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The ability for medical researchers to discover and develop innovative healthcare solutions to better diagnose and fight fatal diseases and to improve neo-natal care has been boosted today by a new agreement to work together that has been signed by two of the UK?s leading laboratories.
The ISIS Neutron and Muon Source at the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford and the National Physical Laboratory, Teddington (NPL) have agreed to develop closer business and research links to collaborate on commercial offerings for the healthcare industry.
Work at ISIS, which produces beams of neutrons allowing scientists to study materials at the atomic and molecular level, has already enabled researchers to work on developing synthetic versions of antibodies to help fight disease. Neutron scattering is an established technique providing unique insight into atomic structures and molecular interactions by measuring the locations of atoms and the forces between them. This technique has proved particularly useful for the healthcare sector, providing pioneering insight into drug research, cell and membrane interactions and surgical implants.
?This partnership will seek to make closer connections between the two laboratories, to enhance the application of neutron scattering research by industry and to solve end-user problems in real-world environments,? said Andrew Taylor, Executive Director for National Laboratories at STFC.
?We will draw on NPL's multi-disciplinary approach to research and the broad experience in using neutron scattering for materials research at ISIS to provide new insight into medical technologies,? said Keith Dobson, Head of Business Development at NPL.
NPL is the UK?s National Measurement Institute and is a world-leading centre of excellence in developing and applying the most accurate standards, science and technology.
NPL's healthcare research focuses across diagnostics, medical physics and health and wellbeing where measurement plays a vital role in ensuring reliable and robust detection diagnosis and treatment. As diagnosis of disease, long-term patient care and wellness monitoring becomes more personalised, therapies and technologies for diagnosis and treatment need more reliable, safe and cost-effective measurements.
ISIS has strong links with industry and universities and supports some 3000 scientists using neutrons for a wide range of research including clean energy and the environment, bioscience, pharmaceuticals and health care, nanotechnology, materials engineering and IT.
ISIS is free to use provided research results are published into the public domain. Where commercial confidentiality is important, companies can join the fast-track ISIS Collaborative R&D Programme giving full control over intellectual property.
http://www.isis.stfc.ac.uk/ (link opens in a new window)?
http://www.npl.co.uk/ (link opens in a new window)?
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Examples of ISIS work in healthcare
Fighting disease through antibody research
Secretory ImmunoglobinA (SIgA) is the most prevalent human antibody and acts as the first line of defence against the wide range of bacteria and viruses which we encounter on a daily basis.
A team of scientists led by University College London, worked with ISIS to be able to? characterise SIgA for the first time, and are working towards synthetic versions of the antibody which will help to fight disease, particularly through increasing the efficiency of vaccines.
Helping to diagnose fatal disease
Diagnostic biosensors are devices used to detect diseases in the human body. These devices allow doctors to tell the difference between a virus and bacterial infection through the use of highly sensitive, engineered protein surfaces which can quickly detect the type of molecules in a sample.
Newcastle-based Orla Protein Technologies makes bespoke protein surfaces and uses neutrons at ISIS to test the quality of its engineered surfaces and to ensure their protein surfaces are reliable for manufacturing.
Breakthrough for babies born with severe cleft palates
Cleft palates are the most common birth defect in Britain, with one in every 700 babies affected. Severe cleft palates often require radical surgery which involves repositioning the tissue structure at the roof of the mouth.
A new hydrogel material similar to that used in contact lenses has been developed by a team of surgeons and materials scientists in Oxford from Oxford University and the John Radcliffe Hospital. The team used ISIS to confirm the performance of the gel at the molecular level.
A spin-out company from the University of Oxford has been formed to commercialise the materials.
Examples of NPL work in Healthcare
NPL scientists improve biomarker detection technique
Scientists from NPL's Biotechnology group have developed a new strategy to enable quicker and more precise detection of biomarkers - proteins which indicate disease. The work marks a new research direction for the group, and they hope the technique is an early step towards tools to detect Alzheimer's and cancer at the molecular level.
Any disease has proteins or levels of proteins that are specifically linked to it - biomarkers. Identifying these in body fluid such as blood can be a powerful medical tool, so the search for new diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers to underpin targeted medicines is of growing priority.
Ultrasound screening for breast cancer
A team of scientists from NPL and the University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust have successfully completed an initial trial of a new, potentially more reliable, technique for screening breast cancer using ultrasound, and are now looking to develop the technique into a clinical device.
46,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in the UK each year, using state-of-the-art breast screening methods based on X-ray mammography, but only about 30% of suspicious lesions turn out to be malignant. Each lesion must be confirmed by invasive biopsies, estimated to cost the NHS ?35 million per year. Ionising radiation from X-rays also has the potential to cause cancer, which limits their use to single screenings of at risk groups, such as women over 50 years old.
NPL spin-out helps improve athlete training regimes
Argento Diagnostics Ltd, a company spun-out from NPL in 2011, is working with UK Sport to develop Point of Care testing technology to support the UK?s high performance sports groups. This technology will improve training programmes for athletes. Argento?s technology offers fully quantitative analysis of multiple analytes from a single sample in a truly portable handheld device, which adds the benefits of mobile phone, WiFi and Bluetooth technology to store and communicate test results. This will allow athletes to monitor biomarker proteins that reveal details about the condition of the body before, during and after training sessions and give a clear indication of their physical health.
About ISIS
ISIS is a world-leading centre for research in physical and life sciences operated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Didcot, Oxfordshire, UK. www.isis.stfc.ac.uk (link opens in a new window).
ISIS produces beams of neutrons and muons that allow scientists to study materials at the atomic level using a suite of instruments, often described as a set of ?super-microscopes?. ISIS supports an international community of over 2000 scientists who use neutrons and muons for research in physics, chemistry, materials science, geology, engineering and biology. It is the most productive research centre of its type in the world.
About STFC
The Science and Technology Facilities Council is keeping the UK at the forefront of international science and tackling some of the most significant challenges facing society such as meeting our future energy needs, monitoring and understanding climate change, and global security.
The Council has a broad science portfolio and works with the academic and industrial communities to share its expertise in materials science, space and ground-based astronomy technologies, laser science, microelectronics, wafer scale manufacturing, particle and nuclear physics, alternative energy production, radio communications and radar.
STFC operates or hosts world class experimental facilities including:
?? ??? in the UK; ISIS pulsed neutron source, the Central Laser Facility, and LOFAR.? STFC is also the majority shareholder in Diamond Light Source Ltd.
?? ??? overseas; telescopes on La Palma and Hawaii
It enables UK researchers to access leading international science facilities by funding membership of international bodies including European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN), the Institut Laue Langevin (ILL), European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) and the European Southern Observatory (ESO).
STFC is one of seven publicly-funded research councils.? It is an independent, non-departmental public body of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).
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Page last updated: 27 September 2012
by Jill Little
Source: http://www.stfc.ac.uk/News%20and%20Events/39870.aspx
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