NIHRDataInsights/HRCSData huggingface dataset:
Award Title: Biomedical Research and the Politics of the Human
Funder: Wellcome Trust

Abstract: The human is a primary reference point for the aims of contemporary biomedical research along with its ethical and political groundings. This project asks: what and who constitutes that human? Despite the many assumptions we may hold about what and who is human, no study has delivered fine-grained empirical research about how scientists, policymakers and regulators approach and define the human across the levels of cells, tissues, and organisms. A series of changes—in biomedicine and in the scholarship on science and society—signal that it is a crucial time to reconsider the meaning and function of the human in the life sciences. Using an inductive qualitative approach, this project offers an ambitious plan for an empirical reorientation with the human in relation to two domains of biomedicine that constitute the project’s work packages:
 
1) Kidney Organoids: miniature organs grown in petri dishes.
 
2) Interspecies Mammalian Chimera: injecting human cells into developing pig embryos
 
Based on a theoretical framework that draws together insights from science and technology studies, sociology and legal and political studies, the project is built on detailed empirical observation of the two research domains covering four national case studies in the UK, Spain, Germany and USA.

Lay Abstract: At the heart of biomedical research is the pursuit of human health. Humans are a primary reference point for the aims of biomedical research, along with its ethical and political groundings. Amidst rapid technological change, my project asks: what and who constitutes this human? To answer this question, I explore the development of human organoids and interspecies chimera. Through national case studies, my project uses a qualitative approach to examine how new technological advances are redrawing the limits and boundaries of the human. We hold many assumptions about what and who is human. But no study has yet investigated empirically just how such designations are made across biomedical research. My project does not set out to prove what the human is (or really should be), but rather to learn what the researchers and diverse stakeholders of contemporary bioscience take it to mean - in times of uncertainty and technological change.

Research Activity Codes: 8.3 POLICY, ETHICS AND RESEARCH GOVERNANCE
Health Categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE
Award Title: Biophysical design of immunomodulatory nanotherapeutics
Funder: Cancer Research UK

Abstract: The next generation of cancer treatments is expected to be dominated by immunotherapies that direct the body’s own immune system against the cancer. Many immunotherapy drugs are molecules that bind to receptor-proteins on immune cell surfaces, either activating them or inhibiting their activity. Such drugs are invariably single molecules that bind one or at most two of the cell surface-receptor proteins. However recent research has shown that such a single-molecule approach is not a good representation of what happens when immune cells are activated naturally. Rather, we now know that immune cell receptors typically assemble into domains that each contain in the range of 10-200 molecules, called nanoclusters. Nanoclusters play a key role in immune cell signalling, with clear evidence that changes in their size and makeup can control cell activation. Here we will exploit these new insights to develop a new type of immunotherapy drug candidate which is not a single molecule but an artificial nanostructure designed to mimic the natural nanoclusters. This will consist of drug-like molecules anchored to tiny flakes of the material nanographene oxide, with an additional polymer molecule for biocompatibilization. We will test this approach across several types of immune cell that are targets of current cancer therapy. The project will demonstrate that assembling immunotherapy drug molecules into these artificial nanoclusters can enhance their effectiveness in stimulating immune cells, and to identify specific drug molecules where this is most effective leading towards the first generation of these new nanotherapeutics.


Research Activity Codes: 5.1 PHARMACEUTICALS
Health Categories: CANCER AND NEOPLASMS
Award Title: Biostrain - development of a novel medical device for measuring and stabilising core-muscle imbalances, from lumbar-patients to elite-athletes.
Funder: Innovate UK

Abstract: **Public description**



Our experienced and proven team is developing Biostrain, a novel medical device to enable clinicians and users to diagnose and treat imbalances in muscle groups known to cause lower-back pain, spinal and hamstring injuries.



This groundbreaking new technology will offer major advantages over current techniques, from a wide variety of users from stroke patients to back pain sufferers, to orthopaedic specialists and amateur & elite sports-people. The market-pull for this solution have been proven through rigorous customer discovery.



The device is simple to use, and will be developed, manufactured & distributed within the UK in collaboration with proven medical device development partner Lucid Group.



Biostrain addresses wider economic and social challenges including UK Industrial Strategy and NHS long-term priorities for preventive healthcare, focus on helping people keep active, reducing susceptibility to debilitating injury. Lower-back-pain increased 12% 1990-2010, particularly in 40-60 year-olds. Resultant production-loss cost were £10,7Bn/year with NHS costs exceeding £2Bn. The project is particularly timely with regard to the Covid pandemic, and the increase in home-working, which is expected to produce an increase in lower back complaints in the coming years, due to poor posture.



Lightweight and portability allows for patient home use whilst clinicians can monitor progression via cloud upload.



In sports, users will be offered a genuine advantage over any other method of hamstring exercise or monitoring. This will enable sportspeople and clinicians to significantly reduce the risk of hamstring injury, improve recovery for existing injuries, and improve performance & speed in healthy athletes.


Research Activity Codes: 5.3 MEDICAL DEVICES
Health Categories: INJURIES AND ACCIDENTS
Award Title: Black Health and the Humanities
Funder: Wellcome Trust

Abstract: The project will establish an interdisciplinary network of researchers with the aim of investigating and bringing to light perspectives from the Black humanities on Black health and wellbeing. Led by the Centre for Black Humanities at the University of Bristol, the project will consist of a series of video conferenced online workshops, symposiums and events, which will: a) create a community of scholars whose research concerns how Black writers, intellectuals, artists, activists and theorists have creatively and critically addressed the psychological and physiological health of black people across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; b) explore how research in Black humanities might intervene in the current racialized landscape of medicine and health; c) train and develop a new generation of ECR scholars in the theories and methods of Black studies and the medical humanities and in how they insect.


Research Activity Codes: 2.3 PSYCHOLOGICAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FACTORS
Health Categories: MENTAL HEALTH;GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE
Award Title: Blood-brain barrier dysfunction and risk of dementia following blood-stream infections
Funder: Medical Research Council

Abstract: Blood-stream infections (BSI) are common life-threatening infections, a leading cause of sepsis and have a 30-day mortality in excess of 15%. Sepsis-associated encephalopathy is characterised by acute neurological dysfunction in response to extra-cranial, systemic infection - occurring in up to 70% of patients with sepsis. Its mechanisms are poorly understood but there are data to suggest an increased risk of subsequent dementia.  Research questions to be answered: 1. What is the relationship between common BSI (Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus) and incident dementia? 2. What are the risk factors for development of dementia following BSI with Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus and do they differ by pathogen? 3. Are Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus BSI associated with increased blood-brain barrier permeability? 4. Are Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus BSI associated with accelerated grey and white matter atrophy? Methods: 1. Public Health Wales Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus BSI data will be linked to routinely collected GP/Hospital patient data using the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) databank. This will take advantage of the newly created dementia e-cohort within SAIL with ~1.2 million people and 130,000 cases of dementia. Survival analysis with a proportional hazards model will then be used to compare time to dementia diagnosis in people who have had BSI compared with those who have not, adjusting for potential confounders.  2. Patients with Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus BSI (n=24) and matched controls (n=12) will be prospectively recruited to a neuroimaging study where MRI scanning (high resolution T1-weighting and dynamic contrast-enhanced) will be performed shortly after and again 12-18 months after blood-stream infection to determine: a. longitudinal rates of atrophy  b. blood-brain barrier dysfunction


Research Activity Codes: 2.1 BIOLOGICAL AND ENDOGENOUS FACTORS
Health Categories: INFECTION;NEUROLOGICAL
Award Title: Building a Well Communities Research Consortium to address health disparities through Integrated Care Systems
Funder: Arts and Humanities Research Council

Abstract: Community assets such as strong community networks and groups, arts and cultural activities, parks and green spaces have been shown to be associated with a wide range of health and social benefits but there are challenges for heath and care systems to realise these benefits at scale. Not everyone is able to benefit from these types of assets, with those from marginalised groups who often experience poorer health least likely to benefit. 

This Research Consortium will explore how local health and care systems can better interface with, develop and mobilise community assets to improve health and reduce health disparities in two contrasting geographical contexts. The Consortium will adapt a framework called 'Well Communities' to develop, plan and co-ordinate its activities. Well Communities brings together a range of asset-based community development and co-production approaches that have been tried, tested and refined across more than 40 of the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods in London and are now being transferred into the Northamptonshire context. The Consortium will build on this work to research and develop ways to scale-up, spread and embed such approaches within new Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) within and outside of London. 

The Well Communities Research Consortium will focus on two broad research questions: 
1) What are the drivers of disparities across communities and how can new ICSs interface with, and help develop and mobilise, community assets to help tackle health disparities?
2) How can models designed to support ICSs to interface with community assets be scaled-up, embedded, sustained, and accessed to contribute to improving health outcomes, reducing disparities and creating healthier communities? 

This case for support is for a nine month project to build our Consortium to fully address the questions above in a subsequent three year research programme. With a focus in particular on arts-based and natural environment assets, a wide range of disciplines and cross-sectoral non-academic partners -  who do not usually work together - are needed to successfully design and undertake the research programme and ensure impact. To build the consortium we will use methodologies from the Well Communities framework, including World Café, whole system workshops, participatory systems mapping and arts-based methods. These methods will facilitate engagement and co-production and develop new relationships and partnerships between people with lived experience, researchers, health and care system stakeholders, community and voluntary sector and those working in arts based and natural environment focused groups and organisations.


Research Activity Codes: 2.3 PSYCHOLOGICAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FACTORS;7.1 INDIVIDUAL CARE NEEDS
Health Categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE
Award Title: Building a temporal proteomics map of the developing Caenorhabditis elegans nervous system
Funder: Wellcome Trust

Abstract: The highly specialized neurons that make up the nervous system of an organism develop from a small number of precursor neural cells. This development is driven by a remodelling of the neuronal proteome. Many neurological disorders have been attributed to the dysregulation of genes that are important for the development of neurons. However, a systematic understanding of which genes or proteins control the complex process of neurodevelopment is so far missing. Therefore, we aim to create a precise temporal map of proteome expression changes that occur during neurodevelopment, and systematically identify proteins that regulate this process. We will take advantage of recent advances in proteomics techniques, such as metabolite and proximity labelling mass spectrometry, which enable the study of tissue-specific protein expression in model organisms. We will use this map to identify proteome changes associated with the assembly and maintenance of neural circuits in Caenorhabditis elegans, with focus on microtubule-related proteins. We expect that this will help to understand how the temporal expression of microtubule-related proteins in neurons affect the development and maintenance of neural circuits and facilitate the development of therapies against neurological disorders.


Research Activity Codes: 1.1 NORMAL BIOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT AND FUNCTIONING
Health Categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE;NEUROLOGICAL
Award Title: CANCER THERAPY USING ANTIBODY-MEDIATED DELIVERY OF ONCOLYTIC VIRUSES
Funder: Medical Research Council

Abstract: Antibody-neutralization of viruses is thought to be irreversible. Hence the current perception that anti-viral neutralizing antibodies in patients are a barrier to systemic oncolytic viral therapy. However, our research has discovered that monocytes are able to internalize, process and reactivate antibody-neutralized viruses such that they can then be transmitted to tumour target cells resulting in infection and lysis. We generated reovirus-NAb (reoNAb) complexes by incubating reovirus with a neutralizing volume of human serum. These were loaded onto isolated human monocytes and co-cultured with reovirus-susceptible tumour cells. When loaded onto monocytes, reoNAb complexes induced tumour cell death, whereas free reoNAb complexes were ineffective.  Thus the virus was fully neutralized by the serum-derived NAb and unable to infect the target cells directly but when loaded onto monocytes it became effective for target cell killing.  We have identified a role for antibody receptor FcgammaRIII in reoNAb uptake by monocytes, but our data suggests other receptors are also involved. This project will use complementary human in vitro and murine in vivo models to investigate the reactivation of antibody-neutralized viruses by monocytes. We will discover whether other oncolytic viruses currently being tested in the clinic are also reactivated by monocytes following antibody neutralization. This will identify those viruses that are applicable for repeat systemic delivery in patients and may also indicate any common viral physiology that would enable prediction of which viruses can be reactivated in this manner. We will also identify other immune cell subsets that are capable of reactivating antibody-neutralized oncolytic viruses and identify the receptors required and we will compare the effect of different antibody isotypes. These investigations will define strategies to improve oncolytic virotherapy in the clinic.


Research Activity Codes: 1.1 NORMAL BIOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT AND FUNCTIONING
Health Categories: INFLAMMATORY AND IMMUNE SYSTEM
Award Title: CLIMB-BIG-DATA: A Cloud Infrastructure for Big-Data Microbial Bioinformatics
Funder: Medical Research Council

Abstract: The CLIMB-BIG-DATA partnership will provide a substantial computational resource that will enhance UK capability and infrastructure in microbial bioinformatics, building on our highly successful CLIMB project. Our computational infrastructure will feature an OpenStack cloud architecture with >10000 virtual CPU cores spanning six research organisations (incorporating clouds from the MRC unit Gambia and the Quadram), with access to the CEPH platform to implement object storage. A dedicated web portal Bryn will allow users to gain easy access to their own virtual machines, preconfigured with powerful user-friendly bioinformatics tools. We will add newly requisitioned specialised servers aimed at memory-intensive tasks (e.g. metagenomic assembly) or compute-intensive tasks (e.g. GPU nanopore analyses) and we will add substantial additional storage (>3 petabytes). Other features will include a freely accessible database of relevant workflows, pipelines, scripts, programs, preconfigured virtual machine images and containers, curated to support strategically relevant themed activities; an accreditation-compliant computational infrastructure for linking sensitive human and animal health metadata with microbial sequence data; support for containerisation via the Docker Engine and Singularity; a capability to share VMs, containers, data and software across the entire CLIMB-BIG-DATA infrastructure and with public cloud providers (with cloud bursting on to public clouds, should demand spike on our own infrastructure). We also promise an ambitious and exciting programme of training/community engagement,  featuring hackathons, workshops, and modules suitable for a wide range of users from undergraduate students to professional bioinformaticians in the UK and more widely. We will build protocols for demand management and for charging users as we move towards becoming self-sustainable and will also improve integration with public facilities and new potential partner sites.


Research Activity Codes: 1.5 RESOURCES AND INFRASTRUCTURE (UNDERPINNING)
Health Categories: INFECTION
Award Title: CLOSER GCRF Senior Research Associate Post
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council

Abstract: This application is for funding from ESRC for a period of three years to fund a post at UCL that supports the development and delivery of plans to position the UK's longitudinal studies to best engage with GCRF opportunities and partners. The post will support cutting-edge research that addresses the challenges faced by developing countries. 

There are three key elements to this post: 

1) To develop a strategic understanding of the issues and opportunities offered by this research, and help plan and execute appropriate subsequent activities to strengthen capacity in this area. 
2) To play an active role in CLOSER's UK activities through, for example, research activity, communication and impact or assistance with training and capacity building.
3) To carry out high-quality research based on quantitative analysis of longitudinal studies in a development context.

The post holder and their GCRF work will be guided by, and report to, a small steering group of senior academics. They will be a member of the CLOSER team based at UCL's Institute of Education and will managed by CLOSER's Director, Professor Alison Park.

Lay Abstract: The UK is world leading in the collection, curation, storage and analysis of complex social data, and UCL is one of a small number of UK Research Organisations with broad ranging capability in this area. This post seeks to harness and expand UK expertise through working in partnership with other Research Councils, in-country organisations (e.g. research organisations, UK Department for International Development, policy actors, communities and charities), international organisations (e.g. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United Nations, World Bank, US National Institute of Aging) and existing investments (e.g. MRC's existing units, the Wellcome Trust and NIA's existing cohort studies in developing countries) to build capacity for data collection, research and analysis within and between countries and regions to enable better targeted development initiatives.

There are three key elements to this post: 
1.	To develop a strategic understanding of the issues and opportunities offered by this research, and help plan and execute appropriate subsequent activities to strengthen capacity in this area. 
2.	To play an active role in CLOSER's UK activities through, for example, research activity, communication and impact or assistance with training and capacity building.
3.	To carry out high-quality research based on quantitative analysis of longitudinal studies in a development context.

The post holder and their GCRF work will be guided by, and report to, a small steering group of senior academics. They will be a member of the CLOSER team based at UCL's Institute of Education and will managed by CLOSER's Director, Professor Alison Park. Some overseas travel will be expected as part of the role.

Research Activity Codes: 2.6 RESOURCES AND INFRASTRUCTURE (AETIOLOGY)
Health Categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE
Award Title: CRI Unallocated Core Facilities
Funder: Cancer Research UK

Abstract: Unallocated Core Facilities at the CRUK Cambridge Research Institute.
Coded to lab profile.


Research Activity Codes: 1.1 NORMAL BIOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT AND FUNCTIONING;2.1 BIOLOGICAL AND ENDOGENOUS FACTORS;4.1 DISCOVERY AND PRECLINICAL TESTING OF MARKERS AND TECHNOLOGIES;4.2 EVALUATION OF MARKERS AND TECHNOLOGIES
Health Categories: CANCER AND NEOPLASMS;GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE
Award Title: CRUK/08/032: ARISTOTLE: A phase III trial comparing standard versus novel CRT as pre-operative treatment for MRI defined locally advanced rectal cancer (funded by the Bobby Moore Fund for Cancer Research UK)
Funder: Cancer Research UK

Abstract: Background: Pelvic MRI can identify patients with locally advanced rectal cancer who benefit from pre-operative fluoropyrimidine-based chemoradiation (CRT). Recent phase II studies show that two drug (doublet) CRT results in increased early measures of efficacy with acceptable toxicity.

 Relevance to cancer: Only 50-60% of patients selected for pre-operative chemoradiation achieve an adequate histologically confirmed tumour free resection margin. 3-year disease-free survival is around 50% for patients who receive standard CRT. There is therefore an urgent need to improve upon this.


Specific Aims: The aim of the study is to investigate whether outcomes for patients receiving pre-operative CRT are improved by the addition of irinotecan.

Outline plan: The trial is a two arm randomised phase III study comparing capecitabine CRT with irinotecan capecitabine CRT. The primary outcome is disease-free survival, secondary outcomes include local regional failure, overall survival, surgical morbidity, pathological response, toxicity health-related quality of life and resource use. The trial is a two arm study and it is intended to recruit 920 patients over 5 years. Disease-free survival will also be used as an intermediate outcome measure to assess at four different stages whether it is still appropriate to continue randomisation. The trial also offers important translational research opportunities involving radiological, histopathological and molecular approaches.


Research Activity Codes: 6.1 PHARMACEUTICALS;6.5 RADIOTHERAPY AND OTHER NON-INVASIVE THERAPIES
Health Categories: CANCER AND NEOPLASMS