United Kingdom
I'm a freelance science writer and editor with two decades’ experience of communicating about science. My recent clients have included universities, publicly funded research organisations and biotech companies.
Before taking the plunge into freelancing, I worked in the University sector and - for nearly a decade - at the UK Medical Research Council (UKRI) where I edited the MRC's magazine, wrote and produced its Annual Review and contributed to its podcast, blog and website. I've also worked in industry, within the drug information team at Thomson Reuters, and I've dabbled in travel writing, winning the Guardian Young Travel Writer of the Year award.
I have a BSc in biological sciences from Sheffield University and a journalism qualification from University of London Birkbeck College.
Wild animals need a lot of space, and we are taking that away from them. How do they navigate a world where human disturbances are everywhere and natural habitats are shrinking?
A study of electronic healthcare records from the entire population of England has revealed how heart attack affects survivors' health up to nine years later, and how these effects vary according to their age, sex and social background.
Psychosis affects people in different ways, with some experiencing it just once, others having short episodes throughout their lives and others living with it most of the time.
It is a startling fact that if you live in Middlesborough you are, on average, at higher risk of having poor health and dying at a younger age than someone from Kensington and Chelsea. Sarah Harrop explores health inequalities in England and what is being done to address the problem.
HDR UK-funded researchers consulted widely to discover the most important things to research on this under-served group of women.
Around 6% of all hospital admissions relate to the side effects of medicines. Older people may be at higher risk because they often have several health conditions at once and must take a cocktail of five or more medicines to manage them.
Mental health nurses work with people with conditions from anxiety to schizophrenia, helping develop and deliver care plans and empower patients to manage their future health.
Stanford University scientists led by 2020 Schmidt Science Fellow Dr. Andrea d'Aquino have tested their drug-loaded hydrogel in type-2 diabetic rats. Just one injection under the skin provided sustained delivery of the widely used diabetes drug semaglutide, controlling the rats' blood sugar over 42 days in the same manner as daily injections.
Over the past decade, there have been great strides in the use of computer vision that are of particular benefit to medicine and healthcare.
This article discusses how standardising and linking large-scale health datasets offers great potential for improving human health. (Linked with kind permission from Lifebit Biotech Ltd, which owns this content.)
An appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of electronic health records is a must for healthcare managers.
The University of Reading Research Engagement and Impact Awards recognise and reward staff who have achieved extraordinary things by engaging with people outside academia to drive better understanding of research and to influence change.
Trust in information given out by the government on cancer fell sharply among the Black population during the COVID-19 pandemic, findings of a national US study have shown. Experts are warning the vital need to monitor if this mistrust has persisted beyond the pandemic and whether it could potentially cause an upsurge [...]
Young children who are taught by a teacher of the same ethnicity as themselves are developing better learning and problem-solving skills by the age of seven, new research suggests. The effect was most pronounced in Black and Latinx children, the findings - looking at more than 18,000 pupils across the US - showed.
Public confidence in vaccines has plunged across sub-Saharan Africa since the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study of 17,000 people, across eight countries, published today in the peer-reviewed journal Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics. The findings come as the World Health Organization and UNICEF have reported the largest sustained fall in uptake of routine childhood immunizations [...]
People who take medical opioid drugs without a doctor's prescription are 37% more likely than non-users to plan suicide - and the risk is even greater for those with disabilities, who have 73% higher odds of attempting to take their own life. The findings are from a study of over 38,000 adults who took part [...]
New findings, out today, suggest children who tell blunt truths such as "I don't want this present - it's ugly!" are judged more harshly by adults than those who bend the truth to be polite or protect others. Published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Moral Education, the research demonstrates the mixed messages that adults are [...]
Professor Marie Scully was one of the two first clinicians in the UK to spot a rare new blood clotting syndrome, VITT, linked with the Oxford AstraZeneca COVID vaccine. Scully and team rapidly reviewed cases of VITT to discover its cause, published their findings and alerted the regulatory authorities. Their actions flagged the syndrome and how to diagnose and treat it to clinicians worldwide, preventing deaths and changing UK vaccination policy for younger adults.
Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is used to characterise surfaces at the nanoscale for a wide range of applications, from determining the shape and size of new drug candidates to testing the quality of semiconductors.
UCL development of new, more accurate ways to measure trees and forests led by Professor Matthias Disney has improved international space agency observations, influenced the IPCC’s policy on greenhouse gas reporting and influenced public perceptions of trees and forests.
Professor Carl Sayer’s research has shown that restoring the UK’s forgotten and neglected farmland ponds, even those filled in 150 years ago, can bring back biodiversity. This evidence has restored life to hundreds of ponds, changed farmland management and made pond restoration a critical part of the nation’s nature conservation strategy.
Until recently, nobody had ever seen a black hole and the only way to prove their existence was indirectly. All of that changed in 2019, when the first ever image of one was created by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), developed by a team of 60 institutes - including UCL's Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL) - with the aim of transforming our understanding of black holes.
UCL researchers have developed a single-dose gene therapy enabling people with haemophilia to produce missing clotting factors – removing the need for lifelong treatment and reducing healthcare costs.
During the COVID-19 pandemic UCL research informed key decisions around care homes, prioritising staff testing and limiting their movement between homes, helping protect both residents and staff.
UCL research and guidance informed England’s largest ever health-led action on homelessness, preventing 20,000 COVID-19 infections during the pandemic’s first wave and housing 33,000 vulnerable people.
Until recently, men with advanced prostate cancer had a bleak prognosis. UCL clinical research has shown three new treatment options, added to standard therapy, can help patients live longer.
The acclaimed Coastal and Intertidal Zone Archaeological Network (CITiZAN) is led by UCL honorary lecturer Dr Gustav Milne. CITiZAN featured on the popular Channel 4 series 'Britain at Low Tide', raising public awareness of threats to coastal heritage, and the project's data collection efforts have contributed to erosion damage mitigation.
Harnessing the unique power of large-scale patient data, Professor Harry Hemingway (UCL Institute of Health Informatics) has gained important new insights into some of the world's biggest causes of death worldwide: high blood pressure, coronary disease, atrial fibrillation and heart attack.
People with HIV can now live long and healthy lives on virus-suppressing antiretroviral therapy (ART) but it was uncertain how much risk there was of an HIV positive person on ART passing the infection to their sexual partners, particularly among men who have sex with men (MSM).
UCL clinical studies have proven that certain HIV drugs prevent users getting the disease and that starting antiretroviral therapy earlier halves later risk of serious disease or death.
UCL research led by Professor Naomi Fulop has changed to the way UK hospital stroke services are organised, improving care for 20,000 stroke patients and saving 68 lives each year.
Video Supported Care (VSC) for tuberculosis treatment is cheaper and more effective than face-to-face support, according to a UCL and UCLH medical trial which has led to its global adoption.
UCL’s research and ongoing engagement with the Met Office have helped transform the organisation to be a global influencer in space weather and inspired hundreds of people to study physics.
The National Surveys of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal), carried out every decade by a UCL-led team, have helped shape UK sexual health policy, notably around chlamydia, HPV and HIV.
Our lives depend on the world's oceans, and we demand more of their resources and benefits with each passing year, yet their health is declining through human impacts such as overfishing and climate change.
UCL evidence has altered the strategic spending of millions of dollars by governments and NGOs, and has helped some 3,000,000 ultra-poor households around the world.
Smoking has long been known to be destructive to health, and more than half of UK smokers want to quit, but simply focusing on the harms caused by smoking in public health campaigns has not always been effective.
Around 250 million young children living in poverty in low- and middle-income countries do not reach their full developmental potential because of poverty, poor nutrition, and a lack of psychosocial stimulation - the sights, sounds, play and emotional connection provided through an affectionate caregiver-child bond.
Obesity and its effect on health is a global crisis, but to date there have been no safe, effective weight loss drugs. UCL's Professor Rachel Batterham has led two decades of research to develop a breakthrough gut hormone-based drug called semaglutide that reduces food intake.
Lives can be extended and harm avoided if ‘at risk’ patients can be identified as they are admitted to hospital. UCLH multidisciplinary teams have developed screening tools to spot people at high risk of heart attack, sepsis, psychological harm and serious complications after surgery. These tools have been incorporated into several national clinical guidelines, changing many thousands of patient outcomes for the better.
UCLH clinical trials have proven that a new nanobody therapy, Caplacizumab, can shorten treatment of the life-threatening blood clotting disease; Immune Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (iTTP), from weeks to days and improves patient survival. UCLH data contributed to Caplacizumab's approval for NHS use and it is now standard-of-care for iTTP worldwide.
Which Reading research got the most attention across the globe in 2021? We've dug into the Altmetric data to bring you the past year's three most talked about Reading-authored publications for each research theme. Agriculture, Food and Health theme:...Read More >
Today's data scientists can do things using machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) that they could barely have dreamed of in the past. Today's supercomputers can crunch through vast swathes of health data to gain insights into diseases faster than ever before. Crisis often spurs innovation, and COVID-19 has been no exception.
Research which explains why people with eye coordination problems respond differently to treatments has re-written the textbooks, changing international clinical practice. During their lifetimes, one in ten people will seek treatment for a problem with poor eye coordination, such as squint, lazy eye, or double vision.
A recent study of COVID-19 cases from six countries suggests that children and those under 20 are half as likely to become infected than older adults. The study was co-authored by Dr Rosalind Eggo from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), a UKRI-funded Health Data Research UK Fellow.
Health Data Research UK fellow Dr Rosalind Eggo from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) is helping to answer these questions by studying data from the Diamond Princess - a cruise ship that was struck by hundreds of cases of COVID-19 within a matter of weeks, back in February 2020.
Our health changes throughout our lifetimes from childhood through to old age. However, many research studies only provide a snapshot in time and don't capture the longer term changes that underpin health and disease. Longitudinal cohort studies solve this problem by following people over a long period of time - years or even decades - tracking their genetics, mental and physical health, lifestyles and more.
Top tips for telling the world about your research Here you can find some advice on promoting your research, drawing on expertise from the Research Communications and Engagement Team. We've put together top tips on everything from blogging to speaking to the media.
An estimated 8.4 million people in the UK struggle to get enough to eat and rely on food hand-outs, according to the UN. Volunteering at a community kitchen inspired PhD student Sabine Mayeux to investigate how they are addressing food poverty in the UK. She talked to Sarah Harrop about her research.
Could your ethnicity influence your COVID-19 risk? And if so, why? These are some of the questions that have been keeping Health Data Research UK-funded research fellow Dr Daniel Bean awake at night.
Industry and academic scientists from around the globe are getting a better understanding of complex materials such as catalysts. That's thanks to a new X-ray beamline at Diamond Light Source in Oxfordshire, developed and built by a University of Reading scientist.
Parliamentarians will hear today about the problem of medicines waste - and how better pharmaceutical packaging could help save the NHS money - from pharmacy student Bilal Mohammed, who is one of two winners of our undergraduate research scheme. He told us more.
Across millennia, people have buried objects alongside the dead. Ahead of his upcoming British Museum conference 'Objects and death', Dr Duncan Garrow spoke to Sarah Harrop about three mysterious things...Read More >
While most of us were tucking into our Christmas dinners, Dr Sakthi Vaiyapuri was travelling around southern India teaching people how to avoid being bitten by venomous snakes. He talked Sarah Harrop through pictures from his trip, what he achieved - and the snakebite diagnostic test he's developing here in his Reading lab which he hopes will save many more lives.
Today we're hosting the Autistica Discover conference - bringing together scientists, clinicians, autistic people and their families to discuss the latest autism research discoveries. Sarah Harrop spoke to Professor Bhisma Chakrabarti about his work on understanding the features of autism - and why he doesn't believe in diagnostic labels.
We've all seen news footage of the devastation that flooding can cause - buildings smashed to driftwood, crops destroyed and people huddled on rooftops in a brown sea of floodwater. Flooding hits countries with limited resources the hardest.
What exactly is gene editing? Why is it important in medical research? Last year, developmental biologist Dr Kathy Niakan got the first ever licence to carry out gene editing in very early human embryos using a new technique called CRISPR-Cas9. She explains all.
Damian Mole combines surgery with research. He has just been awarded a prestigious MRC Senior Clinical Fellowship to find out why people who’ve had acute pancreatitis have a shortened lifespan, even after they seem to have fully recovered. Here he tells us about the buzz of surgery, the importance of mentors and relaxing with his jazz band.
Sir John Sulston is best known for the leading role he played in the Human Genome Project. But earlier in his career, he studied the development of the nematode worm. Sarah Harrop tells the story behind a lab notebook entry which contributed to a Nobel Prize-winning breakthrough.
A timeline of MRC-funded discoveries and achievements, written for the organisation's centenary year in 2013.
In the second of a series of posts looking back on the photo archives of our 100-year history, Sarah Harrop muses on the health and safety of mouth pipetting, flu research and floral trousers.
University College London virology professor Robin Weiss retires from research at the end of March after 30 years of continuous MRC funding. He tells Sarah Harrop about his eventful career, which has involved critical discoveries about HIV’s modus operandi, catching jungle fowl in Malaysia and developing microbicides based on llama antibodies.
'Hello. My name is Crazy Like Monkey." The semi-toothless man in the mirrored shades proudly pointed to his plastic name badge, which, sure enough, was inscribed with the words "Crazy Like Monkey". We'd just staggered off a wooden sampan after a three-hour boat journey upriver to the village of Kuala Tahan, in the heart of Malaysia's national park, Taman Negara.