Bacteria evolution and rent-free scholarships: News from Imperial

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

From a partnership to provide accommodation scholarships for care experienced and estranged students, to research on how arthropods could adapt to climate change, here is some quick-read news from across Imperial.

Rent-free scholarships

Imperial has partnered with the Unite Foundation to support three accommodation scholarships for care experienced and estranged undergraduate students starting in the 2024/25 academic year.

Research by Civitas shows just 14 per cent of care leavers go to university compared to 47 per cent of young people who did not grow up in care, while care leavers are also a third more likely to drop out of their studies.

Working with the Unite Foundation, Imperial will join a network of university partners which includes King’s College London, University College London, University of Bristol, and University of Sheffield.

Professor Maggie Dallman, Imperial's Vice-President (International) and Associate-Provost (Academic Partnerships), said: "We are truly delighted to be partnering with the Unite Foundation to offer Imperial’s first accommodation scholarships for care experienced and estranged students.

"Imperial has long been committed to widening participation, aiming to create an environment where individuals from all backgrounds have equitable opportunities to excel in their academic pursuits.

"This support, alongside Imperial’s own commitment for care experienced and estranged students both financially and pastorally, will help to remove some of the barriers that these students face to access and progress through higher education. We look forward to welcoming these students to Imperial and supporting them to reach their potential."

Bacteria evolution

Is evolution predictable? An international team including researchers from Imperial have shed light on this important question by analysing experimental populations of bacteria.

The team used newly developed genetic engineering technology to introduce hundreds of thousands of mutations into bacteria and study the individual effect of each one. These techniques were applied to the ancestor and different evolutionary stages of the famous Long-Term Evolution Experiment, which has been evolving 12 populations of the same bacteria under constant laboratory conditions for over 35 years. In total, these populations – all founded from the same ancestor – have experienced >70,000 generations, approximately 5x more than Homo sapiens have experienced on Earth.

The results revealed that the evolution of bacteria can be predictable in the short term, opening doors to efforts to anticipate the evolution of pathogens and pests, which could also help develop potential pest control technologies.

Dr Alejandro Couce, who led much of the work as a Research Fellow in the Department of Life Sciences, said: "This study shows that large-scale genome engineering techniques can tell us a great deal of the potential that microbes have to adapt to particular challenges. If generally true, these techniques could aid in devising strategies to predict and counteract the evolution of harmful pathogens – like those developing antibiotic resistance, jumping from a different host, or becoming more effective at causing chronic infections.

"Additionally, if we can foresee the main mutations driving adaptation, we could use this knowledge to swiftly create microbes tailored to specific needs, such as strains better at producing or breaking down certain compounds in practical situations."

Read the full paper in Science.

National role for critical care expert

Imperial critical care expert Professor Anthony Gordon has been appointed as the new Programme Director of the National Research Collaboration Programme (NRCP).

The NRCP aims to combine expertise and commission high-quality evidence for treatments where research can present challenges or might not otherwise progress.

Professor Gordon, who is Chair in Anaesthesia and Critical Care at Imperial, as well as an Intensive Care consultant in St Mary’s Hospital and an NIHR Senior Investigator, will take up the new role with NRCP from 1 March.

In addition to leading work which has shaped international guidelines for the treatment of sepsis, Professor Gordon is UK chief investigator for the international REMAP-CAP trial, which generated evidence to improve the treatment of patients with severe COVID-19 and influenza.

Speaking about the new NRCP role, Professor Gordon said: "I look forward to ensuring NIHR, the NHS, and the DHSC can combine their strengths and expertise to generate robust evidence for potential new treatments. I want to ensure the NHS is a self-learning healthcare system, so that we can offer patients the very best evidence-based care."

For more information, see the NIHR website.

Arthropod adaptability

Researchers from the Department of Life Sciences and the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology investigated the adaptability of arthropods to long-term climate change.

Globally, arthropods, such as insects, spiders and crabs, are the most abundant group of animals, and are the chief pollinators, pests and disease vectors. As the climate shifts, understanding the adaptive capacity of arthropods becomes a do-or-die question to maintain ecosystem balance and ensure the sustainability of agriculture and human health.

Using theoretical predictions grounded in real-world data, Professor Samraat Pawar and colleagues found that the ability of an arthropod population to adapt to warming depends on how it responds to heat across different phases of its life cycle. They derive a relatively simple equation quantifying how the temperature response of crucial life-history traits, like reproduction and development, impact how the population as a whole can survive and thrive during warming.

Crucially, differences in thermal preferences between juvenile life stages, like larvae (such as caterpillars), and adults, limits the population’s ability to adapt to a rapidly changing climate.

Senior author Dr Lauren Cator said, "Our study shows that using relatively few measurements, just five traits, we can predict how vulnerable arthropod populations are to temperature changes."

Read the full paper in Nature Ecology & Evolution.Want to be kept up to date on news at Imperial? Sign up for our free quick-read daily e-newsletter, Imperial Today.