��Ī - William Sutherland

Snakes in potted olive trees ‘tip of the iceberg’ of ornamental plant trade hazards

jg533 — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 10:44:12 +0000

Invasive pests are slipping unnoticed into northern Europe in huge shipments of cut flowers and potted plants, say researchers, with potential to damage food crops and the natural environment

A man with a big idea

jg533 — Sat, 05 Oct 2024 09:54:03 +0000

With up to one million species facing extinction, Professor William Sutherland is using what he knows to help stop biodiversity loss. Because nature can’t wait.

The Vice-Chancellor's Awards 2023 for Research Impact and Engagement

zs332 — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 09:20:46 +0000

Meet the winner of the Vice-Chancellor's Awards 2023 for Research Impact and Engagement and learn more about their projects.

Established Academic 2023

zs332 — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 08:53:33 +0000

The Established Academic for 2023 is Professor William Sutherland and his research team at Conservation Evidence.

Exceptional scientists elected as Fellows of the Royal Society 2023

lw355 — Wed, 10 May 2023 10:52:57 +0000

The Royal Society is a self-governing Fellowship of many of the world’s most distinguished scientists drawn from all areas of science, engineering and medicine.

The Society’s fundamental purpose, as it has been since its foundation in 1660, is to recognise, promote and support excellence in science and to encourage the development and use of science for the benefit of humanity.

This year, a total of 80 researchers, innovators and communicators from around the world have been elected as Fellows of the Royal Society for their substantial contribution to the advancement of science. These include 59 Fellows, 19 Foreign Members and two Honorary Fellows.

Sir Adrian Smith, President of the Royal Society said: “I am delighted to welcome our newest cohort of Fellows. These individuals have pushed forward the boundaries of their respective fields and had a beneficial influence on the world beyond. This year’s intake have already achieved incredible things, and I have no doubt that they will continue to do so. I look forward to meeting them and following their contributions in future.”

The Fellows and Foreign Members join the ranks of Stephen Hawking, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Lise Meitner, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar and Dorothy Hodgkin.

The ��Ī Fellows are:

Professor Cathie Clarke FRS

Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics, Institute of Astronomy, and Fellow of Clare College

Clarke studies astrophysical fluid dynamics, including accretion and protoplanetary discs and stellar winds. She was the first to demonstrate how protoplanetary disc formation around low-mass young stars is determined by their radiation field. In 2017 she became the first woman to be awarded the Eddington Medal by the Royal Astronomical Society and in 2022 she became director of the Institute of Astronomy.

She said: “It's a great honour to join the many ��Ī astrophysicists who have held this title. I would like to particularly pay tribute to the many junior colleagues, PhD students and postdocs who have contributed to my research.”

Professor Christopher Jiggins FRS

Professor of Evolutionary Biology (2014), Department of Zoology, and Fellow of St John's College

Jiggins studies adaption and speciation in the Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths). In particular he is interested in studying how species converge due to mimicry as a model for understanding the predictability of evolution and the genetic and ecological causes of speciation. He demonstrated the importance of hybridisation and movement of genes between species in generating novel adaptations. He also works on the agricultural pest cotton bollworm and carries out genomic studies of the insect bioconversion species, black soldier fly.

He said: “I am amazed and delighted to receive this honour, and would thank all the amazing students, and postdocs that I have been lucky enough to work with over the years.”

Dr Philip Jones FRS

Senior Group Leader, Wellcome Sanger Institute and Professor of Cancer Development, ��Ī, and Fellow of Clare College

Jones studies how normal cell behaviour is altered by mutation in aging and the earliest stages of cancer development. He focuses on normal skin and oesophagus, which become a patchwork of mutant cells by middle age. He has found that different mutations can either promote or inhibit cancer development giving hope of new ways to prevent cancer in the future. He is also a Consultant in Medical Oncology at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in ��Ī.

He said: “I am delighted to be elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society. This honour is a tribute to the dedication of my research team and collaborators and support of my mentors and scientific colleagues over many years.”

Dr Lori Passmore FRS

Group Leader, Structural Studies Division, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, and Fellow of Clare Hall

Passmore a cryo-electron microscopist and structural biologist who works at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology and at the ��Ī. She is known for her work on multiprotein complexes involved in gene expression and the development of new supports for cryo-EM studies. She also studies the molecular mechanisms underlying Fanconi anemia, a rare genetic disease resulting in an impaired response to DNA damage.

She said: “I am so honoured to be recognised alongside such an exceptional group of scientists. I am grateful to all the trainees, collaborators and colleagues whom I have worked with over the past years - science is truly collaborative and this is a recognition of all the courageous work of many people.”

Professor Peter Sewell FRS

Professor of Computer Science, Department of Computer Science and Technology, and Fellow of Wolfson College

Sewell’s research aims to put the engineering of the real-world computer systems that we all depend on onto better foundations, developing techniques to make systems that are better-understood, more robust and more secure. He and his group are best known for their work on the subtle relaxed-memory concurrency behaviour and detailed sequential semantics of processors and programming languages. He co-leads the CHERI cybersecurity project, for which his team have established mathematically-proven security properties of Arm's Morello industrial prototype architecture.

He said: “This honour is a testament to the work of many excellent colleagues over the years, without whom none of this would have been possible.”

Professor Ivan Smith FRS

Professor of Geometry, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, and Fellow of Caius College

Smith is a mathematician who deals with symplectic manifolds and their interaction with algebraic geometry, low-dimensional topology and dynamics. In 2007, he received the Whitehead Prize for his work in symplectic topology, highlighting the breadth of applied techniques from algebraic geometry and topology, and in 2013 the Adams Prize.

He said: “I am surprised, delighted and hugely honoured to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. I’ve been very fortunate to work in a rapidly advancing field, learning it alongside many inspirational and generous collaborators, who should definitely share this recognition.”

Professor William Sutherland CBE FRS

Miriam Rothschild Chair of Conservation Biology, Department of Zoology and Professorial Fellow of St Catharine’s College

Sutherland is a conservation scientist who is interested in improving the processes by which decisions are made. This has involved horizon scanning to identify future issues to reduce the surprises of future developments. His main work has been the industrial-scale collation of evidence to determine which interventions are effective and which are not and then establishing processes for embedding evidence in decision making. He has developed a free, online resource, Conservation Evidence, summarising evidence for the effectiveness of conservation actions to support anyone making decisions about how to maintain and restore biodiversity and an open access book Transforming Conservation: a practical guide to evidence and decision making.

He said: “I am delighted that our work on the means of improving decision making in conservation and elsewhere has been recognised in this way and thank my numerous collaborators.”

Seven outstanding ��Ī researchers have been elected as Fellows of the Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of sciences and the oldest science academy in continuous existence.

These individuals have pushed forward the boundaries of their respective fields and had a beneficial influence on the world beyond

Sir Adrian Smith, President of the Royal Society

Courtesy of The Royal Society

The Royal Society, London

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©��Ī and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Human interactions with wild and farmed animals must change dramatically to reduce risk of another deadly pandemic

jg533 — Thu, 25 Jun 2020 09:10:10 +0000

It concludes that widespread changes to the way we interact with animals are needed; solutions that only address one issue – such as the trade in wild animals – are not enough.

The COVID-19 pandemic, thought to originate in a wild animal, has shown the enormous damage that can be wrought by a novel human disease. There have since been widespread calls for new regulations to control interactions with wild animals to prevent the emergence of another pandemic.

The authors of the new report argue that well-meaning but simplistic actions such as complete bans on hunting and wildlife trade, ‘wet markets’ or consumption of wild animals may be unachievable and are not enough to prevent another pandemic. Measures like these can be difficult to implement so must be carefully planned to prevent proliferation of illegal trade, or alienation and increasing hardship for local communities across the world who depend on wild animals as food.

Zoonotic diseases of epidemic potential can also transmit from farmed wildlife (such as civets) and domesticated animals (as exemplified by swine flu and avian flu), with greater risks occurring where humans, livestock and wildlife closely interact.

Compiled by a team of 25 international experts, the study considered all major ways that diseases with high potential for human to human transmission can jump from animals to humans (termed zoonotic diseases). The authors say that dealing with such a complicated mix of potential sources of infection requires widespread changes to the ways humans and animals interact.

“A lot of recent campaigns have focused on banning the trade of wild animals, and dealing with wild animal trade is really important yet it’s only one of many potential routes of infection. We should not assume the next pandemic will arise in the same way as COVID-19; we need to be acting on a wider scale to reduce the risk,” said Professor William Sutherland in the ��Ī’s Department of Zoology and the BioRISC Research Initiative at St Catharine’s College, ��Ī, who headed the research.

Potential ways another human pandemic could arise include: wildlife farming, transport, trade and consumption; international or long distance trade of livestock; international trade of exotic animals for pets; increased human encroachment into wildlife habitats; antimicrobial resistance - especially in relation to intensive farming and pollution; and bioterrorism.

Some of the ways to reduce the risk of another pandemic are relatively simple, such as encouraging smallholder farmers to keep chickens or ducks away from people. Others, like improving biosecurity and introducing adequate veterinary and hygiene standards for farmed animals across the world, would require significant financial investment on a global scale.

The 161 options include:
• Laws to prevent the mixing of different wild animals or the mixing of wild and domestic animals during transport and at markets;
• Increase switching to plant-based foods to reduce consumption of, and demand for, animal products;
• Safety protocols for caving in areas with high bat density, such as use of waterproof coveralls and masks;
• Improve animal health on farms by limiting stocking densities and ensuring high standards of veterinary care.

“We can’t completely prevent further pandemics, but there are a range of options that can substantially reduce the risk. Most zoonotic pathogens are not capable of sustained human-to-human transmission, but some can cause major epidemics. Preventing their transfer to humans is a major challenge for society and also a priority for protecting public health,” said Dr Silviu Petrovan, a veterinarian and wildlife expert from the ��Ī and lead author of the study.

“Wild animals aren’t the problem - they don’t cause disease emergence. People do. At the root of the problem is human behaviour, so changing this provides the solution,” said Professor Andrew Cunningham, Deputy Director of Science at the Zoological Society of London and co-author of the study.

Solutions were focused on measures that can be put in place in society at local, regional and international scales. The study did not consider the development of vaccines and other medical and veterinary medicine options. It does not offer recommendations, but a set of options to help policy-makers and practitioners think carefully about possible courses of action.

All categories of animal - wildlife, captive, feral, and domestic - were included in the study. The focus was on diseases, particularly viruses, which could rapidly become epidemics through high rates of human-to-human transmission once they have jumped from an animal. This excludes some well-known zoonotic diseases such as rabies and Lyme disease that require continuous transmission from animals.

The report is currently being peer reviewed. The findings were generated by a method called Solution Scanning, which uses a wide range of sources to identify a range of options for a given problem. Sources included the scientific literature, position papers by Non-Governmental Organisations, industry guidelines, experts in different fields, and the expertise of the study team itself.

This work was funded by The David and Claudia Harding Foundation, Arcadia, and MAVA.

Reference (unpublished report available as preprint)
Petrovan, S. et al: Post COVID-19: a solution scan of options for preventing future zoonotic epidemics. DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/5JX3G.

How you can support ��Ī’s COVID-19 research

Compiled by a team of international wildlife and veterinary experts, a new study has identified seven routes by which pandemics could occur and 161 options for reducing the risk.

We can’t completely prevent further pandemics, but there are a range of options that can substantially reduce the risk.

Silviu Petrovan

Pig farm by Harriet Bartlett

Pig farming

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©��Ī and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Study identifies 275 ways to reduce spread of coronavirus following lockdown

jg533 — Wed, 15 Apr 2020 13:52:59 +0000

The study identified 275 ways to reduce transmission of the coronavirus. Medical possibilities were not considered. It does not offer recommendations: a shortlist of the most appropriate options for specific regions and contexts should be considered in the context of their likely effectiveness, cost, practicality and fairness.

“There’s increasing pressure to re-open the economy and get people back to work and out of isolation. But if we return to operating as we did before the pandemic, there will be a second wave of the virus. All activities will need to be considered individually, and phased back in carefully, depending on the risk they pose to spreading the virus,” said Professor William Sutherland in the ��Ī’s Department of Zoology, who led the study.

Strict lockdown measures are proving to be effective in controlling the spread of coronavirus in many countries, but are putting a major strain on the population’s mental and physical health, and on the economy. Mass vaccination is not likely before the second half of 2021.

Measures such as physical distancing, enhancing personal hygiene and reducing contamination are likely to remain central elements of all control strategies for some time. The study, which has not been peer reviewed, lists the range of practical options available to achieve these measures, including:

• Café owners could open outdoor areas only at first, and wipe down tables - spaced well apart - after each customer.
• Access to public parks could be restricted to different age groups at different times of day, with gates left open so they don’t need to be touched, and users asked to walk on the right side of the pavement or clockwise around large open spaces.
• Petrol stations could become fully contactless, with attendants serving customers who pay from inside their car.
• Patients with doctors’ appointments could be asked to wait in their car outside the surgery until called in.
• School classes could be split into smaller groups with dedicated teachers, who only go into school one week in every three.

“It’s basically about how to stop people hanging around together, and phasing in activities starting with the ones that are the safest. Making this happen will be up to the people responsible for every element of society,” says Sutherland.

Identifying, assessing and applying a wide range of options could enable some of the stricter lockdown conditions to be lifted earlier, and make the transition period shorter, say the researchers. The ultimate aim of a successful transition is to achieve ‘Resilient Normality’ - a new way of existing in the world that makes us less susceptible to future pandemics.

Information was gathered by a method called Solution Scanning, which uses a wide range of sources to identify a range of options for a given problem. Sources included experts in a variety of fields, crowdsourcing on social media, and published research.

“In starting a process of decision-making or guidance-production, it’s sensible to be aware of the range of possible options. Policy makers and practitioners must decide which strategies are appropriate to phase in at different stages of the transition from lockdown,” said Sutherland.

The list of potential options is available online at https://covid-19.biorisc.com

This work was a collaboration between BioRISC (the Biosecurity Research Initiative at St Catharine’s College, ��Ī), Conservation Evidence in the Department of Zoology, and the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk. It was funded by The David and Claudia Harding Foundation, Arcadia and MAVA.

Reference (preprint)
Sutherland, W.J. et al: ‘Informing management of lockdowns and a phased return to normality: a Solution Scan of non-pharmaceutical options to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission.’ 2020. DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/CA5RH

How you can support ��Ī’s COVID-19 research

Phased re-opening of schools, businesses and open spaces should be considered alongside a range of practical ways to keep people physically apart, say the authors of a new study on how lockdown can be eased without a resurgence of coronavirus infections.

Policy makers and practitioners must decide which strategies are appropriate to phase in at different stages of the transition from lockdown

William Sutherland

How do we reduce the risk of animal viruses jumping to humans?

Mabel Amber from Pixabay

Yes

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Attribution

Future-proofing a forest

lw355 — Wed, 27 Mar 2019 09:00:44 +0000

Faced with shifting demands on landscapes and a changing climate, how do you plan for a forest’s future?

�������������Ī - William Sutherland

Snakes in potted olive trees ‘tip of the iceberg’ of ornamental plant trade hazards

A man with a big idea

The Vice-Chancellor's Awards 2023 for Research Impact and Engagement

Established Academic 2023

Exceptional scientists elected as Fellows of the Royal Society 2023

Human interactions with wild and farmed animals must change dramatically to reduce risk of another deadly pandemic

Read more about this research

How you can support �������������Ī’s COVID-19 research

Study identifies 275 ways to reduce spread of coronavirus following lockdown

How you can support �������������Ī’s COVID-19 research

How do we reduce the risk of animal viruses jumping to humans?

Future-proofing a forest

��Ī - William Sutherland

How you can support ��Ī’s COVID-19 research

How you can support ��Ī’s COVID-19 research