Enabling technology

The core technology provides a way to analyse thousands of genomes, cost effectively, in parallel for very large scale population genetics. The ability to provide information on genome sequence variation among individuals in a population will give an indication of the predisposition of those individuals to specific diseases and their propensity for certain adverse drug reactions. The impact of this information on drug discovery, clinical drug trials, biomedical research and diagnosis of disease will be considerable, particularly if data can be produced in a fast and cost-effective manner. One obvious application is in the use of the major human cohort studies, like UK Biobank and the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC).

See also: Population Genetics Technologies

A technique called RIDL, developed by Oxford based company Oxitec Ltd, uses advanced genetics to modify male insects to be 'sterile'. These mosquitoes, which do not bite or spread disease, are then released to mate with wild females. No viable offspring can result from these matings and as a result, the mosquito population is reduced below the threshold level that is required to transmit the disease.  Oxitec has created RIDL strains of Aedes aegypti, the principal mosquito species responsible for spreading dengue fever. The lead strain - OX513A - has already been tested both in the laboratory and in contained field conditions.  There is currently neither medication nor vaccine for dengue fever. According to World Health Organisation estimates, there may be over 50 million dengue infections worldwide every year and the only way to prevent transmission is to combat disease-carrying mosquitoes.  The Translation Award will be used to fund open field trials to demonstrate the potential of the RIDL strains to reduce the Aedes aegypti population to below the threshold level.

Amblyopia affects 2-3 per cent of the population and leads to restrictions in employment and risks of blindness Conventional treatment involves patching the "good" eye for hours each day which is unpleasant for the child and which has a detrimental effect on their ability to use their eyes together. Eye patching treatment adversely affects the quality of a child's life and so poor compliance results in poor visual outcome. Overall results are mediocre. The novel I-BiT(TM) system stimulates both eyes simultaneously, but sends more detailed input to the amblyopic eye. Preliminary studies show highly encouraging results with reduced treatment times. Mr Richard Gregson and colleagues at Nottingham University Hospitals have been given Translation Award funding to develop and evaluate a new I-BiT (TM) system using 100MHz shutter glasses technology and to develop unique software for use on the system. The system will then be validated in terms of software delivery and in a crossover study comparing patching treatment and I-BiT (TM).

Sintero will co-integrate a number of interoperability technologies e.g. from openEHR, Continua Health Alliance, Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) and the Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium (CDISC) for the primary purpose of high quality outcome analysis. Benefits of the technology include cross-site elimination of ambiguous meanings that can cause medical errors, cross-site sharing of single functional processes, and document sharing or data aggregation across heterogeneous health IT systems in support of outcomes analysis. Sintero will answer unmet needs by simplifying establishment of secure collaborations where meanings of complex sets of clinical information need to be standardised and shared.When installed across multiple sites, Sintero will also support a useful set of data collection, storage, aggregation and cross-site semantic query functions. Sintero has major potential internationally to give isolated clinical communities a state-of-the-art, multi-site semantic data capability.  

Professor Francesca Cordeiro and colleagues from the Institute of Ophthalmology at University College London, have been given Translation Award support to carry out a Phase I trial of Detection of Apoptosing Retinal Cells (DARC) Technology. DARC is a novel technique that utilises the unique optical properties of the eye to allow direct visualisation of nerve cells dying. If successful, early diagnosis and treatment would mean that DARC will increase patient benefit and decrease burden of care costs.

Biofilm colonization of implanted medical devices increases the failure rate of the prosthesis and enhances the risk of lethal sepsis, e.g. catheters, shunts, heart valves, corneal implants, prosthetic joints. Morgan Alexander, Martyn Davies and Paul Williams at the University of Nottingham, in collaboration with Robert Langer and Daniel Anderson at MIT, have received Translation Award support to use novel polymer array technology to rationally design polymers for anti-biofilm properties that can be readily incorporated into standard medical devices.

In fundamental terms, individual molecules transiting through a 1-5nm circular aperture within a 50-200nm thick membrane will be used to isolate and quantify molecular structure. Translocation will be initiated electrokinetically by applying a voltage between both the upper and lower reservoirs. This research programme defines significant advances in several research areas including the use of semiconductor processing technology for biological applications, and DNA sequence analysis. The multidisciplinary team hope their approach could represent the next generation technology in high-throughput DNA sequencing with significantly higher performance benchmarks compared to existing techniques.

Hence most anticancer drugs cannot access the brain in high enough quantities to kill the tumours, without producing therapy limiting side-effects. Additionally some patients have inoperable tumours and would benefit from improved drug treatments. Professor Ijeoma Uchegbu, School of Pharmacy at the University of London, has developed nanotechnology that significantly increases the potency of drugs in the brain; this project will build on earlier research by demonstrating that the nanotechnology formulation can result in significant anti-tumour activity while sparing the healthy brain and bone marrow.

T-cell immunotherapy has been shown to effectively treat viral infections on patients undergoing immunosuppression therapy, for example following transplant operations. Clinical availability of T-cells has been restricted in part due to regulatory issues.This project seeks to address the lack of a cGMP protocol for this approach, using established commercially available laboratory protocols and drawing together several clinical experts from across the UK.

Transgenic plants allow for the production of GMP-compliant antibodies at significantly lower prices than animal culture. Currently however, the overall yield of functional antibody is somewhat low, and the achievement of higher yields will further reduce the manufacturing costs and ensure the supply of antibodies is sufficient to meet the high market needs. Dr Lorenzo Frigerio from the University of Warwick has been awarded translational funding to further develop and validate a technology that allows a much higher yield of antibody from plants.