£1m for new research at UCL and partner hospital trusts

Teams of health scientists from UCL and three partner hospital trusts across London are joining forces to develop research and groundbreaking treatments for patients with a range of debilitating conditions, drawing on a total of £1 million funding. Biomedical specialists at UCL, UCL Hospitals, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and Moorfields Eye Hospital will pool their expertise to focus on five new areas of research using innovative methods, including advanced genetic screening. They aim to improve techniques for diagnosing a genetic heart condition which is a common cause of sudden death in young people,; to develop gene therapy for a currently incurable blinding disease; and to improve mortality rates for organ transplant patients who develop complications. Funding and expertise for the projects comes from the National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centres at: UCL/UCL Hospitals (UCL/UCLH) UCL Institute of Ophthalmology/Moorfields Eye Hospital (IO/MEH) UCL Institute of Child Health /Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (ICH/GOSH). Each of the above centres contributed to the £1 million budget that will fund the five research projects, which were selected by a stringent internal and external peer-review process. This initiative is an example of how increasing collaboration is driving forward the biomedical research agenda and follows from the establishment last year of UCL Partners. UCL Partners comprises UCL, UCL Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust, Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, and the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust.