The University of York

Mesenbio, a University of York spin-out that is developing a novel treatment for arthritis created from engineered human stem cells, has raised £1.4m in an investment round co-led by DSW Ventures and NG Bio alongside grant funding from Innovate UK. The treatment will initially target rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease that impacts nearly half a million adults and children in the UK alone, causing debilitating joint pain and inflammation of the hands, knees, elbows, ankles, and wrists. Current therapies can ease pain and inflammation but – unlike Mesenbio’s therapies – lack the combined actions of reducing inflammation and protecting the tissue from further damage. Mesenbio’s treatment is based on nano-sized messengers created from engineered human stem cells that not only curb inflammation but can kick-start the process of regenerating damaged tissue. Mesenbio was founded by Professor Paul Genever and Dr David Kuntin and based on their work at the University of York’s Biomedical Research Institute. The funding will enable them to create three new roles, develop pilot manufacturing processes, carry out pre-clinical studies and prepare the regulatory dossier in readiness for clinical trials. Professor Genever said: “We have been developing this method of treatment for a decade now, with support from Versus Arthritis, and it has proved successful in laboratory tests, but the funding will allow us to move toward human clinical trials. “Our research has focused on extracellular vesicles or EVs, which are nano-sized structures released from cells that have therapeutic properties. We have been able to engineer these structures from human stem cells to target its anti-inflammatory and tissue-regeneration capabilities, which is what you need to treat arthritis – the ability not only to take away the pain but also to repair the damage.” Current uses of EVs rely on donor cells, but their effectiveness as a treatment can vary from patient to patient. Engineering human stem cells allows scientists to enhance the characteristics of EVs that are most significant to arthritis treatment and produce them at scale in the laboratory. Dr David Kuntin, CEO of Mesenbio, said: “This method and its scalability makes it much more likely we can create a drug that can be administered via injection that can not only halt the damage to tissue, but repair tissue and return the immune system to homeostatic levels. “We know this works in a laboratory setting and this new funding will allow us to get to human trials in a reasonable timescale, so that we can look to the future of what this new therapeutic might mean for clinicians and crucially patients of this debilitating condition.” Mesenbio, which is based at the university, becomes the twelfth company to join the DSW Ventures portfolio, and the first from its recently-launched Seed EIS fund. Doug Quinn of DSW Ventures commented: “Extracellular vesicles is an evolving technology and with the promising data generated by the team at Mesenbio, this funding enables further progress towards a treatment for what is a debilitating condition for so many people.” Jason Goldstein, co-founder at NG Bio, said: “This is an exciting time in the search for therapies that can address tissue damage resulting from arthritic conditions. Mesenbio’s technology is uniquely placed to address this problem and we look forward to supporting this talented team on the next step in their journey.” Weightmans LLP (legal) advised DSW Ventures and NGBio on the deal, with Taylor Wessing advising Mesenbio.

Modelling climate change over a 500 year period shows that much of the boreal forest, the Earth's northernmost forests and most significant provider of carbon storage and clean water, could be seriously impacted, along with tundra regions, treeless shrublands north of the boreal forest that play a significant role in regulating the Earth's climate. The boreal forest, covering much of Canada and Alaska, and the treeless shrublands to the north of the forest region, may be among the worst impacted by climate change over the next 500 years, according to a new study. The study, led by researchers at the White Rose universities of York and Leeds, as well as Oxford and Montreal, and ETH, Switzerland, ran a widely-used climate model with different atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide to assess the impact climate change could have on the distribution of ecosystems across the planet up to the year 2500. Most climate prediction models run to the year 2100, but researchers are keen to explore longer-term projections that give a global picture of how much humans, animals and plant-life may need to adapt to climate change beyond the next century, which is important as long-lived trees adapt at scales of centuries rather than decades. Modelling climate change over a 500 year period shows that much of the boreal forest, the Earth's northernmost forests and most significant provider of carbon storage and clean water, could be seriously impacted, along with tundra regions, treeless shrublands north of the boreal forest that play a significant role in regulating the Earth's climate. Tundra regions have already seen new plants colonising lands that would have once been too cold for them to survive on, and as the planet continues to warm, its ability to cool tropical heat, pushing it back down to the equator is reduced. This means that if there is not a rapid halt in emitting greenhouse gases, large parts of some of the hottest countries on Earth will become too hot to be easily inhabited and considerable changes would have to be made to daily life to exist there. The researchers highlight that although we are already starting to see animals and plants migrating as they try to adapt to changing climate conditions, this could intensify in the future. As the study highlights, some species, like trees, migrate much slower than animals and humans can, and so some plants and animals will be lost altogether, threatening the survival of today's ecosystems Dr Christopher Lyon, from the University of York's Department of Environment and Geography and Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity, said: "We know now that some aspects of climate change are inevitable and so a level of adaptation is required, but how extensive these adaptations need to be is still in our hands. It is, therefore, useful to look beyond the UN's 2030 and 2050 carbon emission targets, as well as the 2100 climate model predictions, as we know that climate change won't stop there. "By looking much further into the future -- the future that our grandchildren will face -- we can see that there is a significant difference between climate change rates, species migration rates, and their migration ability. Trees, for example, will migrate much slower than birds and mammals, and boreal decline radically changes the ecosystems they've formed since the glaciers retreated about 12,000 years ago. "Those species that can't adapt or move to more suitable locations will radically decline in number and range or even go extinct." The study highlights that current boreal regions are colder and less densely populated, but changing environments may mean more people migrate to these landscapes as they warm in the future, increasing the pressures on ecosystems and species. Migration on this scale also relies on political cooperation from countries around the world, and researchers point out that given current global conflicts and divisions, this could be one of the most significant barriers to successful climate adaptation. Dr Lyon said: "What's most important, I think, is that the long-term projections highlight the scale of the change we, and especially our children and grandchildren face -- even under the lower warming scenarios -- and the need to start thinking very hard now about what it will take for all of us to live justly in those possible worlds." Dr Bethany Allen from ETH (Federal Institute of Technology) Zurich, added: "Our study indicates the longevity and severity of the impacts that human-induced climate change will have on the biosphere. The need to protect boreal forest and tundra biomes is particularly pressing, and our results demonstrate how large-scale geographic shifts in the areas occupied by these biomes might be necessary in order to preserve them over the next few hundred years." The research is published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B and funded in part by the White Rose Collaboration Fund and the Leverhulme Trust via the Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity.

A team of archaeologists discovered tiny microplastic particles in deposits located more than seven meters deep, in samples dating back to the first or early second century and excavated in the late 1980s. Researchers have for the first time discovered evidence of microplastic contamination in archaeological soil samples. The team discovered tiny microplastic particles in deposits located more than seven metres deep, in samples dating back to the first or early second century and excavated in the late 1980s. Preserving archaeology in situ has been the preferred approach to managing historical sites for a generation. However, the research team say the findings could prompt a rethink, with the tiny particles potentially compromising the preserved remains. Microplastics are small plastic particles, ranging from 1μm (one thousandth of a millimetre) to 5mm. They come from a wide range of sources, from larger plastic pieces that have broken apart, or resin pellets used in plastic manufacturing which were frequently used in beauty products up until around 2020. The study, published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, was carried out by the universities of York and Hull and supported by the educational charity York Archaeology. Professor John Schofield from the University of York's Department of Archaeology, said: "This feels like an important moment, confirming what we should have expected: that what were previously thought to be pristine archaeological deposits, ripe for investigation, are in fact contaminated with plastics, and that this includes deposits sampled and stored in the late 1980s. "We are familiar with plastics in the oceans and in rivers. But here we see our historic heritage incorporating toxic elements. To what extent this contamination compromises the evidential value of these deposits, and their national importance is what we'll try to find out next." David Jennings, chief executive of York Archaeology, added: "We think of microplastics as a very modern phenomenon, as we have only really been hearing about them for the last 20 years, when Professor Richard Thompson revealed in 2004 that they have been prevalent in our seas since the 1960s with the post-war boom in plastic production," "This new study shows that the particles have infiltrated archaeological deposits, and like the oceans, this is likely to have been happening for a similar period, with particles found in soil samples taken and archived in 1988 at Wellington Row in York." The study identified 16 different microplastic polymer types across both contemporary and archived samples. "Where this becomes a concern for archaeology is how microplastics may compromise the scientific value of archaeological deposits. Our best-preserved remains -- for example, the Viking finds at Coppergate -- were in a consistent anaerobic waterlogged environment for over 1000 years, which preserved organic materials incredibly well. The presence of microplastics can and will change the chemistry of the soil, potentially introducing elements which will cause the organic remains to decay. If that is the case, preserving archaeology in situ may no longer be appropriate," added David Jennings. The research team say further research into the impact of microplastics will be a priority for archaeologists, given the potential impact of these human-made chemicals on archaeological deposits.