University College Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre

Focusing on experimental medicine

A review of our progress NIHR University College London Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre

be bold and even more ambitious, and should align future Welcome from Professor major strategic funding awards towards tackling some of Bryan Williams the unresolved ‘big questions’ in medicine. Big funding for big questions. Big questions aligned to the strengths We have just completed a busy, and strategy of our NHS and university partnership, successful and exciting year for better leveraging of our undoubted strengths in physical our National Institute for Health sciences, engineering, chemistry, and imaging, disciplines Research University College that are set to shape future medical practice like never London Hospitals Biomedical before. Big questions that signal our bold intent, a focus Research Centre (BRC) with the for collaboration, infrastructure developments, for industry implementation of our new partnerships and investment and for retaining and recruiting strategy focused on experimental the best people. Big questions designed to stretch us, and medicine and our substantial inspire others, uncompromising in excellence and predicated participation in a number on delivering better outcomes for our patients. of major national cross-BRC If the world-class strength of our NHS and university initiatives. partnership can’t tackle the big questions, then who can? We have decided to produce this review to provide a Who will? Developing these concepts and ideas will require succinct summary of the many activities of the BRC in a major consultation with our researchers, our clinical staff, format that is accessible to the public. This report will be other BRCs/BRUs, our funding sources, our patients and the a regular feature and complements the extensive real public. This dialogue is about to begin and I urge you to get time information already available on our BRC website involved in defining the big questions that will shape the www.uclhospitals.brc.nihr.ac.uk and my bi-monthly BRC future direction of our BRC. Director’s newsletter. Professor Bryan Williams As we now embark on a new year, I think it is time for us Director, National Institute for Health Research University to be thinking about how we would like to see our BRC College London Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre evolve beyond the current five-year term. We begin work January 2014 now to shape the future direction of the BRC, which should

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This booklet is about the work of the Our recent work includes: National Institute for Health Research • spending £6 million on selected high impact initiatives (NIHR) University College London • building new partnerships with pharmaceutical Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre companies, medical devices companies and SMEs (small (BRC). The booklet focuses on what or medium enterprises) the BRC has been doing in the past 18 • establishing the UCL BioResource to gather 10,000 DNA months and the impact we have had in samples from volunteers and patients that time. • establishing fellowships and leadership courses for the experimental medicine researchers of the future The NIHR awarded us renewed five-year funding from April 2012 of £110 million and we were tasked with focusing on • setting up four lay panels to ensure patient and public experimental medicine. input into our research and governance Although our aim remains to speed up the translation of • establishing BRC and industry workshops and showcase scientific discovery in our university into better treatments meetings and care for our patients, this focus on experimental • setting up an innovation office for UCLH staff with medicine marks a strategic shift. promising ideas The booklet will show what we have done with that money, • improving our structure our aims and what we have achieved so far. We hope it will demonstrate how government money is being put to good • reviewing our funding commitments. use in a bid to improve health and create wealth. During this time, we reduced 17 research themes to four focused major research programmes – Cancer; ; Infection, Immunity and Inflammation; and Cardiometabolic – as well as appointing a new BRC director, four programme directors and four operations mangers.

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Background to our biomedical Government money from the NIHR is invested into the • new therapies (drug, immunological and cell based) and research centre research infrastructure across UCLH and UCL including staff novel devices and first-in-man studies posts, equipment, facilities and training. The National Institute for Health Research University College • improvements in diagnosis, treatment selection and London Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre is a highly evaluation of response – including diagnostics and What we do successful and influential partnership between University medical technology College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH) and Our BRC takes innovations in basic science and helps • repurposing of therapies – taking established UCL (University College London). translate them into actual treatments and therapies that will therapies and applying them to other diseases and have an impact on patients and improve healthcare. By combining the strengths of UCLH – one of the largest clinical problems. and most successful NHS trusts in the UK – and UCL – Our focus is on experimental medicine which tends to be This kind of research needs specialist infrastructure ranked fourth in the QS World University Rankings 2013-14 ‘first in human’ studies such as research into new therapies and skilled staff, often based in dedicated clinical and a leading biomedical research university – the BRC has and devices or the mechanisms of disease. By experimental research facilities. become a world-class leader in translating fundamental medicine we mean early phase human translational studies biomedical research into clinical research that could focusing on: transform patient care and save lives.

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already many different funding streams available for people What we want to do to undertake high quality fundamental, basic research, and the BRC is about filling the gap between scientific discovery Since its inception, our strategy has been to speed up the and its application in patients. This happens in many ways, translation of scientific discoveries into treatments and either in developing a better understanding of disease therapies that directly benefit patients. processes themselves, and developing new treatments, or in In order to focus more on early stage experimental new ways of monitoring the disease process.” medicine, we have reorganised our structure in the past year to allow for more focus on our areas of world class strength, to build on our leadership and allow for more Achieving our aims – the input from the public, and to develop even stronger links with industry as partners. focus of our work

High impact initiatives – investing funds ‘Big data’ and genomics to ensure greatest impact on patient care The NHS holds and produces masses of information and captured every hour of every day from millions of people, In September 2013, the BRC invested £6 million in six data and the BRC has made it a priority to find ways of aligning that to information about their DNA and also more initiatives that we believe will have a high impact over the unlocking the unrealised potential of these large data sets, detailed information about the type of disease they have.” next four years in experimental medicine. or ‘big data’ for research. The study of gene structures, known as genomics, is a The BRC invited UCL and UCLH staff to submit bids for The NHS produces huge volumes of both structured and crucial part of biomedical research. Studying the link funding with the aim to find initiatives that had the unstructured data. This data is so large and complex it is between genes and disease requires not only close detailed potential to have a high impact on research and clinical difficult to process using traditional database and software laboratory science but also large amounts of data and care, could demonstrate tangible, achievable outputs over techniques. If researchers and health professionals could access to large portions of the population. A key aim of the the next four years and involved creative ways of working in analyse these large data sets, within the appropriate BRC’s work is to promote this access to genetic data. partnerships, especially with industry. data protection framework, it would open up incredible Funding awards include £1.2m over three years to set up a opportunities to evaluate and improve treatments and care. UCL BioResource state of the art radiochemistry laboratory, bringing together For instance, bringing together the kind of information The UCL BioResource is a major new initiative, aiming to biologists, chemists, imagers, engineers, physicists and that is captured daily in healthcare settings with genetic gather 10,000 DNA samples from people with and without clinicians in a new site to enable the production of novel information and detailed studies of the clinical phenotype disease, to help researchers find out how genes influence imaging tracers for use in studies. Other awards include will create enormous potential for research, enabling disease. £0.7m over four years to establish UCL research space at researchers to make real headway in unravelling the causes The initiative marks a huge step in the fight against chronic the Stevenage BioScience Catalyst and £0.7m to establish a of many rare and common diseases and developing new diseases such as dementia, diabetes and heart disease Computational Medical Imaging Infrastructure. treatments. as well as cancer and infectious diseases, and supports Director of the BRC Professor Bryan Williams says: “One BRC director Professor Bryan Williams says: “This is research into the link between genes, the environment, of the things we’ve tried to emphasise is that there are unleashing the potential of anonymised NHS data that is health and disease. 5 NIHR University College London Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre

The aim of UCL BioResource is to enlist 10,000 patients and recruitment, for example by sending information out ataxia (a group of neurological disorders affecting balance, volunteers from UCLH and other UCLPartners hospitals. to GPs. coordination, and speech) and dystonia (a movement Participants will be asked to give DNA, plasma or serum disorder causing the muscles to contract and spasm Professor Nick Wood, director for our BRC’s Neurosciences samples and to consent to being contacted in the future involuntarily). programme, says: “The government has announced a about trials they may be suitable for. number of funding initiatives about genomics into the NHS Professor Nick Wood says: “It’s a way of speeding up and Samples will be securely stored together with information and a lot of that will be done through the BioResource having better accuracy in genetic capture. The first genome about the volunteer’s ethnicity and gender. Researchers can infrastructure – sequencing patients from the BioResource, was sequenced in 2001 and that cost about three billion then identify individuals who could help them and invite putting genetic results through the BioResource database. dollars, but with next generation sequencing, you can them to take part in a particular study. This means it will One will see an awful lot of activity over the next three to sequence a whole genome for about three to five thousand now be possible to carry out valuable research into the five years on that score.” dollars. mechanisms of diseases and the benefits and limitations of “The challenge – and this is where it’s really important for new treatments – research that was previously too costly or Next generation sequencing the BRCs to get together – is how we understand those time-consuming. Next generation sequencing is a technique that allows variations in terms of human disease. It has massively UCL’s BioResource is one of seven centres in the nationwide researchers to look quickly and cost effectively at each increased the speed at which we can find genes. NIHR BioResource project, which plans to have a collective individual part of the DNA molecule in all of the genes and “We have found a number of genes with BRC reported core base of more than 100,000 participants by 2017. whole genome. research in the last few years – dementia genes for example Dr Kirstin Goldring, UCL Biobank and NIHR BioResource Before the development of this new technology, which – so it definitely has had a direct impact on finding genes Coordinator, says: “The BioResource is important because has revolutionised biomedical research, researchers used that mean something to peoples’ diseases. The challenge traditionally when you are starting research projects or gene sequencing techniques that were expensive and slow. is to work them up so that they can become useful as clinical trials, you have to go out and find both the correct BRC investment has enabled UCL researchers to buy a next clinical tests.” patient and volunteer populations for that research study, generation sequencer and offer a supplemented service trial or questionnaire. to research groups across UCL and UCLH. The result is the acceleration of research into human disease and a much “Having a panel of participants who are patients and better understanding of the genetic causes of diseases. healthy volunteers, who have already been screened and who are willing to participate in research, makes it easier for A team of researchers, led by Professor Henry Houlden, uses us to find the appropriate participants for all these studies. the sequencer for exome sequencing. They take a person’s Recruiting such a large panel also means we are able to blood, extract DNA, enrich certain sequences and over a support a wider variety of studies in lots of different areas.” 7-10 day period, sequence all protein encoding genes. The data is then analysed. Recruitment to the UCL BioResource began in July 2013 and by the end of December it had secured over 400 So far, they have sequenced more than 1,100 exomes participants, the vast majority of whom are patients. for groups across UCL and results have allowed them to begin to unravel the genetics of common diseases, such as Recruitment so far has mostly been undertaken by nurses Alzheimer’s disease, and also rare diseases such as inherited going into specific clinics but the BRC now plans to widen

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insight to mechanisms that are relevant to more common give clinicians a new advanced understanding of a patient’s diseases too.” genetic make-up, and allow more targeted treatment with the right drugs, so-called personalised medicine. UCL’s first rare diseases conference took place in February 2013 and in July the UCL Rare Disease Steering Committee In a good example of successful cross-BRC initiatives, staff welcomed around 100 attendees to the UCL Rare Diseases and facilities at the clinical research facilities at UCLH, Great Elevator Pitch workshop at the Wellcome Collection. Ormond Street and Moorfields Hospitals are being deployed in a co-ordinated approach recruiting and taking blood At the workshop, academics, industry representatives, samples from over 700 patients and their relatives with rare business managers and delegates from external funding genetic diseases. bodies met to learn about the challenges of orphan products – drugs developed specifically to treat a rare Professor Nick Wood, programme director for Neurosciences medical condition – and the key criteria for successful for the BRC says: partnerships. Rare diseases “There are several challenges and one is, can you deliver The workshop also offered future industry partners a on such a big project? Also, can you then find the diseases Research into rare diseases is a key priority for our BRC. A platform on which to engage with UCL rare disease affected by genes and I suspect the answer will be yes. rare disease is one that affects fewer than five in 10,000 of researchers and to help establish industry/academia Some of those will be relatively easy to find and some will the general population and it is estimated that in the UK partnerships that will help to translate innovative research be tricky.” 6% (approximately 3.5 million) of the population will be into medicines for patient benefit. One complicated issue that will need to be dealt with is affected by a rare disease at some point in their lives. Researchers into rare diseases can apply to the BioResource what is done with the information. Professor Wood says: UCL, the NIHR biomedical research centres and the for next generation sequencing of their DNA samples to “I could sequence your genome and find you are carrying a academic health science centre UCLPartners (UCLP) serve help them with their work. gene that is increasing your risk of certain cancers or heart a patient population of over six million across the North disease and you might want to know that and modify your Thames region, approximately 0.5 million of whom will BRC input into Genomics England lifestyle or take out insurance, but do I tell you or do I say, have a rare disease. Our research is extensive and diverse The BRC is a major contributor to the pilot of the ambitious ‘I don’t really know what they mean for you yet, so I won’t with more than 100 clinical academic research groups national Genomics England (GEL) project to sequence the tell you’? It’s complicated. It’s important to think about how investigating more than 350 rare diseases. genomes of up to 100,000 children and adults with a we roll that out and implement it into the NHS.” BRC Director Professor Bryan Williams says: “We have variety of diseases over the next five years. Making use of the information we abundant access to people with rare diseases, many The GEL project, run by the Department of Health’s already have of whom are cared for by our NHS specialist hospitals company, Genomics England, is designed to gain partnered with UCL and our BRCs. Many of these diseases • The BRC is supporting the establishment of the knowledge and understanding of the mechanisms of have distinct features and if we can understand the genetic Computational Imaging Infrastructure. This is a key diseases. basis of some of these diseases and why some of these investment in building the capacity and facilities to people have been affected, not only do we have a better The project will introduce high-tech DNA mapping for rare make use of the NHS’s massive imaging data sets. BRC- chance to develop treatments for them, but many common diseases and cancer patients and will link that new data supported Computational Imaging Infrastructure will diseases are a variation on rare diseases so it can give you to the patient’s medical records. This information should develop common software analysis platforms to link 7 NIHR University College London Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre

imaging across UCLH and UCL. The trust and university characteristics that reflect the severity or presence of already have excellent imaging skills. By providing some disease states and can be used as an indicator state of the art open source software libraries for the of a particular disease state or the probable effect of development of medical imaging processing systems, the treatment on a patient if a disease already exists. The Computational Imaging Infrastructure will ensure these project will allow the BRC to profile potential drug skills are translated into the clinical arena to improve targets arising from UCL academic research. This diagnosis and image guided therapy. work should be of interest to collaborations with the pharmaceutical industry as information from the project • The BRC is also investing £0.3m over four years in the will help in decisions about which new molecules should Farr Institute of Health Informatics Research at UCL, be developed into new drug treatments. It may also help which was established in 2013 with funding from for drugs, which we call ‘repurposing’, we can develop new identify new uses for existing medicines. the UK Medical Research Council. The BRC is funding treatments very cost-effectively. recruitment of a clinical lead to develop a biomedical BRC Chief Operating Officer Dr Nick McNally says: “This informatics platform at UCLH/UCL. This platform will be is all about delivering patient benefit and investing in made up of a collection of computer programs designed Partnerships with infrastructure and partnerships which have a strong to support translational research by allowing existing potential of delivering patient benefit in terms of better clinical data to be re-used for research purposes and by enterprise and industry health outcomes in the future.” providing links to new sources of data. The future of biomedical research very much depends • The BRC is part of a major new health informatics on building partnerships with industry, and over the last Stevenage BioScience Catalyst programme announced in November 2013 that will 18 months the BRC has been helping to drive a culture The BRC is investing £0.7m over four years to enable UCL allow the collaborative sharing of routinely collected change across UCLH/UCL to encourage clinicians to take up laboratory space at the Stevenage BioScience NHS data to facilitate more effective clinical research. and academics to think differently about the value of Catalyst and fast track the development of new treatments. Under the programme – the National Institute for Health partnership with commercial organisations. Research Health Informatics Collaboration (HIC) – the The Stevenage BioScience Catalyst is the UK’s first In particular partnerships with pharmaceutical companies, five large BRCs (including our BRC) will work together open innovation bioscience campus, located next to medical devices companies or SMEs (small or medium to make NHS clinical data more readily available GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which pioneers a unique culture enterprises) hold huge promise. and accessible to researchers, industry and the NHS to drive early stage life science developments. The Catalyst community. The informatics infrastructure will focus Partnerships can enable us to marry UCL and UCLH focuses on developing novel therapeutics, biomarkers, cell on five scientific themes, with UCLH leading on critical expertise with the expertise, facilities and compound banks technologies and screening. care and participating in projects on ovarian cancer, of chemicals that sit within drug companies. By establishing a presence at the Catalyst, industry-ready hepatitis C and acute coronary syndromes. The BRC is also keen to join up our expertise and facilities to UCLH/UCL projects will be able to access drug development • The BRC is investing £0.7m over three years into a ‘repurpose’ some existing medicines. Often pharmaceutical expertise and facilities. Projects will work alongside and project to develop a linked population and bioinformatic companies have safe drugs that have been developed to have access to the experienced development groups resource for drug target and biomarker prioritisation treat one disease that might actually be very effective in within GlaxoSmithKline and a rapid route for product for human disease. Biomarkers are measurable treating another disease. By identifying potential new uses materialisation and entry into early stage clinical trials.

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The BRC has also invested £0.6m into three exemplar BRC Chief Operating Officer Dr Nick McNally says: “It Research is likely to be carried out at UCL’s new Leonard projects. will open peoples’ eyes on either side of the equation to Wolfson Experimental Neurology Centre, with Eisai what are the drivers, priorities and pressures in each sector providing drug discovery and development resource and The BRC also supported a successful bid by UCL for a and therefore how we can improve on our partnership relevant expert knowledge. £3 million slice of £50 million Higher Education Funding building.” Council for England (HEFCE) funding as part of a push Eisai is also funding a PhD studentship at UCL for projects in to work in partnership with industry to make sure our New alliances including three year’s funding for tuition fees, biomedical discoveries are developed into products. a stipend and a research allowance. In the past year, the BRC has supported a drug discovery This funding will enable UCL to work at the Catalyst with alliance between UCL neuroscience and the global Drug breakthroughs our BRC partners at the University of Cambridge to identify pharmaceutical company Eisai Pharmaceuticals, with the The BRC has invested £1 million in preparatory work for a new candidates for therapeutic drugs and the processes for aim of discovering novel therapeutics. manufacturing them. trial of a drug to treat Alzheimer’s disease. Under the agreement, researchers from both organisations The aim is to trial a drug known as CPHPC developed by The approach at the Catalyst will mean both industry, will work together to investigate new ways of treating Professor Sir Mark Pepys, Director of the UCL Wolfson and university and NHS employees will be exposed to the neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Drug Discovery Unit. CPHPC almost completely depletes operations of a major pharmaceutical company. Laboratory other related disorders. researchers who are exposed over time to industry circulating serum amyloid P component (SAP) and removes objectives will have a clearer understanding of what drives The aim is to identify and validate novel drug targets and all SAP from the cerebrospinal fluid. develop new therapeutics and evaluate them in proof-of- industry in trying to make new medicines. Professor Martin Rossor, Director of the NIHR Queen Square concept trials. Dementia Biomedical Research Unit, has designed a clinical trial of CPHPC, known as the DESPIAD study, which will be conducted at UCL’s Leonard Wolfson Experimental Neurology Centre. Sir Mark and Professor Rossor have been invited to apply for an MRC Development Pathway Funding Scheme award to fund the clinical study and the aim is for the 3-4 year study to start this year. BRC support has enabled other research by Sir Mark Pepys, including research into systemic amyloidosis (a disorder resulting from abnormal protein deposits in body tissues); DNA vaccination for HIV; and C-reactive protein inhibition for cardiovascular and inflammatory diseases.

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tumour, so you get more diagnostic information than simply Clinical Research Facility Research infrastructure doing an MRI.” The NIHR/Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility (CRF) at Radiochemistry lab This kind of work requires skilful chemistry to label UCLH is a purpose-built environment for early phase clinical metabolic traces and UCL has leading expertise in PET trials and other research projects. The facility provides beds, The BRC is setting up a high spec radiochemistry tracing chemistry. a laboratory, a dispensing pharmacy, and specialist staff, all laboratory to enable researchers to develop new ways of “The frustrating thing was that we did not have the dedicated to clinical research. manufacturing radiotracers for use in nuclear imaging. capacity to use our own tracers because we didn’t have The CRF provides researchers with a specialist environment The new lab – to be built in the next year – will enable the GMP (Good Medical Practice) grade facilities to actually where they can conduct their studies as safely, effectively scientists to develop and manufacture radiotracers to the work up those new innovative models and tracers to put and efficiently as possible. Research taking place at the CRF high standards needed for use in clinical trials. them into patients. The BRC has fixed that.” focuses on understanding the causes of human disease and the effects of new treatments, tests and devices. Some of Radiotracers are small amounts of radioactive material used Phenotyping clinic in imaging the body. Radiotracers enable researchers to the trials will be of new drugs being used for the first time observe the disease process happening. Once the tracer has The BRC has allocated half a million pounds towards in human volunteers. At any one time the facility hosts over been administered, specialised PET/MRI (Positron emission establishing an adult cardiovascular phenotyping clinic in 50 research projects involving innovative treatments. tomography/magnetic resonance imaging) is used to detect partnership with the UCL Institute of Cardiovascular Science the radiation throughout the body. and UCLPartners. The new lab will enable researchers to use radiotracers they Phenotyping involves identifying the observable have produced themselves rather than had manufactured characteristics of an organism, such as shape, size, colour, elsewhere to carry out first in man studies. Work at the lab and behaviour, that result from the interaction of its will focus particularly on developing novel tracers for use in genotype with the environment. UCLH’s PET/MRI facility which is the only facility of its kind in The clinic is an area dedicated to research, which includes a the UK and one of the few in Europe. laboratory and provides space for specialist cardiovascular BRC Director Professor Bryan Williams says: “The hospital research staff and an academic diabetes research team, has the only PET MRI scanner in the country at the moment. research fellows and graduate students. This is a combined scanning tool that allows you to apply The clinic provides a base from which to carry out research PET, which uses special tracers that look at metabolism into adult vascular physiology, supporting essential research and when used alongside MRI, also look at structure. This within the cardiometabolic domain involving heart disease provides leading edge imaging for many disease areas, and metabolic disorders such as diabetes. including cancer and neurology. “You can, for example, look at a lesion, see whether it’s metabolically active and that might indicate that it is a

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the BRC delivering innovation and trying to change the trajectory of individuals in basic science career pathways to make them oriented more towards translation.”

Experimental medicine conferences We are developing a series of high profile experimental medicine conferences to build interactions within the BRC programmes and between the programmes and external audiences. Two conferences are planned for 2014, one for our Cardiometabolic Programme, and another on ‘Experimental Highlights of the ACO’s major initiatives medicine in a pandemic’. Training researchers and include: the next generation of Tomorrow’s leaders UCL BRCs-Francis Crick Clinical Fellowship scheme investigators The ACO is offering up to eight BRC faculty staff the The BRC has funded new clinical research fellows working opportunity to attend a senior leadership programme at on experimental medicine. The is a UCL’s integrated Academic Careers Office (ACO) is led the UCLH NHS Staff College. The ACO and UCL’s School of major new research biomedical institute currently due to by the BRC’s education and training lead and supported Life and Medical Sciences (SLMS) in collaboration with UCL open in 2015 and will house around 1,400 scientists. by the BRC. Organisation Development have also developed a bespoke Future Leaders programme for SLMS staff who show The BRC has an ambitious programme of research and MiniMD excellent leadership potential. clinical academic training aimed at supporting researchers MiniMD is a two-week intensive course for non-clinical and developing a new generation of experimental medicine scientists. This free course is designed to give participants The ACO has also secured a Wellcome Trust Clinical PhD researchers. This programme is supported by a cross-cutting first-hand experience of what their work could do in a programme which involves funding of around £6.5 million education and training programme delivered through the clinical setting. from the Wellcome Trust. The first cohort who will come to integrated Academic Careers Office. The mission of the UCL as clinical PhD students are being recruited. The first course, run in collaboration with London Cancer, Academic Careers Office (ACO) is to promote, support focused on breast cancer. Participants experienced different Professor Rees says: “What we do is talent management. and develop all aspects of academic and clinical academic aspects of the cancer care pathway including a hospice, Our remit is to set up and lead new programmes for careers in the School of Life and Medical Sciences (SLMS) an operating theatre, radiotherapy suites, out-patients, postgraduate research training, bring the community and the BRC. chemotherapy, and histology. we’ve got together and increase the quality of existing programmes, innovate in new ways of training and develop ACO director Professor says: “We did it as the leaders of the future in the life and medical sciences. an experiment and sought feedback to see if people liked it and saw value. The feedback was fantastic and we are “We’re trying to do something special to find out where our now going to repeat that on an annual basis. That’s about talent is and then manage and promote it.”

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Patient and public New ideas Focusing on BRC involvement Innovation is fundamental to the aims of the BRC. The BRC structures has set up the UCLH Innovation Office to help UCLH staff The BRC has been working hard to embed the active The BRC has made fundamental changes to its structure in develop inventions, innovative products or services which involvement of patients and the public in the research it the past year and condensed activities from the previous have application beyond the trust. supports and in the way the BRC itself operates. theme structure into four programmes: The office provides an advice and support service specifically Patient and public involvement (PPI) leads to better research, • Cancer for UCLH staff with ideas or solutions that have a direct by making sure research better meets the needs of patients, effect on patients or patient care. These solutions may be a • Neurosciences is more rigorously and effectively conducted, and leads to product, piece of equipment, or service such as a training treatments that are taken up more quickly. • Cardiometabolic Science tool, medical device or a piece of software, and may have We have established a lay panel in each of our programmes. commercial value. • Infection, Immunity and Inflammation. These groups of lay people meet on a regular basis and are The service has proved highly popular and examples of ideas This structure reflects our strengths as well as aligning with available to review research proposals and design. A lay brought forward by Trust staff include: the UCLH clinical board structures and the UCL academic representative sits on each of our programme boards. domains. • software that allows hands free manipulation of medical The BRC secured £20,000 from the Wellcome Trust to images in sterile environments Professor Bryan Williams was appointed BRC Director and set up a PPI bursary to fund and encourage PPI initiatives. programme directors were appointed for each of the four We have also secured funding to provide a service for • reducing the transmission of bacteria via computer programmes: Professor David Linch; Professor Nick Wood; researchers submitting grant applications with the aim of keyboards Professor Derek Yellon; and Dr Emma Morris. giving grant applications a better chance of success and • an integrated telephone triage service staffed by BRC Chief Operating Officer Dr Nick McNally says: “We providing models of good practice. expert multiple sclerosis nurses to make care transformed the BRC and have got it much more focused The BRC runs training sessions for researchers on PPI management easier. on our areas of strength. The focus has been achieved and induction sessions for lay people who will be working through leadership and through our structures – focusing with us. on those four areas of world-class strength and we’ve reallocated money in line with that.”

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Funding Tangible results and achievements of the BRC • Between 2011 and 2013 there was a 9% rise in the BRC funding comes from the Department of Health’s number of new early phase clinical trials approved at National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). When the UCLH and a 35% increase in the number of commercial BRC was awarded a further £100 million, it was tasked with contract clinical trials approved. the need to focus more on experimental medicine and to • Four times more research stories have been published on develop closer working and partnerships with industry. the BRC website over the last 12 months following the In 2012, the BRC carried out a review of its existing funding appointment of a Communications and PPI (Patient and structure and commitments and began to use a new Public Involvement) Officer to help researchers prepare resource model that incentivises world-class activity and their work for the wider media. rewards leverage. • Over 400 participants have been recruited to the UCL In light of the BRC’s new strategic focus on experimental BioResource initiative, donating their DNA samples and medicine, the BRC reviewed the research it funds. Research consenting to be contacted at a later date about research activity falling outside of the new BRC strategy has been studies they may be suitable for. moved onto alternative appropriate funding streams. • The BRC secured £20,000 from the Wellcome Trust Around £10m has been allocated to support the high We have simplified the methodology used to allocate for the development of patient groups and a bursary impact, experimental medicine initiatives. funding for NHS Support Costs and reviewed the BRC funding pot. overheads. Dr McNally says: “An important part of what we do now • The BRC now has 176 industry collaborators and is to use our BRC infrastructure, funding and resources to The net effect of our financial review was to identify a the top six companies are: Astra Zeneca; Eli Lilly; leverage the resources of other organisations. Typically, significant increase in the core budgets for research. GlaxoSmithKline; Janssen-Cilag; Novartis; and Pfizer. what we are starting to achieve are some great results in Our programmes have started to fund new initiatives that opening up the UCLH/UCL partnership to collaboration with • The UCL Academic Careers Office has secured around are in line with the principle that BRC funds must, wherever industry.” £6.5 million from the Wellcome Trust for a Clinical PhD possible, be used to leverage grant and industry research programme. The first cohort is being recruited and will With some high profile pharmaceutical companies income. come to UCL to be clinical PhD students. leaving or threatening to leave the UK, the government We have also allocated £2.5m to the BRC Education and is promoting a life sciences agenda that aims to attract • The BRC awarded £6 million to six high impact initiatives. Training Programme to help retain, attract and train the companies back. • A new BRC website (www.uclhospitals.brc.nihr.ac.uk) most promising next generation of clinical scientists in The BRC believes it has a key role in helping to drive culture was launched and a new BRC e-Newsletter started and experimental medicine. changes from within academia and the NHS to show circulated to over 2,000 staff. Funding is also going towards core experimental medicine industry that we are keen to work with them and to think • The UCLH Innovation Office was set up to work with infrastructure, including the BRC leadership and operations openly about what partnerships can deliver in terms of trust staff to develop their ideas for improving quality of teams, the Joint Research Office, the BioResource and the health gains, but also create wealth. care for patients. Industry Liaison Management Team. 13 NIHR University College London Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre

• A pivotal clinical trial involving a drug shown to have a “We need to be even bolder and identify the big questions. positive effect in cancer patients has been developed and The future These would ideally be aligned to areas in which we have early details have been published on the BRC’s website. demonstrable strengths and graft seamlessly onto the Our BRC focuses on encouraging and promoting work to strategic direction of the university and the NHS Trust. • BRC studies have been published in high-impact titles help experimental medicine translate into future clinical such as Nature, Nature Science, The Lancet, and the New practice and better patient care. “I have asked all the four big programmes – Cancer, England Journal of Medicine showing the outcomes of Neurosciences, Cardiometabolic disease, and Infection, Much of what we have done over the last 18 months has BRC work. Immunity and Inflammation – to think what would be three focused on making use of the massive amounts of data or four big questions that your programme would want to • UCL won the International Collaboration of the Year produced by the NHS and scientists, speeding up the address. I want those questions to resonate with the public. award in December 2013 at the Times Higher Education process of research by providing state of the art facilities Awards, for the University of Zambia-University College and working closely with industry. We envisage this work “By setting out our stall and creating awareness of London Medical School (UNZA-UCLMS) Research & reaping rewards not only in the near future but in many our big questions we can begin to recruit the best and Training Programme, led by BRC-supported Professor years to come. leverage grant income from major funders and engage Alimuddin Zumla. more effectively with industry. We will be challenging the As the BRC progresses, it is starting to identify the ‘big boundaries. • The Academic Careers Office ran a highly successful questions’ in research. BRC Director Professor Bryan ‘MiniMD’ training course for non-clinical scientists to see Williams says: “I want our BRC to be distinctive. It’s a health “This kind of ground-breaking thinking about new ways of what their future work could do in a clinical setting. orientated programme and it’s not specifically just about tackling disease is a perfect example of the BRC’s ambition – translating scientific discovery to improve patient outcomes. • A series of high profile experimental medicine funding individuals and their projects, but about targeting Tomorrows medicine today for our patients at UCLH.” conferences are planned to begin in 2014. major funding at research that is going to address big questions and change medicine. • Half a million pounds had been allocated by the BRC’s cardiometabolic programme towards establishing an adult phenotyping clinic – in partnership with the UCL Institute of Cardiovascular Science and UCLPartners to allow research into adult vascular physiology. • Drug industry representatives are showing interest in work being done by UCL researchers into rare disease following a successful conference held in summer 2013. • The Academic Careers Office is to launch an academic clinician website/blog in early 2014. • Purchase of a next generation sequencer has enabled researchers to sequence over 1,100 exomes.

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Photography: David C Bishop, Medical Illustration Services Angus Hubbard, Loaded Productions NHS Photo Library Design: Susan Rentoul Design

The National Institute for Health Research University College London Hospitals Biomedical www.uclhospitals.brc.nihr.ac.uk Research Centre is a partnership between University College London Hospitals NHS @UCLHresearch Foundation Trust and UCL (University College London) and is part of the National Institute for Health Research. www.uclh.nhs.uk www.ucl.ac.uk 1st Floor, Maple House 149 London W1T 7NF Telephone: 020 7679 6639 January 2014