NIHRDataInsights/HRCSData huggingface dataset:
Title: EcMagine': Extracellular Matrix ageing across the life course interdisciplinary research network
Funder: Medical Research Council

Abstract: Ageing leads to progressive decline in metabolic/behavioural/physiological functions, leading to reduced healthspan. Across the world, numbers of people >65 are increasing 3 times faster than those <15. >65s will make up >25% of UK population in 50 years, with regional health inequalities exacerbating disparities in healthspan. Our network focusses on the ageing of extracellular matrix (ECM), a major structural & functional determinant of tissue resilience with remarkable tissue specificity. Our tissues comprise of cells and >1000 ECM proteins. The ECM facilitates cell-matrix and cell-cell communication, and exchange of nutrients and growth factors. The ECM undergoes structural changes with age, leading to accumulation of fragmented, cross-linked ECM proteins and loss of ECM ligands. Alterations to ECM underpin many age-related tissue changes, such as loss of elasticity, poor healing, scarring, abnormal growths and entry into senescence, a hallmark of ageing. Remarkably, ECM is a target of daily changes governed by our ~24h (circadian) time-keeping mechanisms, highlighting ECM as a malleable driver of tissue ageing. However, there is a critical need to understand how ageing alters the ECM of specific organ/tissue systems, how age-associated ECM impacts tissue-specific deterioration and the roles of specific cell sub-types involved. The EcMagine Northern-led Ageing Network brings together complementary expertise in key aspects of ageing, matrix biology, chronobiology, AI/computational modelling and tissue engineering across UK to develop novel models to study ECM ageing, particularly 3D biological models, new biomaterials to mimic tissue-specific ECM and in silico models to predict novel anti-ageing therapies. Working together, sharing models, technologies, knowledge and expertise, we will strategically address challenges in ageing research and generate paradigm-shifting discoveries with long-term benefit of improving lives and outcomes for older people.


Research activity codes: 1.1 NORMAL BIOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT AND FUNCTIONING
Health categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE
Title: Lifelong Physical AcTivity TArgeting INequalities (ATTAIN): A Transformative Network for Healthy Ageing
Funder: Medical Research Council

Abstract: Across two themes; i) Holistic health benefits of physical activity and ii) Barriers to physical activity, we aim to link across disciplines to develop research that can impact on the lives of those who experience healthy inequalities and improve policy around healthspan and quality of life in old age. Through the development and synthesis of innovative approaches, new understandings will then be applied to the following objectives: - To strengthen capacity and capability for interdisciplinary research innovation with new national partners in order to address healthy life expectancy in communities who experience health inequality. - To generate transformative frameworks (molecule to population-level approach) to capture how chronological ageing, multi-morbidity, cultural, environmental and psycho-social factors interact and impact on the holistic health benefits of physical activity across the life course. - To conceptualize radical solutions that will transform thinking on how to address the physical, environmental and psycho-social barriers to physically active living, with specific focus on the socially deprived and minority ethnic communities in our society. - To work with target communities to develop a novel paradigm of advocacy and co-production to help bring about transformational change in terms of effective and accessible physical activity. This will include building their capacity to influence and participate in research and the development of policy and practice. To achieve these objectives, the Network will operate with a national and international reach. Network activities will include a dedicated website and social media, Workshop and Knowledge Exchange Events, Engagement Fellowships, Interdisciplinary Sandpit, Small Grant Funding, Writing Retreats (virtual) and a community-focused closing Event. External Advisory/Stakeholder Groups will provide steer to the core Network Team to ensure these objectives are realised.


Research activity codes: 1.2 PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIOECONOMIC PROCESSES;8.1 ORGANISATION AND DELIVERY OF SERVICES
Health categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE
Title: AGEing and NuTrition Sensing (AGENT)
Funder: Medical Research Council

Abstract: Lifestyle and particularly nutrition has profound effect on ageing. Although it is known that aging has an effect on metabolism, there is no real understanding about why some people metabolically age at a faster rate than others. A number of hypotheses exist to explain how nutrition and ageing impacts metabolism to effect ageing. However, there are still major gaps in our knowledge. For example, food insecurity and shortage, which is associated with accelerated deterioration in healthspan, is a situation in which nutrient sensing becomes aberrant, paradoxically, food insecure people are in fact more likely to be obese, which severely impacts health span. Our proposal directly addresses the challenge area of the call "health span and quality of life in old age" it does this by bringing together a multidisciplinary network of scientist that have not worked together previously to focus on nutrient sensing and ageing. The network will cut across a wide number of disciplines. From nutrition to cellular biology and human physiology to population health. To address the current gaps in knowledge and to develop deeper mechanistic and translational understanding in the area of nutrient sensing and ageing, we have brought together five university partners that are Imperial College London, Newcastle, Bristol, Manchester and Edinburgh, all of which have a track record in either nutrition, nutrient sensing and ageing. Although each University has a lead CoI, they bring with them many specialities and networks based in their institution, which are both established and new to the area of nutrition sensing as ageing. This has given us a highly multidisciplinary start to the network that goes form fundamental cell biology to policy making. The network will use hackathon methodology (we have used successfully in other networks) to develop multidisciplinary research topics which the network will support to develop into full grant applications and papers.


Research activity codes: 1.1 NORMAL BIOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT AND FUNCTIONING
Health categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE
Title: Connect NMR UK: A National NMR Network for the Physical and Life Sciences
Funder: Medical Research Council

Abstract: NMR spectroscopy is arguably the most widely employed tool in materials, chemical and biomolecular research sciences for the study of atomic structure and behaviour. It has a uniquely powerful ability to probe the chemical structure at atomic level, combined with sensitivity to their motions and changes in chemical environment. The importance of NMR spectroscopy has been recognised by the UKRI's recent and largest-ever investment of £20 M in NMR spectroscopy in a UK-wide network of NMR spectroscopy facilities in 2018 which was matched by substantial provision of ongoing support through expert personnel and specialist infrastructure by the host institutions. Together these and previous significant capital investments made by UK research intensive universities, research councils and medical charities position the UK at the forefront of NMR technologies and will enable a very wide range of scientific investigations with a depth that was previously impossible. To ensure that we maximise the value of this capital investment, this proposal aims to establish a national NMR network in the physical and life sciences, Connect NMR UK, integrating the three main existing interdisciplinary communities (UK solid-state NMR; liquid-state, biological NMR; UK NMR managers group) and two learned societies (Royal Society of Chemistry NMR Discussion Group; Institute of Physics Magnetic Resonance Group) and connecting all of these NMR facilities through a central web portal, annual discussion forum, workshops and training scholarships. This will ensure we link the NMR solutions provided by the latest instrumentation and personnel, centred around the very- and ultra-high field NMR facilities, with the challenges being tackled by the UK's leading scientists. Providing these scientists with access to the cutting edge capabilities, sharing knowledge from the experts in these NMR facilities with the wider UK scientific community and exchanging best practice between the experts will ensure maximum value is obtained from the UKRI research council investment.


Research activity codes: 1.5 RESOURCES AND INFRASTRUCTURE (UNDERPINNING)
Health categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE
Title: Mechanistic Insights into FLASH radiation for clinical use
Funder: Medical Research Council

Abstract: This programme will investigate the biological mechanisms that underpin the observed and highly beneficial sparing effect of FLASH in normal tissues 1,2,3 and determine whether the therapeutic ratio can be further enhanced by altering FLASH beam characteristics and combining it with pharmaceuticals. The knowledge gained from this proposed research will bring us closer to a clinical implementation of FLASH radiotherapy (RT). Mechanistically, the role of oxygen and radical-radical interaction, the induction of DNA damage response, and the inflammatory and immune response will be investigated to understand how FLASH radiation increases the therapeutic index of RT between normal and tumour tissue. On the technical side, this project will define optimal FLASH beam characteristics that can be applied in the clinic. This is a highly unique programme in the UK that can potentially benefit all future patients receiving RT as part of their cancer treatment.


Research activity codes: 1.1 NORMAL BIOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT AND FUNCTIONING;5.5 RADIOTHERAPY AND OTHER NON-INVASIVE THERAPIES
Health categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE
Title: Phonon probe microscopy: towards acoustically-resolved Brillouin spectroscopy
Funder: Medical Research Council

Abstract: Imaging living cells at super-optical resolution is a major breakthrough in microscopy which has enabled discovery in numerous areas of cell biology. However, the existing technologies present limitations. In particular, super-resolution based in fluorescence microscopy requires the use of dyes that are toxic to cells and can only be used for short periods. Electron microscopy is completely incompatible with live cells and atomic force microscopy is invasive and limited to the vicinity of the surface. Moreover, the characterisation of material properties with any of these techniques remains extremely challenging. To this day, the damage caused by short-wavelength radiation enforces strong restrictions to biological imaging. These limitations do not apply to phonons, which carry orders of magnitude less energy than electromagnetic radiation. This offers an exciting path for label-free, super-optical resolution microscopy. Moreover, imaging with phonons provides information related to the elasticity of the specimens. The combination of these aspects offers new possibilities in life sciences and healthcare applications. In this project, I propose a new way of achieving super-optical resolution by means of phonon acoustics. By using laser-generated phonon fields, it is possible to produce lenses small enough to produce tightly focused phonon beams with sub-optical wavelengths. The fields are to be detected by Brillouin scattering to provide elasticity-based contrast at safe optical wavelengths: proof of concept of the phonon-probe microscope.


Research activity codes: 1.5 RESOURCES AND INFRASTRUCTURE (UNDERPINNING)
Health categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE
Title: Families, households and health in ageing populations: Projections and implications
Funder: Medical Research Council

Abstract: This project focusses on the family and household situation of older people and will contribute to understanding how intergenerational relationships operate in the face of demographic change and what are the implications for housing and care needs of changes in the family and household circumstances of older people. We will undertake analyses of rich longitudinal data, including later-life social and biological data, and retrospective life course information, to better understand the complex interlinkages between families, household, health and health inequality in older age groups. We will also investigate how the relationship between biological measures of health and difficulties in undertaking essential everyday activities may be influenced by provision of various types of help, including support from family, suitable housing and financial help. This will help with planning services that enable older people to carry on with every day activities even if they have various health problems. Building on this, we will provide forecasts of the older populations of the UK and China by family, household, health and disability status using innovatory household projection models. Such forecasts are essential for planning to meet the health, housing and care needs of ageing populations as, together with disability status, living arrangements and family support are major determinants of the use and costs of state provided or market sourced long-term care. Disabled elders living alone have much higher needs for paid services in the home than those who live with children and/or a spouse and older persons' social contacts and receipt of family help are associated with both number and gender of children. This China-UK biosocial collaborative project will thus contribute to building the knowledge base needed to address the health and social challenges facing ageing societies.


Research activity codes: 1.2 PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIOECONOMIC PROCESSES
Health categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE
Title: Health and Bioscience IDEAS - Imaging, Data structures, gEnetics and Analytical Strategies
Funder: Medical Research Council

Abstract: Imaging and genetic analysis have dramatically transformed medicine and bioscience in a short period of time. This transformation has been so fast that a substantial knowledge gap has developed between most scientists/clinicians and the computational experts. While open-source methods for data structuring and analysis can provide an equilibrating force, the expertise to apply these responsibly and effectively is lacking. Researchers must also balance open science mandates with data protection law, creating complex challenges surrounding collecting, managing, analysing and sharing imaging data, particularly when integrating with genetic data. Our consortium will produce a series of face-to-face and virtual workshops, as well as self-directed online courses and tools to close the knowledge gap for clinical and imaging science researchers in the UK and beyond. This content will cover handling imaging and genetic data, data protection, data sharing, and code sharing; with hands-on activities (such as hackathons) to help attendees develop skills while addressing their research. We will generate a core curriculum that will subsequently be tailored to fit the skill levels and research domain of the attendees. We will target this training at researchers who are based at universities, hospitals, and the burgeoning UK biotech industry. A large majority of these researchers will be clinicians, basic scientists, epidemiologists, and medical physicists, among others. At the completion of this grant, we will have established a course that will produce good results for the researchers and thus good feedback and reputation, and we will continue to offer this content at a price that represents good value for potential attendees while maintaining financial stability and support from the university.


Research activity codes: 2.5 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGIES (AETIOLOGY);8.4 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGIES (HEALTH SERVICES)
Health categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE
Title: Rigorous Training in Longitudinal Data Science (RADIANCE)
Funder: Medical Research Council

Abstract: Researchers in the biomedical and social sciences have now access to incrementally larger data resources which are generated by linkage between administrative, cohort and panel databases, with many of these spanning over decades. Their longitudinal nature provides huge opportunities for describing and investigating medical and behavioural histories, as well as socio-economic changes, and to study their relationship with population health outcomes. Evidence informed by complex longitudinal biosocial data must be based on rigorous data stewardship (i.e. data linkage, manipulation, cleaning, and documentation) twinned with appropriate targets of analysis, transparent analytical plans and accurate interpretation of results. The high-and multi-dimensional nature of these newly created data resources requires skills that are often compartmentalised within different disciplines, however. With this training programme we aim to provide a comprehensive, cohesive and rigorous portfolio targeted at the broad community of quantitative researchers involved in the management, analysis and interpretation of longitudinal biosocial data and the production of rigorous and transparent scientific evidence. The training will be framed around the three core themes of "Data Stewardship", "Analysis" and "Context". We will use multiple delivery formats, including short videos on basic concepts ("appetizers"), modules, short courses and clinics all delivered on-line. The training will be developed and delivered by a team of methodological and applied researchers working in health and social science, each bringing their own considerable expertise in both research and education. In summary, this training programme will enhance knowledge, self-confidence and expertise that is much in demand among researchers who want to utilize complex longitudinal biosocial data.


Research activity codes: 2.5 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGIES (AETIOLOGY);8.4 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGIES (HEALTH SERVICES)
Health categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE
Title: Data CAMPP (Innovative Training in Data Capture, Analysis and Management for Plant Phenotyping)
Funder: Medical Research Council

Abstract: Data CAMPP provides an innovative training course with 12 learning units, as below. Each is led by two investigators. Delivery is either: online (OL), blended (BL) or face2face (F2F). Learning is enhanced by: software exercises (SW), hardware labs (HW) or group discussion (GD). HW labs can be sent as lab-by-post kits for remote participants. Plant Phenotyping - Intro to Plant Phenotyping Technologies (RG/JA; OL, SW): Current tools and methods that facilitate collecting data about plants. - Affordable Phenotyping (RG/TP; OL, GD): Data collection in Lower-Middle Income Countries, e.g. Cassava phenotyping using low-cost sensors and ML. - Case Studies Workshop (TP/SP; F2F, GD): Discussion around attendees' workplace challenges. Image Analysis and Machine Learning - Intro to Image Analysis (TP/AF; OL, SW): Computer vision techniques used in the biosciences. - ML for Image Data (AF/SP; BL, SW): Machine learning methods for bioscience, identification and ethical use of appropriate approaches. - Deep Learning Internals (MP/TP; OL, SW): Deep Learning is no longer a black box, understanding components and development of new approaches. - Experiment Design for ML (MP/ES; OL, SW): Data requirements, strategies for training and testing algorithms. Data Capture and Management - Intro to Robotics for Bioscientists (ES/SP; BL, HW): Robotic components and control. - Coding for Robotics & Data Capture (SP/AF; OL, SW): Industry-standard programming languages and tools (e.g. Python, Labview, Matlab). - Data Management (ES/SP; OL, SW): Formats and standards, storage and backup, software tools, hardware terms, sharing mechanisms, licensing, GDPR. - Data Capture in the Lab (DW/JA; BL, HW): Sensors for gathering data in controlled environments, lab-by-post with low-cost and 3D printed components. - Data Capture in the Field (ES/RG; F2F, HW): Mechanisms for intelligent data collection in uncontrolled environments, field robotics, data transfer, reliability, robustness.


Research activity codes: 2.5 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGIES (AETIOLOGY);8.4 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGIES (HEALTH SERVICES)
Health categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE
Title: ELIXIR-UK: FAIR Data Stewardship training
Funder: Medical Research Council

Abstract: The UK's Open Research Data Task Force urges that we grow our capability on research data management and form professional experts. The EC's High Level Expert Group of the European Open Science Cloud urges we educate and equip up to 500,000 data stewards in Europe. Best practices, services and training on research data management are core to the mission of the ELIXIR-UK national node of the European research Infrastructure for life science data. Its members lead on many relevant activities and resources within the ELIXIR initiative. Our national Data Stewardship training programme will exploit this wealth of existing resources and expertise. We will reuse, adapt and recontribute to openly-available training materials, best practice and research data management methods in relevant ELIXIR resources, tackling all points of the research data life cycle, including: a Data Stewardship Wizard for Data Management Planning, a RDM Toolkit that follows the RDM lifecycle, FAIR Cookbook of "FAIRification" best practice, and a training portal (TeSS) for registering training material made FAIR. We will deliver a modularised virtual training programme tailored for Life Science data stewardship and open and available to all UK university and research institute-based biomedical researchers and their research support staff, at all career stages. Virtual training modules (DM-Bites) will cover general topics applicable across communities and career stages and specialist topics by data type, community and infrastructure. Materials will be developed and DM-Bites delivered by dedicated trainers and a fellowship of Life Science Data Stewards steered by an "Expert Pool" of ELIXIR-UK members who will identify, create and review training content. The fellowship will seed a training network to migrate research data management best practices into UK universities and research institutions, mentored by the Pool and supported to lead training in their host institutions.


Research activity codes: 2.6 RESOURCES AND INFRASTRUCTURE (AETIOLOGY);4.5 RESOURCES AND INFRASTRUCTURE (DETECTION);5.9 RESOURCES AND INFRASTRUCTURE (TREATMENT DEVELOPMENT);6.9 RESOURCES AND INFRASTRUCTURE (TREATMENT EVALUATION)
Health categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE