The funding will pay for new research equipment and improve research facilities for patients across the NHS.
The Birmingham NIHR Clinical Research Facility (CRF) has been awarded £4 million from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).
This funding is part of a £96 million fund that has been awarded to NHS organisations across England, to enhance the delivery of research. The funding will pay for new research equipment and improve research facilities for patients across the NHS, helping teams to find new ways to prevent and treat diseases.
The Birmingham NIHR CRF is a collaboration between University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB), Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust (BWC) and the University of Birmingham (UoB).
In Birmingham, new equipment will enable the delivery of innovative health technology services, including a range of cell and gene therapies requiring specialist pharmacy facilities. For example, onsite isolators will support preparation within the research facilities, speeding up the delivery of CAR-T trials for patients with haematology (blood) cancers, as well as trials into cancer vaccines for patients with a variety of solid tumour cancers
The funding will also provide new laboratory equipment, essential for storing samples from patients recruited to metabolic research studies. This will support researchers with ground breaking work in the prevention, treatment and management of metabolic disease for adults and children across Birmingham.
The bid was led by Jo Gray, NIHR Birmingham Clinical Research Facility Clinical Manager, who said: “This successful bid for equipment and upgrades to our facility is fantastic and will make such a difference to patients and research teams across all partner sites.
“We have ambitious plans in place to upgrade existing equipment, as well as increase our ability to support new research across the sites. New equipment will include a paediatric ‘peapod’, which measures body composition and growth in premature born infants, and biosafety cabinets, which provide an enclosed ventilated space for drug preparation.
“Our portfolio of gastrointestinal (GI) and respiratory studies will also be able to grow with the addition of new endoscopy equipment. One of the key GI trials to benefit will be the INCEPTION clinic for patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). This trial aims to improve diagnosis and prognosis, and make more informed decisions on IBD treatment through biomarker discovery and implementation, by understanding more about how different microbiomes affect gut and oral immune responses.”
Professor Lorraine Harper, NIHR Birmingham Clinical Research Facility Programme Director, added: “We are tremendously proud that our hospitals have been selected for this award from the NIHR to improve the delivery of research in our local population. The award, which builds on existing clinical-academic collaborations facilitated by Birmingham Health Partners, will benefit our adult and paediatric patients, improving their access to new therapies and treatments, which can potentially be life-changing.”
Dr. Jan Idkowiak, NIHR Birmingham Clinical Research Facility Director (BWC), said: “This is very exciting. This award allows us to expand our ability to deliver cutting-edge clinical research beyond the Children’s Hospital, as it will enable us to include pregnant women and their children at the Women’s Hospital. This will be a huge benefit for our patients and will offer great opportunities to develop new therapies.”
Professor Philip Newsome, Director of the NIHR Birmingham Biomedical Research Centre (BRC), commented: “This is fantastic news for both the CRF and for the organisations that work with them, like us from the Birmingham BRC. The CRF has been a key partner in delivering many of our experimental research studies, and we collaborate closely on our training, patient and public involvement, and equality, diversity and inclusion programmes too. We are looking forward to continuing working together to deliver patient benefit.”
About UHB
UHB runs Heartlands, Good Hope, Solihull and the Queen Elizabeth hospitals; UHB also hosts the Institute of Translational Medicine (ITM).
The Trust has approximately 2,700 beds, over 80 theatres and a 100-bedded critical care unit - the largest in Europe, and cares for over 2.2 million patients each year, employing over 24,000 staff.
QEHB is a Major Trauma Centre treating the most severely injured casualties from across the region.
Our hospitals are regional centres of excellence for trauma, burns, plastics, neurosciences and cancer and in 2014 became a lead genomics centre as part of the NHS 100,000 genomes project.
UHB is proud to host the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine (RCDM). The RCDM provides dedicated training for defence personnel and is a focus for medical research.
About Birmingham Health Partners
Birmingham Health Partners is a strategic alliance between eight University and NHS members who collaborate to deliver groundbreaking translational research, world-class education and training, and the highest quality patient care. Its members are:
About Birmingham Women’s and Children’s
Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHSFT is the first of its kind in the country comprising two main hospital sites (Birmingham Women’s Hospital and Birmingham Children’s Hospital) and well as Forward Think Birmingham – a child and adolescent mental health service.
Birmingham Women’s Hospital is home to the leading Fertility Centre in the Midlands. The fetal medicine centre receives regional and national referrals and BWH is home to the West Midlands Regional Genetics Laboratory - the largest of its type in Europe and an international centre for education, research and development.
Birmingham Children’s Hospital is the UK’s leading specialist paediatric centre, caring for sick children and young people up to the age of 16. Rated as ‘Outstanding’ by the CQC. The Children’s Hospital is a national liver and small bowel transplant centre and are a global centre of excellence for complex heart conditions, the treatment of burns, cancer and liver and kidney disease. It is a nationally designated specialist centre for paediatric epilepsy surgery and boast a paediatric major trauma centre for the West Midlands.
About the National Institute for Health and Care Research
The mission of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) is to improve the health and wealth of the nation through research. We do this by:
NIHR is funded by the Department of Health and Social Care. Its work in low and middle income countries is principally funded through UK Aid from the UK government.
NIHR Biomedical Research Centres (BRCs)
NIHR Biomedical Research Centres (BRCs) are collaborations between NHS organisations and universities. They bring together academics and clinicians to translate scientific discoveries into potential new treatments, diagnostics and technologies.
The NIHR Birmingham Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) is part of the NIHR and hosted by University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHBFT) in partnership with the University of Birmingham (UoB).
Professor of Nephrology
Professor Lorraine Harper, Professor of Nephrology, Institute of Applied Health Research, University of Birmingham
Clinical Associate Professor in Paediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes
Staff profile of Dr Jan Idkowiak, Clinical Associate Professor in Paediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes in the Department of Metabolism and Systems Research (MSS), University of Birmingham.
Honorary Professor of Experimental Hepatology and Honorary Consultant Hepatologist
Staff profile for Professor Philip Newsome, Honorary Professor of Experimental Hepatology, University of Birmingham.
