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George Osborne opens £73 million powerhouse of biomedical research

22 June 2012

A major new research facility on Imperial’s Hammersmith Campus, designed to expand and accelerate the translation of scientific discoveries into new ways of preventing, diagnosing and treating diseases, was officially opened by George Osborne MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 28 May.

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Tags: Imperial Centre for Translational and Experimental Medicine, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Medical Research Council, Wellcome Trust
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Making the NHS a safer place

4 April 2012

Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, in partnership with the College, has been awarded £7.2 million to establish a Centre for Translational Research in Patient Safety.

The five-year award, from the National Institute for Health Research, extends the duration and scope of the existing Centre for Patient Safety and Service Quality in the Department of Surgery and Cancer, and brings together a range of disciplines to develop new ways of improving the safety, quality and effectiveness of healthcare services

Tags: Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, News
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Plans announced for Academic Health Science Partnership

20 January 2012

Imperial and healthcare providers in north west London announced plans on 25 November to form a new Academic Health Science Partnership (AHSP) to improve the health and care of the local population of 1.9 million people.

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Tags: Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust
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New Trust Chairman announced

9 December 2011

Sir Richard Sykes, former Rector, will become the new Chairman of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust on 1 January 2012, succeeding Lord Tugendhat.

As Rector, Sir Richard was a driving force behind the creation of the Imperial Academic Health Science Centre, the partnership between the College and the Trust, and was also a non-executive director of the Trust. Expressing delight at his appointment, he said: “The healthcare environment is critically important for the social and economic well being of our country and the pace of change in the treatment and management of disease makes it a very exciting time to be working in the NHS.”

Tags: AHSC, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust
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Taking time to think about equality

17 October 2011

This month Imperial hosted an event to share its equality practices and innovations. The Imperial as One symposium, organised by the Equalities and Diversity Unit, brought together participants from the College’s black and minority ethnic (BME) network, Imperial as One, as well as other College staff, visitors from Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, other universities and beyond.

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Tags: Imperial as One, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Reach Out Lab
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Huge funding boost for biomedical research

23 September 2011

Two NHS Trusts in partnership with Imperial have received multi-million pound awards to boost research and enable the development of more effective medicines, treatments and care for patients, it was announced at the end of August. The funding forms part of the UK’s largest ever investment in early-stage health research, which has given an £800 million funding boost to 31 university and NHS partnerships.

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Tags: Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust
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Arrivals duty

1 July 2011

When a junior doctor starts work on the maternity ward at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Professor Phillip Bennett, Honorary Consultant in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, offers them a piece of advice, emphasising the importance of being involved in a baby’s arrival into the world: “What for you is just an ordinary day at work is, for the mother-to-be and her family, one of the most important days of their lives. They will remember everything you say and do,” says the Honorary Consultant in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, who works with pregnant women and women in labour to ensure they have as safe a delivery as possible.

Over at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Honorary Consultant Neonatologist Professor Neena Modi typically appears shortly after a woman has given birth, looking after babies with health problems, such as those born prematurely or with congenital abnormalities.

In their clinical work, Phillip and Neena play hands-on roles in the first hours, weeks or months of a baby’s life. In addition, they, and many others around Imperial, are looking at what happens in the womb before and during birth, and how intervening whilst a fetus is in the womb could improve a child’s health.

Preventing premature labour

In Phillip’s cosy office on the Hammersmith Campus, hospital scrubs and thank you cards from grateful families jostle for space with textbooks, PhD theses and journals. From this setting, a brief walk across campus from the labour ward, Phillip is looking at ways of predicting when women are likely to go into premature labour, and investigating how to prevent this from happening.

Babies born prematurely can face problems including impaired brain development, and difficulties with breathing and fighting infection. “Premature labour is a syndrome, not a single disease. There are a number of different causes and we need to identify different therapies,” says Phillip, who is a Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in the College’s Department of Surgery and Cancer.

Professor Neena Modi pictured in her office at the Neonatal Research Unit.

The risk of complications increases the earlier a baby is born and Phillip is particularly focused on preventing labour in the period when the risk of serious problems is greatest, before 32 weeks. Premature labour during this time is most commonly caused by abnormal inflammation in the womb, which in some, but not all, cases is linked to infection. Recent research suggests that this inflammation can itself damage the growing fetus, in addition to the problems caused by the baby arriving too early.

Phillip’s work has revealed that a cell signalling system called NF-kappaB plays a key role in the inflammatory response inside the womb during labour. Researchers are now investigating how targeting NF-kappaB might prevent abnormal inflammation. His studies have also contributed to scientists’ understanding of what happens during labour, by showing that an enzyme called COX-2 plays a central role in its onset. This has led to research exploring how COX-2 might be inhibited in order to prevent women going into labour prematurely.

Ensuring that such treatments help the women who most need them is a further challenge that Phillip’s group is seeking to address. He explains that many of the women who go into premature labour are not currently identified until it is too late. “By the time they get to the point of having contractions, you have missed the opportunity to prevent it,” he says.

Phillip’s group is working with Professor Jeremy Nicholson and Dr Elizabeth Want from Biomolecular Medicine to identify whether any molecules in the blood or urine might reveal which women are likely to have a premature labour, in a project funded by the Biomedical Research Centre. “If those molecules can be easily measured, it could lead to a really simple test for pregnant women,” he says.

From labour to long-term health

In the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital’s neonatal unit, Neena is doing a ward round with some colleagues. Her patients lie quietly inside clear plastic cots that keep their environment regulated. Their bodies are connected up to fine tubes that help them breathe and to machines that monitor their vital signs.

Professor Bennett with baby Simon and mother, Laura.

The Neonatal Data Analysis Unit at Imperial, which Neena heads up, analyses a wealth of data from neonatal units like this one across the UK, in order to improve the outcomes and quality of care for newborns.

In addition, Neena is looking beyond the neonatal period and exploring how the environment in the womb, premature birth and other aspects of a baby’s arrival can influence his or her health long after he or she has left hospital.

Even the method by which a baby is delivered can have an effect on his or her long-term health, well into adulthood. Studies suggest that when a mother has an elective caesarean section, and hence does not start the process of labour, her baby is at a 20 per cent increased risk of developing conditions such as asthma and diabetes later in life.

“The biological reasons as to why this should be so are fascinating,” says Neena, who is also a Professor of Neonatal Medicine in the Department of Medicine. Her group is investigating whether and how the processes of labour might program a baby’s organ, immune and respiratory function. Neena is working with Professor Elaine Holmes (Surgery and Cancer) to understand the biological processes that lead from the newborn period to later health and disease.

Neena believes that wherever possible, it is vital to intervene to improve a baby’s health in the earliest stages. “If you don’t target the intrauterine period and the early newborn period, a huge opportunity to improve the health of the whole population is being lost,” she says.

Therapy and prevention need to go hand in hand – if you can prevent a problem early on, then there will be no need for therapy”

Neena’s group has recentlypublished findings relating to the impact of a mother’s health on her child, primarily using research from Lara Philipps, an Imperial medical student who has been working with the group. In a meta-analysis for her BSc project, Lara’s work has provided new insight into how a mother’s diabetes affects her child’s risk of developing metabolic problems in later life. The study, published in Diabetalogia, showed that when the data were fully adjusted for different factors, the child’s greater risk of obesity was linked to the mother’s body mass index and not her disease. “The important thing about this is that women can do something about it, whereas they often can’t change the fact that they have diabetes,” says Neena. “Therapy and prevention need to go hand in hand – if you can prevent a problem early on, then there will be no need for therapy.”

Making a difference

When an ordinary day at work is so important, it does not take much to motivate Phillip and Neena. Their experiences as clinicians provide much of the inspiration for the research that they carry out. Phillip is driven by wanting to help those women for whom pregnancy is not straightforward. “For me, the most rewarding thing is when I look after a woman who has lost babies before and I’m able to do something for her that means she’s able to have a family,” he says.

Neena never loses her curiosity about the babies who have been in her care, and this is partly what drives her interest in making sure that babies stay healthy as they grow.

“The best moments are having a child who’s been through the wars on the neonatal unit come back several years later,” she says. “You can remember how harrowing it was and you can remember them going home, not quite sure what the future was going to bring, so when they come back and they’re doing absolutely fine, that really is lovely.”

— Laura Gallagher, Communications and Development

Tags: Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust
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New Academic Health Science Centre Steering Board

9 June 2011

Professor Lord Darzi has accepted appointment as interim Chair of a new Academic Health Science Centre (AHSC) Steering Board.

The AHSC is the partnership between the College and the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, established in 2007, integrating teaching, research and healthcare provision. The Steering Board has been commissioned to evaluate the success of the AHSC and to advise on its future direction, reporting in the autumn.

Read the full College Notice here

Tags: Academic Health Science Centre, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust
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Imperial welcomes UAE Minister of Health

27 April 2011

A delegation from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) including the Minister of Health, His Excellency Dr Hanif Hassan Al Qassim, visited at the WHO Collaborating Centre for Public Health Education and Training at Imperial during a four-day stay in the UK at the beginning of February. The delegation met with health leaders across London, strengthening collaborative links and observing health services.

His Excellency was welcomed to Imperial by WHO Collaborating Centre Director Professor Salman Rawaf (Public Health), who shared insights from his own executive experience within the NHS.  At a visit to Brook Green Medical Centre, Dr David Wingfield (Medicine) led discussions on general practitioner training, compulsory patient registration and a clinical IT system designed to improve the management of chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes.  Later His Excellency met Professor Lord Ara Darzi (Surgery and Cancer) and colleagues to discuss health policy training, academic innovation and technology.

The team visited the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges to discuss the UAE’s challenges around the shortage and quality of family physicians. The high prevalence of type 2 diabetes in the UAE is a major issue for the country’s health services. Professor Azeem Majeed, Head of the Department of Primary Care and Public Health, and Dr Wingfield shared their clinical and research experience addressing this issue.

The delegation also visited Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.  Medical education, health innovation and healthcare reforms were on the agenda. The team took a guided tour of the hospital’s departments and services including the Day Surgery Unit, the Clinical Skills Laboratory and Simulation Centre, the hospital’s pharmacy and the innovative new stroke unit which is achieving impressive results.

Professor Stephen Smith, CEO of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Pro-Rector (Health) at Imperial College London, met with His Excellency and WHO Collaborating Centre staff to discuss the development of the relationship between Imperial and the UAE. Concluding the visit, His Excellency met with Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Public Health, Anne Milton, at Richmond House, Department of Health, to explore collaboration between Britain and the UAE.

Tags: Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust
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Greater access to top clinical imaging facilities

19 April 2011

Researchers at Imperial will soon have greater access to world class clinical imaging facilities on the College’s Hammersmith Campus, following the signing of a new agreement.
 
Imperial has become an equal investor in a newly created joint venture that assumes responsibility for the facilities and operations at GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK) Clinical Imaging Centre (CIC), alongside the MRC, King’s College London and UCL.

The £47 million Centre houses an advanced radiochemistry development facility, two MRI machines and two PET scanners, with the ability to conduct highly sophisticated molecular and functional imaging studies on both healthy volunteers and patients.

Since the Centre opened in 2007, Imperial academics have been working collaboratively with GSK on a large number of research projects. The new agreement means that researchers across the College will have the opportunity to make use of the Centre’s facilities for an even broader range of projects and will be able to access the resources independently of any specific industrial interactions. Operations and staff are expected to transfer to the joint venture in the third quarter of this year.

Professor Paul Matthews (Medicine) has been Head of the CIC since it was founded. He said: “This marks a milestone in industry-academic collaboration and in the way major academic centres work together. The continued engagement of GSK will ensure that the great science has high impact.”

Professor Stephen Smith, Pro Rector (Health) and Chief Executive of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, added: “The agreement will allow us to continue to make strides in areas such as neuroscience, cancer, and cardiovascular disease, which should ultimately lead to better treatments for patients.”

— Laura Gallagher, Communications and Development

Staff interested in using the facilities should contact Kevin Cox, Chief Operating Officer kevin.p.cox@btinternet.com

Tags: Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust
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New laboratory aims to revolutionise surgery

10 February 2011

Metabolic profiling of tissue samples could transform the way surgeons make decisions in the operating theatre, said Imperial researchers at a new laboratory launched on 12 January.

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Tags: Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Institute of Global Health, Surgery and Cancer
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Lord Darzi’s iPhone app

16 December 2010

A new iPhone application, which empowers patients to make more informed decisions and better manage their health, was launched on 17 November.

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Tags: Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Institute of Global Health, Medicine, News
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New Medical Leadership Positions

24 November 2010

The UK’s first Academic Health Science Centre (AHSC) has been strengthened through the announcement on 11 November of new senior appointments at Imperial College London. The appointments will further the integration of the AHSC across the whole College and help to broaden its range of partners, both locally and internationally, who can benefit from its pioneering integrated healthcare, education and research model.

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Tags: Academic Health Science Centre, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, National Heart and Lung Institute, Rector
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Babies born with key networks already formed in their brains

19 November 2010

Full-term babies are born with a key collection of networks already formed in their brains, according to new research from Imperial’s MRC Clinical Sciences Centre, published on 1 November in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Tags: Department of Computing, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, MRC Clinical Sciences Centre
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New Cancer Centre

12 July 2010

A new cutting-edge cancer centre dedicated to robotic surgery, cancer imaging and drug discovery was launched on 23 June, putting London at the forefront of cancer research.

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Tags: AHSC, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, News, Surgery and Cancer
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