NIHRDataInsights/HRCSData huggingface dataset:
Award Title: Thanzi La Mawa: Integrated Analysis of Health System Capabilities and Effects on Population Health in Malawi and Eastern, Central and Southern Africa
Funder: Wellcome Trust

Abstract: Those responsible for the healthcare sector in countries in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa must decide what to do with limited resources to generate the greatest possible benefit to the health of the people they serve. We propose to develop new methods and collect new data to characterize the means by which the healthcare system produces health benefits in the context of a complex and evolving pattern of demand for healthcare. Our proposed approach is to build a detailed and theoretically-principled simulation model that couples a ‘Healthcare Production Module’ with an agent-based ‘Epidemiological Module’, that together would represent the mechanisms by which resources create healthcare that lead to health gains. We will use these methods to examine: how can the currently available resources (budgets and non-financial resources) for health be used to generate the greatest health gains; how could greater gains be achieved with more financial resources; and how should the healthcare system adapt in response to evolving burdens of diseases. We will work closely with national and regional institutions to translate the insights into strategic planning and policy and facilitate the routine usage of these methods by governmental analysts throughout the region.

Lay Abstract: Those responsible for the healthcare sectors in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa must decide what to do with limited resources to create the greatest possible health benefits for people they serve. However, deciding on how and what services should be provided is difficult because healthcare is complex, the needs of the population are many and not every possible service can be afforded. We will build a computer model of the healthcare system, which will help because the effect of different choices can then be examined before they are implemented. We will work with the government of Malawi to tackle the questions it faces and also support analysts in the region to use the computer model to tackle the questions being faced elsewhere. This should lead to better decision making and contribute to improvements in health.

Research Activity Codes: 8.1 ORGANISATION AND DELIVERY OF SERVICES;8.4 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGIES (HEALTH SERVICES)
Health Categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE
Award Title: The Birmingham CRUK Centre Clinical Academic Training and Research Programme / Year 2
Funder: Cancer Research UK

Abstract: Background: As the practice of oncology becomes ever more complex there is an increasing need for clinicians who have been trained not only to become excellent physicians but also as leading scientists. A rigorous scientific education is essential to ensuring that the UK not only produces top flight academic clinicians at the forefront of innovative clinical trial design, doctors who are able to develop the appropriate translational research programmes but also clinician scientists who have the ability to understand critical clinical questions and design and run laboratory programmes with a view to answering them. An ambitious clinical academic training programme is pivotal to this and at the Cancer Research UK Birmingham Centre we have developed a robust programme to help develop the vision.    Aims: To develop and successfully deliver a world class academic training programme for clinical trainees so as to produce first rate clinicians working in the area of cancer management who can think scientifically and maintain the UKs reputation as a beacon of academic excellence.    Methods: Building on our established structures that deliver excellent clinical academic training we propose to train 3 MBPhD students per annum to start their PhDs at the completion of their intercalated degree or for graduate entry students after year 1 (of 4 years) of their medical degree. We will also offer scientific training to 3 Clinical Research Training Fellows annually who will enter their PhD during their clinical training as per standard practice. We will develop structures to attract the best young students and trainees including earlier exposure to oncologists and related clinicians to enable individuals to make an informed decision about pursuing a clinical cancer research career. We will develop comprehensive mentorship and support programmes post-PhD to maintain scientific engagement and excellence to ensure that wherever possible candidates become academic clinicians and clinician scientists in oncology and related disciplines. We will also offer shorter research courses such as MSc and MDs.    How the results of this research will be used: The main aim of this programme is to increase the number of clinical academics working in cancer related specialities in the next 15 years. It is our belief that these individuals are critical to CRUKs ambition to improve the cure rate of people with cancer from 50% to 75% within the next 20 years, and the ultimate aim of bringing forward the day when all cancers are cured.


Research Activity Codes: 2.1 BIOLOGICAL AND ENDOGENOUS FACTORS;5.1 PHARMACEUTICALS
Health Categories: CANCER AND NEOPLASMS
Award Title: The Chemical Probes Portal: An Open Resource Empowering High Quality Chemical Biology
Funder: Wellcome Trust

Abstract: The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), in partnership with the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC), proposes to assume responsibility for the Chemical Probes Portal (http://www.chemicalprobes.org/) (Portal) and move its operations to the UK. We request funds to complement existing in-kind and financial support in order to: maintain, enhance and expand the Portal; ensure its continuation as an invaluable public resource; and implement a sustainability plan for future independence.
 
The Portal is a public online resource created to provide biomedical researchers with expert advice to identify the most appropriate chemical probes for their experiments. Experts rank probes using a star rating and provide advice on their properties and use. It is an innovative, open science solution with a clear aim – to reduce the use of poor quality probes in the literature, and thus increase the quality and reproducibility of scientific research.
 
The Portal is currently supported by small donations from companies and in-kind contributions from a founding set of 146 advisors from academia and industry. We are seeking complementary funding from The Wellcome Trust to enhance, extend and maintain the core infrastructure, to expand the number of probes, and to better communicate the Portal’s offering to funders, scientists and publishers.

Lay Abstract: Chemical substances that modulate biological systems are widely used by biomedical researchers to understand biological mechanisms, decipher mechanisms of disease, and discover novel drugs. They complement genetic technologies, and the approaches are especially powerful when used together. Chemical tools must be selected and used very carefully. Only specific, highly characterised compounds, called chemical probes, provide interpretable information regarding the biology of proteins. Inappropriate selection and use of chemical probes can lead to misleading results; wasting time and resources. Many researchers lack the expertise to select the most appropriate chemical probes, and relevant expertise often resides in industry. As a solution, the Chemical Probes Portal, an open, web-based community resource, provides trusted, expert advice to help the research community to select and use the right probes. Through our collaborative public-private partnership, we will enhance and significantly increase the content of the Portal and provide a sustainability plan to ensure its continuation.

Research Activity Codes: 2.6 RESOURCES AND INFRASTRUCTURE (AETIOLOGY)
Health Categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE
Award Title: The Child's Speech: speech therapy, stammering, and activism in Britain, 1906-2000
Funder: Wellcome Trust

Abstract: This project will produce a cultural and social history of speech therapy in twentieth-century Britain that is ambitious in seeking to account for the entwined relationship of speech therapy to stammering activism, not simply in a relationship of medical professional to patient. Municipalities employed speech therapists from c.1906 to ‘correct’ what (in contemporary language) were considered ‘defects’ of children’s speech. Early therapists were often female, trained in drama-school elocution and only later became medicalised. Consequently, they were as marginalised as the disabled subjects they sought to ‘treat’. Conversely, individuals who stammered long pointed towards the uniqueness of their position and voice to militate for improved therapy. In short, this project allows an ambitious study that cuts across normally polarised voices of ‘medical professional’ and ‘patient experience’ to explore the boundaries of what encompasses ‘the medical’ itself: both as practices (elocution therapeutics and activism) and as theories (what ‘stammering’ meant). ‘The Child’s Speech’ therefore offers a unique case study into the margins of disability studies which can point towards new frameworks for thinking about professionalisation; its relationship to competing, but also harmonising, forms of expertise, patient voice, experience and activism; and wider gender, race, class and disability dynamics within these.

Lay Abstract: Stammering remains on the margins of disability and disability studies. This project will develop the first history of speech therapy for children who stammered in twentieth-century Britain, explored through the stories of stammering activism and speech therapy which - I argue - are not separate but bound together. Speech therapy as a profession has also historically been marginalised within medicine, mostly on account of gender (its practitioners are overwhelmingly female and have faced discrimination as a consequence) and its historical links to elocution rather than experimental science. Stammering activism has long proceeded alongside the development of therapy – from early twentieth-century therapists who mobilised experiences of being (former) ‘stammerers’ through to the creation of the British Stammering Association in 1978. In exploring these interconnections, I shall address broader questions around what terms 'experience', 'expertise' and even 'the medical' mean in the context of stammering and its therapy.

Research Activity Codes: 8.1 ORGANISATION AND DELIVERY OF SERVICES
Health Categories: MENTAL HEALTH
Award Title: The David Peake Study to test the feasibility of whole-body MRI for cancer surveillance in children and young people with Ataxia Telangiectasia
Funder: Action for A-T

Abstract: This project explores the feasibility of whole-body MRI for cancer surveillance in children and young people with Ataxia Telangiectasia

Lay Abstract: Dr Rob Dineen and his team believe that the combination of an MRI scan of the whole body together with a blood test is a good way to find hidden cancers in children and young people with the inherited disease Ataxia Telangiectasia (A-T). In this study which the first of its kind in A-T, they want to see:

whether this type of MRI scan is acceptable to the children and young people with A-T and their families
whether having the MRI scan and blood test causes any additional stress for the people who take part, and
whether the MRI scan and blood test are able to find hidden cancers.
They will also contact experts around the world who treat people with A-T to find out their views and current policies on looking for hidden cancers.

This study is a relatively small to start but if they find that the combination of whole body MRI scans and blood tests are acceptable to the people who take part and their families, the next step will be to carry out a much larger study to show that this approach is really effective at screening for hidden cancers in children and young people with A-T.

Research Activity Codes: 4.1 DISCOVERY AND PRECLINICAL TESTING OF MARKERS AND TECHNOLOGIES
Health Categories: CANCER AND NEOPLASMS;CONGENITAL DISORDERS
Award Title: The Edinburgh-UCL CRUK Glioma Centre of Excellence
Funder: Cancer Research UK

Abstract: Adult and paediatric brain cancers now account for more cancer deaths in the under 40’s than any other tumour types, with adult gliomas accounting for the majority of the ~5000 cases of malignant brain tumours in the UK each year. However, translation to the clinic is hampered by both a lack of a community of academic, science-minded specialist clinicians who work in neuro-oncology, and lack of understanding of the key biological vulnerabilities to target therapeutically. At present, for both paediatric and adult glioblastoma (our area of focus), there is little effective translational pipeline from basic research to clinical trials to enable evidence-led ‘smart’ clinical advances in a UK-wide network with global connections. Only by tackling this we will develop new cures for this dismal disease; for this, we will contribute to building a core community of clinical academics that are linked to high-quality discovery science.  The mission of the Glioma Centre of Excellence (CoE) will be to tackle the building of a new neuro-oncology community as a priority, with integration into our existing strong research and training infrastructure at both UCL and University of Edinburgh. We will simultaneously establish a new translational pipeline that is built upon a deeper biological understanding of GBM. This will take biological and data-intensive research and phenotypic-led drug discovery (in disease-relevant and predictive pre-clinical models) into a strong clinical community that can perform state-of-the-art adaptive clinical studies. To fuel the pipeline, and with additional funding for science in due course, we will maximise new cross-disciplinary opportunities in data-driven innovation, imaging technologies and growing strengths in phenotypic drug discovery using patient-derived GBM cellular models.  Our longer term CoE aims are to improve the landscape across the UK for discovery, and clinical evaluation, of new brain cancer therapeutics.


Research Activity Codes: 5.9 RESOURCES AND INFRASTRUCTURE (TREATMENT DEVELOPMENT);6.9 RESOURCES AND INFRASTRUCTURE (TREATMENT EVALUATION);4.5 RESOURCES AND INFRASTRUCTURE (DETECTION);2.6 RESOURCES AND INFRASTRUCTURE (AETIOLOGY)
Health Categories: CANCER AND NEOPLASMS
Award Title: The Global Alliance for Genomics and Health: Setting the Standards for Genomics and Health-Related Data Sharing
Funder: Wellcome Trust

Abstract: The decreasing cost of genomic sequencing will yield millions of samples in the coming years from both research and healthcare. To make the most use of these data, the community must agree on common methods for collecting, storing, transferring, accessing, and analyzing data. 
 
This proposal will support the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH; www.ga4gh.org) as it develops the standards and policies necessary for effective and responsible data sharing. With more than 1,000 active contributors working across more than 30 countries in the areas of healthcare, research, patient advocacy, life science, and information technology, this diverse organization enables broad sharing that transcends the boundaries of any single institution or country. 
 
We envision a future in which the full suite of GA4GH standards enables all clinicians, geneticists, and researchers to search across the world’s collective genomic data to reveal unanticipated gene-disease associations, make otherwise impossible drug-response predictions, and generally participate in genomics at a competitive pace—regardless of their means or location. 
 
The promise of genomic medicine lies at a crossroads that depends on community harmonization and will significantly enhance human health and medicine if we succeed. We believe GA4GH is necessary to that success.


Research Activity Codes: 1.5 RESOURCES AND INFRASTRUCTURE (UNDERPINNING);2.6 RESOURCES AND INFRASTRUCTURE (AETIOLOGY)
Health Categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE
Award Title: The Human Behaviour-Change Project: Building the science of behaviour change for complex intervention development
Funder: Wellcome Trust

Abstract: What the activity will look like: 
 
We will bring together health-interested publics and population-health decision-makers for a series of workshops engaging with key aspects of the AI System and co-producing a toolkit of resources to facilitate appropriate trust in AI systems applied to population health.
 
 
 
What we will have achieved
 
1: Co-produced toolkit of resources
 
Exact nature of the resources will depend on outcomes of the workshops.  We envisage resources that explain and prompt questioning about key features of the AI System and promote consideration of personal values/preferences regarding those aspects to decide upon trust in the System. The toolkit will also be applicable to discussions of trust in other AI systems applied to population health.
 
 
 
2:  Multi-media documentation of discussions in workshops
 
  • Developed in partnership with participants
  • Made publicly available online
  • Documenting issues raised and providing case studies of public engagement
 
 
 
3: Interactive public talk on facilitating appropriate trust in AI in population health decision-making
 
  • With live web video link and video-recording
  • Opportunities for Q&A’s during and after
 
 
 
4: Additions to the HBCP AI System user interface
 
Toolkit resources will be linked to the System’s online interface and their use promoted to people querying the AI System.
 
 
 
Overarching these achievements will be efforts to achieve long-lasting and widespread reach 
 
The dissemination and engagement strategy will be both broad and targeted, maximising exposure to and engagement with the outputs, including a social media campaign. Long-term availability of the outputs will be ensured through hosting them on the HBCP website.


Research Activity Codes: 3.1 PRIMARY PREVENTION INTERVENTIONS TO MODIFY BEHAVIOURS OR PROMOTE WELL-BEING
Health Categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE;CANCER AND NEOPLASMS;CARDIOVASCULAR;STROKE;METABOLIC AND ENDOCRINE
Award Title: The IDEAL Study: Investigating The DEterminants Of COVID-19 Outcomes Across East London
Funder: Barts Charity

Abstract: People from Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds are more likely to become very unwell or die from COVID-19 than those of white ethnicity. COVID-19 has unmasked alarmingly poorer outcomes in BAME communities which are not new and must be urgently addressed. Underlying reasons are unclear; suggestions include an interplay between pre-existing health conditions and socio-economic factors (e.g. occupational or health literacy) which may have compromised social distancing or resulted in delayed presentation for care. COVID-19 has deeply affected the multi-ethnic communities of East London so we believe it is the right place to base this study which aims to examine in detail, if and why these differences exist in BAME communities. We will bring together clinical data of COVID-19 patients from Barts Health hospitals and local authority data to help us identify factors that support people to have better health and those that increase the risk of ill-health. We will then work directly with local BAME residents, in a variety of ways, to understand their life before, and during, COVID-19. This research will help NHS and policymakers develop realistic and effective strategies to reduce the damaging impact of COVID-19 on BAME communities. We hope it will also provide useful insights for other health issues where ethnic differences exist.


Research Activity Codes: 2.1 BIOLOGICAL AND ENDOGENOUS FACTORS;2.3 PSYCHOLOGICAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FACTORS;8.3 POLICY, ETHICS AND RESEARCH GOVERNANCE
Health Categories: INFECTION
Award Title: The Jalview Resource for Biological Sequence, Structure and Function Analysis: 2019 and Beyond
Funder: Wellcome Trust

Abstract: The Jalview Resource is an open-source, GPL-licenced, graphical multiple sequence alignment editor and analysis workbench, first developed in 1996. It is installed on >57,000 computers in >130 countries and publications describing Jalview have been cited >5,600 times. In addition to sophisticated colouring, filtering, searching, alignment editing and annotation functions for DNA, RNA and Protein sequences, Jalview provides linked views of trees, three-dimensional structures and RNA secondary structure. Eight standard multiple alignment algorithms, four disorder predictors, seventeen conservation methods, the JPred protein secondary structure predictor and RNAalifold RNA structure predictor are freely available in Jalview.  Users can interactively search PDBe and Uniprot, and retrieve alignments and genomic data from the Interpro and Ensembl data resources at the EMBL-EBI.  Wellcome Trust investment since 2014 enabled improvements, including efficient handling of long genes with large numbers of annotations, a linked DNA/RNA/protein multiple alignment window, discovering and displaying genetic variation from Ensembl, extended querying against PDBe and Uniprot EMBL-EBI services and the development of >30 training videos that have received >50,000 views. Here we request support to extend the Jalview Resource to add sophisticated facilities for long RNA-read interpretation, reproducible data analysis, further links with EMBL-EBI, and a new web-friendly JavaScript version: JalviewJS.

Lay Abstract: This project will enhance a powerful computer application called Jalview that is used by tens of thousands of scientists worldwide to help them understand the function of genes and the effect mutations in DNA have on disease.   Jalview works on Windows, Apple and Linux computers and provides tools to align sequences to see which regions are similar and so help find what their function is.  Jalview links to international databases to extract information and show it graphically on the alignment to help scientists understand their context.  Jalview has features to allow time-consuming calculations to be routed to remote supercomputers that perform these tasks efficiently.  It also has built in functions to calculate and display evolutionary trees and the three-dimensional structures of proteins and other molecules. This project will make Jalview work on iPads and web pages and provide videos to help scientists and school students learn to use it.

Research Activity Codes: 1.5 RESOURCES AND INFRASTRUCTURE (UNDERPINNING)
Health Categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE