The Science Media Centre is not restricted to reacting to the headlines, and has helped scientists to more proactively set the agenda by bringing new science or evidence to journalists. This comes from our regular briefings, which take a variety of forms and cover a wide range of topics. Many are background briefings introducing journalists to the best experts and science on controversial issues like nuclear waste, nanotechnology, emerging diseases, or animal research, for example. They may also be news briefings where the SMC works with scientists to give the national media a new story on developments within science, whether it’s a report on climate change, a paper on stem cells being published in a leading journal, or science funding cuts in the latest budget. In addition, the SMC encourages leading experts to ‘speak out’ to the media about developments they believe may pose a threat to scientific research – not something science has been renowned for.
The REACT-2 study from Imperial College London aims to estimate the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies across England. The new batch … read more
For many years statins have been widely associated with mild side effects including muscle pain. Observational studies showing a correlation … read more
Dr Mary Ramsay, Head of Immunisation at PHE, and Dr Susan Hopkins, Strategic Response Director to PHE, set out PHE’s … read more
A study done by scientists at the University of Edinburgh, the University of Strathclyde, and Public Health Scotland has looked … read more
There is much domestic and international debate about the prospect of vaccine passports that could allow travel or resuming pre-COVID … read more
This briefing covered the latest interim data from the largest community coronavirus testing programme, REACT. This batch of data is … read more
The first question that needs to be addressed when carrying out human challenge trials is to work out the minimum … read more
Scientists at the University of Warwick have done some research looking at data on school absences due to COVID-19 infection … read more
We invited journalists to join Professor Peter Horby and Professor Martin Landray, Chief Investigators of the RECOVERY trial, who provided … read more
PHE asked us to host a background briefing with Dr Susan Hopkins, Strategic Response Director to Public Health England; Professor … read more
The pandemic has brought mathematical models to the forefront of the media coverage and we are seeing new models looking … read more
The University of Oxford have posted a preprint looking at preliminary findings of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine and the B.1.1.7 ‘Kent’ … read more
Today is the launch of a study run by the National Immunisation Schedule Evaluation Consortium (NISEC) and backed by the … read more
Researchers from UK Biobank will this week report results of a major government-backed study of SARS-CoV-2 infection. The study measured … read more
This afternoon, Johnson & Johnson announced top line results from the Company’s global Phase 3 ENSEMBLE trial designed to evaluate … read more
Last night, Novavax announced the results of Phase III trials on its protein-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate showing 89.3% efficacy. The … read more
We recently heard from the REACT-1 scientists with interim results from round 8 of their study looking at virus prevalence … read more
We asked some of the authors of the NERVTAG paper looking at the severity/lethality of the UK variant of concern … read more
One of the questions we are all interested in now is WHEN the current programme of vaccinating those most at … read more
This briefing covered the latest interim data from the largest community coronavirus testing programme, REACT. This batch of data is … read more
