 

Glycans and COVID-19 variant infectivity  

Researchers in the Department of Chemistry and the Francis Crick Institute have uncovered, with precise detail, how changes in the sugar coat of the spike protein are linked to COVID-19 variants of concern.   

A certain area of the spike protein, known as the furin cleavage site, is critical to the SARS-CoV-2 virus infecting a host. Previous reports suggest that glycosylation (the chemical addition of sugar molecules) of the protein close to that site can impact infectivity, but the details of this were not known.   

In a new publication in ACS Central Science, the team used a host of chemical tools to determine precisely which part of the protein is glycosylated and the impact of this on infectivity. Specifically, they found that glycans extended with a sugar called sialic acid impair processing of the furin cleavage site and can hamper infection. The team then uncovered that variants of concern such as Alpha, Delta and Omicron appear to have evolved to specifically avoid glycosylation, a finding that could prove groundbreaking as scientists around the world have raced to understand more about the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.  

“This is a great example of how glycans play an intricate part in every process in biomedicine. Fortunately, the tools we have to understand glycans are getting better every day, and there are many more such discoveries to come,” says the corresponding author, Dr Benjamin Schumann, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Chemistry and Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute.  

Read the full paper in American Chemical Society. 

Imperial start-ups visit Silicon Valley 

Imperial Enterprise Lab recently took four Imperial startup founders to San Francisco to explore the entrepreneurial and investment ecosystem in Silicon Valley. The trip was funded by Imperial alumnus Michael Hughes MBE. 

The startups in attendance were Multus, OmniPet, Peachies and Dama Health. Multus is a biotechnology startup creating key ingredients for the affordable scaleup of cellular agriculture. Since the trip they have raised £8 million in investment. Meanwhile, OmniPet have launched a campaign on Seedrs that reached its target in less than three days. 

While there, the team attended the GBx Gala dinner – an event that brought together British founders and investors to showcase the best in British technology. Imperial’s Professor Terry Rudolph and alumnus Michael Birch spoke with the cohort about their entrepreneurial journeys. Professor Rudolph co-founded PsiQuantum which recently attained unicorn status with a $3.15 billion valuation, while Birch has founded numerous startups including Bebo. The team also visited the British government’s Department for International Trade in San Francisco, hosted by the regional director Jaclyn Mason. 

Treatment for MIS-C 

A team of researchers looking at health outcomes in over 2,000 children with multi-system inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C) have found no difference in recovery between treatment with steroids, immunoglobulin, or a combination of both treatments. This means that steroids, which are cheaper and more readily available than immunoglobin, could be used as an alternative for treating MIS-C, especially in low resource settings. 

MIS-C, which was first recognised during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, usually presents in children around four to eight weeks after COVID-19 infection. The syndrome can be life-threatening, with symptoms such as a high fever, rash, red eyes, abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhoea, confusion or lethargy. 

The ‘Best Available Treatment Study’ for MIS-C invited paediatricians from around the world to collect data on patients with suspected MIS-C under their care, in order to establish which treatments worked well and which did not. 

Professor Michael Levin, a lead author for the study from Imperial’s Department of Infectious Disease said: “Our finding that steroids, which are cheap and available worldwide, are as effective as immunoglobulin or combination treatment will be of particular benefit in low- and middle-income countries where intravenous immunoglobin is either unavailable or too expensive to be easily used.” 

Read the full paper in Lancet Rheumatology. 

Imperial part of new bioengineering consortium 

Professor Molly Stevens from the Faculty of Engineering is a principal investigator in a new consortium which has won €4.95M (£4.32M) in funding from the European Innovation Council to support a cutting-edge bioengineering project. 

The project, known as Supervised Morphogenesis in Gastruloids (SUMO), aims to challenge the current limitations of in vitro organ models by building on state-of-the-art gastruloid technology. It is hoped this will successfully replicate human physiology and thus reduce the use of animals to a strictly necessary minimum – the current gold standard for realistic organ models. 

To fully harness the potential of gastruloid technology, the SUMO consortium will tackle current bottlenecks regarding gastruloid reproducibility, tissue organization and physiology using cutting edge technology including Raman imaging, artificial intelligence and bioengineering.   

Specifically, the consortium aims to achieve reproducible and scalable formation of gastruloids with embryo-like morphology that enter advanced organogenesis stages, focusing on cardiac and gut development. 

Tree threats 

Trees contribute greatly to urban environments and human well-being, but rising cases of insect pests and pathogens may be affecting these benefits. To find out the extent of these impacts, researchers including Dr Susanne Raum and Dr Tilly Collins in the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial and the Technical University in Munich reviewed 100 studies from 28 countries, spanning 1979-2021. 

The studies were sorted into those that reported on environmental damage, including tree damage, mortality, reduced growth, and changes in tree function; on social impacts, including aesthetics, human health, and safety hazards; and on economic impacts, including costs of pest management and economic losses. 

Despite a considerable increase in studies since 2011, evidence gaps remain, such as impacts on the climate-regulation capacity of trees, including temperature regulation, water retention, soil erosion, and wind protection. There also need to be more studies on specific hazards, nuisances, human well-being, property damages, and hazard liabilities. 

Dr Raum said: “Our study could guide policy, management and further research. It will enable us to better forecast how growing threats will affect the urban forest and plan for these eventualities.” 

Read the full paper in Urban Ecosystems. 

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