Title: NIHR Barts BRC
Funder: Department of Health and Social Care

Abstract: This partnership between Barts Health and QMUL brings 6 million patients together with outstanding science, and enables ground-breaking discoveries to be translated into life-saving medicines. By offering every patient the chance to engage in research we will maximise the benefit of new diagnoses and therapies for people with rare and common disease. We will establish personalised medicine enabling selection of the best treatment for our patients at the first opportunity. Our proposals are driven by internationally recognised research and clinical expertise in the heart, the bones and joints, and the oral and digestive systems. We were in the vanguard of collecting and analysing blood samples from many thousands of patients to unlock the genetic make-up of diseases. We plan to reap the benefit of such scientific investments and the huge opportunity provided by the creation of the Barts Heart Centre (BHC), to focus on how our genetic make-up can influence disease or treatments, how studies of cells outside the body may help us to explain disease, and how detailed measurements of a patient s problem may allow us to accelerate new therapies into the clinic. These include electrical or mechanical devices, some developed by our bioengineers, and others brought to us through international collaboration with new clinical, academic and industry partners. Our extensive knowledge and experience of discovering medicines, how they work, and how to use them most effectively and safely is a key strength at Barts. For example, we have tested new medicines for high blood pressure in the lung (pulmonary hypertension); we showed that beetroot juice effectively lowers blood pressure; and we developed one of the best materials for repairing damaged teeth. Our laboratory work, when transferred into patient care, has changed national or international guidelines for management of common disease. In patients with high blood pressure or rheumatoid arthritis, our investigators have led the way in finding simple tests that predict which therapy works best in individual patients. We will work strategically with UK and international scientists and industry to ensure patients benefit at the fastest pace and from new medicines and tests we will make available to the NHS. Underpinning our one-stop centre, moving discoveries rapidly towards better patient care, are sophisticated information systems. These allow patients who consent to be followed throughout their lives, and the blood and other samples they donate to be stored for detailed testing alongside results from state-of-the-art scans and other depth clinical measurements. Our specific milestones are: short-term, to establish research programmes and training in five central themes, building on investments in data and sample storage; medium-term, to bring several novel or rediscovered treatments to the proof-of-concept stage of patient testing, working with Industry and start-ups; long-term, to initiate the definitive clinical evaluation of ground-breaking innovations. We place the patient and public at the heart of all we do, building the culture of a research hospital, where we can rapidly address the evolving healthcare needs of the 6 million people we serve through evidence-based medicine.

Lay abstract: This partnership between Barts Health and QMUL brings 6 million patients together with outstanding science, and enables ground-breaking discoveries to be translated into life-saving medicines. By offering every patient the chance to engage in research we will maximise the benefit of new diagnoses and therapies for people with rare and common disease. We will establish personalised medicine enabling selection of the best treatment for our patients at the first opportunity. Our proposals are driven by internationally recognised research and clinical expertise in the heart, the bones and joints, and the oral and digestive systems. We were in the vanguard of collecting and analysing blood samples from many thousands of patients to unlock the genetic make-up of diseases. We plan to reap the benefit of such scientific investments and the huge opportunity provided by the creation of the Barts Heart Centre (BHC), to focus on how our genetic make-up can influence disease or treatments, how studies of cells outside the body may help us to explain disease, and how detailed measurements of a patient s problem may allow us to accelerate new therapies into the clinic. These include electrical or mechanical devices, some developed by our bioengineers, and others brought to us through international collaboration with new clinical, academic and industry partners. Our extensive knowledge and experience of discovering medicines, how they work, and how to use them most effectively and safely is a key strength at Barts. For example, we have tested new medicines for high blood pressure in the lung (pulmonary hypertension); we showed that beetroot juice effectively lowers blood pressure; and we developed one of the best materials for repairing damaged teeth. Our laboratory work, when transferred into patient care, has changed national or international guidelines for management of common disease. In patients with high blood pressure or rheumatoid arthritis, our investigators have led the way in finding simple tests that predict which therapy works best in individual patients. We will work strategically with UK and international scientists and industry to ensure patients benefit at the fastest pace and from new medicines and tests we will make available to the NHS. Underpinning our one-stop centre, moving discoveries rapidly towards better patient care, are sophisticated information systems. These allow patients who consent to be followed throughout their lives, and the blood and other samples they donate to be stored for detailed testing alongside results from state-of-the-art scans and other depth clinical measurements. Our specific milestones are: short-term, to establish research programmes and training in five central themes, building on investments in data and sample storage; medium-term, to bring several novel or rediscovered treatments to the proof-of-concept stage of patient testing, working with Industry and start-ups; long-term, to initiate the definitive clinical evaluation of ground-breaking innovations. We place the patient and public at the heart of all we do, building the culture of a research hospital, where we can rapidly address the evolving healthcare needs of the 6 million people we serve through evidence-based medicine.

Research activity codes: 4.5 RESOURCES AND INFRASTRUCTURE (DETECTION)
Health categories: CARDIOVASCULAR