From world-class medical research to patient care

Warwick University has been awarded £9.875 million from Advantage West Midlands, as a part of Science City project, to invest in medical research.

The project brings together industry, business, education and public centre bodies with the aim of creating a world class centre for medical research in the West Midlands. The overall £20 million joint donation awarded to both Warwick and Birmingham Universities is designed to develop translational medical research across. Most importantly, the project will make the significant step from scientific research to actual treatments for patients in the West Midlands possible.

The award will fund a new clinical trials building, a laboratory space at Gibbet Hill and a human metabolism research unit. The latter will incorporate the UK’s second metabolic chamber, a four bedded clinical research facility and also a vascular physiology research unit. “Our plan is to focus on nutrients and health particularly obesity and metabolic diseases” Sudhesh Kumar, Professor of Medicine and Associate Dean at Warwick Medical School told the Boar.

The metabolic chamber itself will consist of a small room, designed for one person to live, eat and sleep in for a period of 24 to 72 hours, during which heat output and exhaled gas exchange are measured. These chambers enable scientists to determine how much energy people burn by performing different light activities. Additionally, they also measure oxygen consumption, carbon dioxide production and nitrogen excretion in order to establish energy expenditure, the point of all these experiments being the determination of the speed of a person’s metabolic rate. Warwick’s metabolic chamber should be operational within 12 months and will help discover how much of the food ingested by human beings is converted into energy.

Commenting on his expectations from the project, professor Kumar added: “This is an exciting development that will enable us to carry out world-class research that will result in new diagnostic tests and therapies for obesity and related metabolic disorders”. He continued, “New research methodology that will be commissioned at Warwick will enable us to measure very accurately the smallest changes in human energy expenditure, making a step change in the quality of our research and making us an attractive academic partner for both the food and pharmaceutical industry.”

The new clinical trials unit to be built at Warwick will not only received £4 million from Advantage West Midlands, but also £1 million from the Wolfson Foundation. Work on the new unit has already begun and the construction process is expected to take a year. When completed, the establishment will facilitate cancer, musculo-skeletal and emergency care research.

At Birmingham University, the funds will be used for the development of a mobile clinical research unit, which will be designed to tour community centres in order to involve regular citizens in research concerning increasing levels of obesity. Additionally, funds will also be directed towards the development of a dedicated human tissue biorepository.

Professor Yvonne Carter, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Regional Engagement and Dean of Warwick Medical School also commented on the exciting research scheme which is about to be launched: “This is fantastic news for Science City. This collaboration, involving as it does two major research universities and the NHS, is quite unprecedented and represents an exciting new opportunity for a vastly-expanded engagement with industry.”

The project will also offer the two universities the opportunity to benefit from each other’s findings and to have access to each other’s facilities.