Artwork featuring the inspiring words of a poem read at the funeral of Sir Michael Marshall has been unveiled in the main ground floor corridor at Addenbrooke’s Hospital.
Sir Michael was a great friend and supporter of Addenbrooke’s Hospital as well as the President of its charity, Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust (ACT), for almost 20 years. He was also President of Marshall of Cambridge.
Sir Michael took a keen interest in the Emergency Department at Addenbrooke’s and introduced the Sir Arthur Marshall Award for Improvement in Emergency Medicine, in recognition of his father. This Award ran for several years and supported staff in A&E to innovate and improve patient care.
The new artwork at the hospital was created by artist Amelia Huw Morgan MA RCA FHEA, senior lecturer in illustration at Cardiff School of Art & Design.
Short fragments of text, such as ‘take time to love, and be loved’ float across four metres of wall, and a plaque next to the artwork reads: “In tribute to Sir Michael Marshall, a dynamic force for good, 1932 – 2019. Devoted friend of our hospital, an ardent supporter of our Emergency Department and President of Addenbrooke’s Charity for almost 20 years.”
Amelia said: “The Take Time commission has been a marvellous opportunity to focus on hope, wonder and joy in the everyday and to reflect Sir Michael Marshall’s ‘dynamic force for good’. I believe in the power of images to transform our experiences, to make an impact in perhaps perceivably invisible ways. I wanted to take the important words from the poem and form them flocking towards a kiss, a kiss to the world – a tender, loving kiss of humanity.”
Natalie Ellis, Head of Arts at Addenbrooke’s, said: “We chose to take the Take Time text as our starting point, as this old English prayer was read at Sir Michael’s memorial service, and the powerfully poignant words lend themselves so well to artwork, and certainly resonate in the challenging times we currently find ourselves in.”
CUH Arts is the hospitals’ arts programme, dedicated to transforming the hospital experience, promoting wellbeing and inspiring hope through creativity. Supported by Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust, it delivers a year-round programme of arts activities, events and exhibitions, as well as getting involved in the design of new patient-facing areas, helping to relax and warm the clinical environment.
The hospital has over 4,000 pieces of artwork including from Damien Hirst and Quentin Blake as well as hosting other types of art including Dance for Health, CUH Arts’ flagship project, weekly creative movement & music group sessions for adult patients.
UK researchers are launching a clinical trial to investigate if the drug niclosamide, usually used to treat tapeworms, can prevent Covid-19 infection in vulnerable, high risk kidney patients and reduce the number of people who become seriously ill or die from it.
If the charity and industry-funded trial is successful, it may pave the way for a new treatment to prevent or alleviate the impact of Covid-19 in people on dialysis, people who have had a kidney transplant, and people with auto-immune diseases affecting the kidneys such as vasculitis who require treatment to suppress their immune system. The treatment will last up to nine months.
Led by scientists from the Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust and the University of Cambridge, the trial will start in Cambridge with a plan to expand to other UK healthcare centres. It will recruit at least 1,500 kidney patients, who will be randomised to receive either a placebo (or dummy) drug, or UNI911 (niclosamide) as a nasal spray, both provided by the manufacturer UNION therapeutics, in addition to all their usual treatments.
The news comes as the coronavirus vaccine is being rolled out across the country but amid concerns over virus mutations and limited data regarding the effectiveness and durability of vaccine response in kidney patients. Participants can receive the vaccine and still take part in this trial, which will identify whether niclosamide can protect people from the virus either on its own, or in combination with any of the vaccines currently available.
Niclosamide has been re-formulated into a nasal spray so it can be delivered directly to the lining of the nasal cavity, like a hayfever spray. In the trial, people will take one puff up each nostril twice a day, as this is the part of the body where the virus can take hold. This ‘local’ drug delivery is likely to reduce the chances of people experiencing any side effects.
Usually used to treat intestinal worms and taken as a tablet, niclosamide has shown real promise in the lab. Early tests revealed niclosamide could stop SARS-CoV-2 multiplying and entering cells of the upper airways.
Professor Jeremy Hughes, kidney doctor and chair of trustees at Kidney Research UK, one of the charities funding the trial, said: “We must do everything we can to protect kidney patients, who are at serious risk from Covid-19. Sadly, one in five kidney patients receiving dialysis in hospital or who have a kidney transplant and tested positive for the virus died within four weeks. Many of those on dialysis are having to put themselves at risk and attend their renal unit for life-saving dialysis treatment several times each week. And those who have had a kidney transplant must continue taking their immunosuppressant drugs, despite these making them more susceptible to infection. In the UK alone, round 64,000 people receive dialysis treatment or have had a kidney transplant2 – that’s enough people to fill the O2 stadium three times over.”
He continues: “The vaccine roll-out can’t come fast enough – kidney patients should have the vaccine, as soon as they are offered it. We hope this trial will add an extra layer of protection for kidney patients in the future. It could even reveal a way to prevent Covid-19 in other vulnerable people.”
He explains: “This trial shows why funding research into kidney disease is so important right now. Committing funds to this trial was a challenge for Kidney Research UK. Like so many other charities, our income this year has been badly impacted, and has dropped by 50% but the PROTECT-V trial, and the patients it aims to help, could not wait. We are delighted to be partnering with others to make this crucial research a reality. Kidney patients need our work to continue, now more than ever.”
Dr Rona Smith, senior research associate at the University of Cambridge and honorary consultant nephrologist at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, who is leading the UK study, said: “It is vital that we find a way to protect patients on haemodialysis and other high-risk kidney patients from catching SARS-CoV-2 and developing Covid-19. If they get it, they are more likely to fall seriously ill or die, and we need to find a way to change that.”
She continues: “A number of existing trials are searching for an effective Covid-19 preventative treatment, but patients with impaired kidney function are largely excluded, despite being so vulnerable to the disease. Patients should have the vaccine wherever possible, which will give them a level of protection against the virus.”
She explains: “But we believe testing niclosamide is particularly important for people who are immunosuppressed and have kidney disease, because their immune responses to vaccines can sometimes be less effective. While the vaccine will offer a level of protection, niclosamide may provide further protection against Covid-19 that doesn’t rely on the immune system mounting a response.”
She adds: “If successful, our innovative trial could mean that the treatment becomes available to kidney patients more widely within months. It would mean they could receive their regular life-saving dialysis or take their immunosuppressant drugs without additional worry. And if it’s successful it could even be rolled out more widely – and benefit more vulnerable people.”
The trial, led by the Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust and the University of Cambridge, involves researchers and patients from across the UK. It is funded by LifeArc, Kidney Research UK, the Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust and UNION therapeutics and is supported by the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre. UNION therapeutics is supplying the drug.
LifeArc has made £27 million available to support the global effort against Covid-19, of which £10 million has been given to repurpose existing therapeutics. “Repurposing already available drugs or those in the late stage of development offers the fastest route to bring benefit to patients at this critical time,” said LifeArc CEO, Melanie Lee.
References
Source: UK Renal Registry, data from March-November 2020
Addenbrooke’s staff will receive Christmas hampers packed with goodies this week as a thank you for their hard work and care during the coronavirus pandemic.
Several local companies including Cheffins, Sainsbury’s, Arm, Marshall, Camb IT Support, Enfield Safety and Amazon have all sponsored the Hamper pack Appeal which has raised over £30,000.
Corporate volunteers from Sodexo donated a day of volunteering to help make up the 624 packs – each one for 20 staff – alongside the Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust ACT team. Each hamper was packed full of Christmas treats and sweets for deserving staff from a delivery of 390Kg of Quality Street chocolates, 1,200 boxes of chocolate truffles and half a tonne of mince pies!
In addition, 1,000 presents, the cost of which was fundraised by Cambridge Commodities, will be given to patients who will be in hospital over Christmas.
Shelly Thake, ACT’s CEO said: “This has been such a fantastic joint effort from the many companies that want to thank the hospital staff for their hard work over the last few months. We are so grateful to them all for getting behind us and supporting our hamper appeal, which will help us bring a little bit of Christmas cheer to all of the hospital staff.”
Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust (ACT) – the only charity dedicated to supporting innovative patient care at Addenbrooke’s and the Rosie hospitals – is pleased to announce that Dame Mary Archer DBE has agreed to take up the role of President of the charity.
Dame Mary previously held the role of Vice-President of ACT and is taking over from the late Sir Michael Marshall CBE DL, who served as President for almost twenty years.
Dame Mary has a long-standing relationship with Addenbrooke’s and the Rosie hospitals and Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust, fulfilling the roles of Chair of the hospital from 2002-2012 and Vice-Chair of Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust from 2005.
Dame Mary is also president of Cambridge Global Health Partnerships, Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust’s international staff volunteering programme, which she founded with senior hospital clinicians in 2006.
In addition, Dame Mary is co-chairing the Campaign Board for Cambridge Children’s Hospital, leading the fundraising campaign to realise a bold vision of integrated mental and physical healthcare for children and young people, with University of Cambridge research embedded within.
Dr Rosalind Smith, Chair of Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust said, “The charity trustees and I are thrilled that Dame Mary has accepted the role of President. Dame Mary brings with her a wealth of knowledge, expertise and enthusiasm to guide and support the organisation as it strives to raise much-needed funds to make Addenbrooke’s and the Rosie even better for patients.”
Dame Mary Archer said, “I am honoured to accept the position of President for this important charity. I have seen just how much ACT has benefitted so many patients at Addenbrooke’s and the Rosie over the years and indeed, patients and staff during the current coronavirus pandemic. I fully support its vision to ensure that every patient experiences the best possible outcome and the highest quality of care available.”
Dame Mary Archer DBE Dame Mary Archer DBE started her career as a physical chemist and taught Chemistry at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Dame Mary was chair of Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, 2002–2012, and a founder director of Cambridge University Health Partners, 2009–2012. In 2012, she was appointed DBE for services to the NHS.
Dame Mary is chair of the Centre for Personalised Medicine, Oxford and of the Science Museum Group. She is also chancellor of the University of Buckingham, president of the National Energy Foundation, the UK Solar Energy Society and the Guild of Church Musicians. She is a trustee of the Britten Sinfonia, and a non-executive director of Hydrodec Group plc.
A new video contact system giving parents the ability to have precious virtual contact with their babies in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) was launched earlier than planned due to coronavirus.
The initiative had been in planning for a while to help parents who couldn’t visit their critically ill babies due to health or social circumstances, for example, families who lived further from the hospital or who had other children at home to look after. Before the virus hit, families could stay with their babies around the clock. Without the new system in place, parents would only have been able to see their babies for one hour each day.
With kind donations from Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust (ACT) donors and the support of the hospital’s IT company, Novosco, Addenbrooke’s was able to accelerate the project and roll out the video system during the first lockdown, allowing parents to be able to maintain video contact with their babies whenever they needed while they were apart.
Mary King, NICU matron at Addenbrooke’s said, “The introduction of the video system has given parents the opportunity to see their baby so they can feel closer to them even when they are unable to visit. Parents have been able to speak to the team looking after their baby for support, reassurance and updates. The video system has also allowed mothers who are unwell and still at their local hospital to see their babies and speak with the NICU team. It has also been used by the psychology team to provide sessions with parents. We are very grateful to ACT and Novosco for all of their support.”
Louise and Dave are the parents of 10-month-old Noah who was born extremely prematurely in November 2019. Louise said: “During the COVID outbreak we had already been in the NICU with Noah for 4 months and we were just getting to the ‘going home’ stage. When coronavirus hit, they had to close the unit to all visitors including parents. We couldn’t go and see Noah and were heartbroken. That was one of the hardest days, having to accept that. It was devastating not being able to see him.”
“It was then that the team explained the possibility of the new video link. They explained that they would do everything they could to enable us to see Noah and that it was important that he could hear our voice and that we could see him. So, we went home and while there, suddenly my phone rang, and a video call popped up. It was Noah! The team had connected the video link so that we could see Noah in the unit from home.”
“We were one of the first families to try out the link. We got a chance to see Noah and talk to him. I can’t describe how much that meant, being able to see him on the screen. It really reassured us that he was doing well and that he could stay connected to us. The idea of not being able to see our son for so long after everything that had happened was unimaginable, so we can’t thank the NICU team enough for doing everything in their power to facilitate that connection.”
Ellen Dickson, Client Director at Novosco, said: “Novosco are proud to be partners with Cambridge University Hospitals (CUH) and ACT, and during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was our genuine pleasure to be able to rapidly facilitate the roll out of this technology solution to ensure that families of those children in the NICU could maintain visual contact. Drawing on our expertise to put the technology in place just made sense when the challenges of visiting babies emerged during lockdown, and to play even a small part of alleviating those worries and concerns for families was amazing.”
To mark World Prematurity Day on 17 November, ACT held a virtual seminar with teams from NICU and ANTS at the Rosie Hospital discussing the impact supporter donations are having on these incredible hospital departments, enabling improved care, and providing vital support to families during COVID-19. You can view the seminar on our YouTube channel.
The hospital continues to welcome donations to ensure that the NICU at Addenbrooke’s continues to provide the best care for tiny patients. To donate to the NICU please visit our website.
The ALBORADA Trust has provided Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust with exceptional support during 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. With grants of over £300,000 made in this year alone, the trust moved swiftly to support the staff at Addenbrooke’s Hospital first in paying for new wellbeing rooms, secondly in helping with the creation of a hardship fund to ease financial pressures and third in the provision of staff vouchers. The trust also funded vital lung injury research, allowing specialists at Addenbrooke’s to understand how COVID-19 causes damage to the lung.
The wellbeing rooms have provided a safe haven and a quiet place for staff to get away from the intense pressure and strain experienced in the first wave of COVID-19. The hardship fund and vouchers were a huge boost to staff morale and meant that those experiencing financial difficulties had one less thing to worry about.
One Addenbrooke’s staff member said: ‘It is amazing how much more spacious and usable the room looks. It feels like something we would gladly offer to patients but never to staff – it’s good to feel like we matter so much’
Since 2015, The ALBORADA Trust have awarded over £800,000 to Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust, allowing us to respond quickly to the hospital’s needs.
That includes their support of the hospital’s 3D Surgical Planning Service, a new state-of-the-art facility that will allow our Maxillofacial team to produce 3D models using scans, that can be used during facial reconstruction surgery for those with head and neck cancer.
Staff are delighted with the additional support that the ALBORADA Trust has provided during the most difficult of times. After being nominated to receive staff vouchers by a colleague, one member of Addenbrooke’s staff said:
‘I was very touched to receive my “You Made A Difference Award” nomination yesterday. I feel very proud to have been able to make a difference to patients and relatives during this pandemic and having nursed at Addenbrooke’s for 35 years, this is the icing on the cake!Thank you very much for the award and the recognition of our work through this time – it has been very gratefully received.’
Generous donations from hospital supporters have helped Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust (ACT) raise £216,000 for an emergency children’s ambulance service, which will save young lives in the East of England.
Addenbrooke’s hospital is home to the East of England’s Paediatric Intensive Care Unit providing state-of-the-art care to critically ill children. But getting children to Addenbrooke’s from across the region currently relies on a children’s ambulance service from London because regular ambulances are not kitted out with the specialist equipment required to keep critically ill children alive during transfers.
This can result in long delays, which for children and families is simply unbearable.
Crucially, the current service does not transport children back to their local hospital as soon as they are on the road to recovery. This means that children spend unnecessary time further away from home, friends and family.
Dr Rob Heuschkel, Consultant Paediatric Gastroenterologist and CUH Clinical Director for Cambridge Children’s Hospital, said: “The East of England is the only region that doesn’t have a children’s retrieval team of its own. While we plan for the forthcoming children’s hospital, being able to extend the service to all families who have children across the East of England will really transform the care that we can offer.”
Many kind-hearted donors helped ACT to reach its target, including sponsorship raised from over 2,100 runners at the Chariots of Fire relay race masterminded by Hewitsons Charitable Trust. Last year’s event, which saw 353 teams of six run around the iconic Cambridge colleges, raised over £92,000. The race was a great success with participants including three teams from Addenbrooke’s Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), as well as Dame Mary Archer’s team ‘The Great Dames’, raising more than £14,000. The Steel Charitable Trust, a Luton based funder with a focus on health, has also pledged £10,000 towards the appeal.
ACT has now raised enough money to fund two ambulances which will benefit over 1,700 children a year in the East of England, providing fast response times, and ensuring that children swiftly get the care and expertise that their lives depend on. The funding means that the hospital can start preparing for the new service which will go live on 7 April next year.
Shelly Thake, ACT’s CEO, said: “We owe so much to our incredible supporters who have again responded with enthusiasm to our appeal for help. This service is just one of the many ways in which the community has supported Addenbrooke’s, and for that, we and the countless patients that benefit are eternally grateful.”
Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust (ACT) has launched a new online shop full of ideal presents just in time for Christmas, with all profits making Addenbrooke’s hospital even better for patients.
The charity had already successfully launched a range of organic children’s T-shirts that were mainly sold within the hospital but is keen to expand the range and allow people to buy merchandise and support the hospital no matter where they are.
As well as children’s T-shirts, the online shop now also sells other perfect gift items such as hoodies, adult t-shirts, running tops, and baby wear – all in a variety of sizes and colours – as well as travel mugs, water bottles and greetings cards. The charity will be adding more products in future. All profits go towards supporting patient care within the hospital.
Gemma Downham, ACT’s Director of Fundraising, said: “We wanted to give people another way of supporting their hospital. We trust that people will enjoy the purchases they make, safe in the knowledge that all profits will go towards making the hospital even better. It’s all thanks to support like this that we can invest an additional £500,000 every month, saving lives, transforming our hospital and supporting pioneering research.”
Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust (ACT) has launched a new advertising campaign, “I’m here for Addenbrooke’s”, featuring local fundraising heroes, reminding the community that they can directly support Addenbrooke’s and the Rosie by donating or fundraising for the charity.
The campaign – developed with creative agency, Hope – can be seen on advertising sites around Cambridge city centre and beyond, as well as donated spaces in shop windows.
The charity raises money for innovative equipment, services and research above and beyond that which is funded by the NHS, helping make the hospital even better for patients. It recently funded over £1million of research into diagnosing and treating COVID-19, and psychological support for staff and patients including a counselling service for A&E staff helping them to cope with the pandemic and its long-term effects.
With the increased need for ongoing support since the coronavirus outbreak, the charity is calling on supporters of the hospital to help it continue to raise money so that it can help plan for the future and react effectively as demands on the hospital change.
Jonathan McGee, ACT’s Head of Marketing and Communications, said: “Thanks to the awareness of giving to hospitals through NHS Charities Together (our membership organisation), people have been reminded that they can support the NHS, but we also want people to know they can support Addenbrooke’s directly. We hope that this new campaign featuring some of our inspirational fundraisers will motivate people to donate or fundraise themselves.”
Claire Robinson features in our campaign posters
Fundraiser, Claire Robinson, who climbed Mount Kilimanjaro twice to raise funds for Addenbrooke’s and who features in the campaign, said: “Addenbrooke’s saved my life. It has kept three generations of family together. My mother, who donated me her kidney, me, and my beautiful daughter who was born prematurely at 28 weeks and 6 days and spent time in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Thank you. I will forever be grateful to Addenbrooke’s.”
Another fundraiser, Ray Parcell, organised over 110 vintage tractors carrying donation buckets to take to the road, travelling 33 miles through various villages as part of the Cambridge Vintage Tractor Club’s Annual Road Run. He said: “Captain Tom walking for the NHS prompted me to do a road run and I wanted to keep the funds local, so Addenbrooke’s was the obvious choice. I felt really honoured that I was asked to take part in the ad campaign and if I can fundraise, so can you – It’s easier than you think!”
If you would like copies of ACT’s posters to help spread awareness of fundraising or donating to Addenbrooke’s, please email communications@act4addenbrookes.org.uk
Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust, the NHS charity for Addenbrooke’s and the Rosie, has recently been able to fund £1 million of research into treatments and diagnostics for COVID-19 or services impacted by coronavirus, thanks to generous donations from the public.
As we emerge from the pandemic’s initial grip, there is still so much about the disease we don’t know, with many patients experiencing long-term effects from the disease. Fortunately, Addenbrooke’s is a university hospital which means that, as well as treating and helping people, doctors and nurses also look to research ways to improve patient healthcare.
Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust works closely with the hospital’s team of medical experts to identify and fund new and novel ideas, research projects and technical innovations that are vital for improving patient care at Addenbrooke’s and across the NHS. The charity funds much more in the hospital than can be achieved with NHS funding alone. Its funding helps build research capacity across the clinical workforce and delivers transformational projects of high value to patients and the NHS. The charity also provides around £300,000 a year to support junior clinicians getting into research via fellowship programmes.
Dr James Lee
The recent crisis has accelerated the need for research to keep COVID-19 under control and to understand how to care for patients. The more medical research that is carried out the more it will help our understanding of the disease and in time, save lives. Around the world, scientists and healthcare professionals are developing ways to vaccinate against, diagnose and treat the disease, and importantly, as we now know that the disease has many long-term effects, how to help people recover. Donations from the public allowed the charity to rapidly direct funds to this much needed research. Dr James Lee, Clinician Scientist and Principal Investigator who received funding from Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust to carry out research on a cell-based therapy for COVID-19, said, “With the rapid emergence of COVID-19, it was clear that researchers would need to move quickly to develop new ways of detecting and treating infected patients. This need, however, is at odds with the usual way of obtaining funding for research, which is often slow and ponderous. This is why rapid funding that was made available by Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust was so important, as it facilitated a fast response to the pandemic, and enabled us to begin working on a cell-based therapy immediately. For this reason, the funding we were awarded has been truly invaluable, as it has not only enabled us to conduct the research but do so in a time-frame that could benefit the most people.”
Dr John Clark, Paediatric intensive care clinical fellow at Addenbrooke’s said, “With the support of Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust, our paediatrics team is working on our understanding of COVID-19 in children. Discovering what is different in the way children are affected compared to adults could unlock important information needed to treat this disease. We are also testing new rapid technology used to detect chest infections and antibiotic resistance markers in critically ill children. This will provide doctors with crucial information that will help decide the best possible infection fighting treatment in hours rather than the days it takes with standard tests. None of this work would be possible without the generous donations to the Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust, which drives innovation in practice for our patients.”
Dr Miles Parkes
Dr Miles Parkes, Director of Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre (BRC), has helped lead a team carrying out research on understanding the long-term effects of COVID. He said, “There is so much that is still unknown about the long-term consequences of this devastating new virus, but with Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust funding we have been able to fund a multifaceted approach to COVID-19 research that is hugely valuable in itself and also provides a major Cambridge contribution to the large-scale national research programme.”
Louise Allen (L), Consultant Paediatric Ophthalmologist (DigVis) & Tamsin Holland-Brown, Community Paediatrician (Digihear)
As well as research into COVID-19, the need to provide answers for other diseases and conditions in the future has never been of greater importance. Coronavirus has had an impact across the hospital and the normal ways of diagnosing people stopped overnight. Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust was able to fund the research and development for two web-based testing apps – Digihear and DigiVis – helping patients to self-test for hearing and sight during telephone consultations. It also funded a third app to assess dizziness, hearing and balance disorders. It is hoped that these will provide an alternative to having to visit the hospital once life returns to normal.
Some of the COVID-19 research funded by Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust
Dr Michael Weekes’ research that found up to 3% of hospital staff across the country could have been carrying SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 disease, without realising they were infected. The findings demonstrated that a rapid staff screening process needed to be implemented across the NHS and to introduce additional measures to better protect staff and patients within the hospital environment.
Infectious disease expert Professor Paul Lehner researched repurposing existing medicines to see if they can treat COVID-19. Any which prove to be effective can then be tested in a clinical trial of patients with the virus.
Professor Willem Ouwehand’s research looks to improve the triage process for admissions of COVID-19 patients to hospital. A small number of people with underlying health conditions do not show the usual symptoms of the virus. As these symptoms are so different, there is a risk of misdirecting patients to an ordinary ward when they are in fact COVID-19 positive. The research will determine whether information gained via blood tests can help clinicians classify patients with more certainty.
The development of a new rapid COVID-19 test that builds upon an existing Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust-funded research project designed to provide quicker and accurate infectious disease testing in critically ill patients. Led by Consultant in Intensive Care Medicine and Anaesthesia, Dr Vilas Navapurkar, the new test will make it possible to screen for infections in four hours instead of two days. So far, the charity has funded testing for 200 patients, and is on track to provide testing for more.
Research beyond COVID-19
While the majority of non-COVID research was paused during the peak of the coronavirus, with vital research resuming, the charity needs to continue to fund it to ensure that advances to benefit patients are made in all areas. The charity accepts funding applications from researchers throughout the year. In 2019/20, the charity received around 40 applications with 20 grants and four fellowships awarded. So far 2020/21 looks very different, with 38 applications to date, of which twenty have been awarded already. These awards help in a variety of ways and one way is funding valuable proof of concept research. For example, Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust funded £1.1m towards the Personalised Breast Cancer Programme feasibility project, sequencing the genomes of volunteer patients from the Cambridge Breast Unit at Addenbrooke’s, to ensure treatment is personalised and the most effective. This was then rolled out as a major programme by Cancer Research UK, as well as changing the way genomic medicine is practiced on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus.
More recently the charity has funded Dr Emma Beddowes research to use real-time genetic profiling to help make treatment decisions for patients with advanced breast cancer. It is not currently known which treatment will be best for an individual patient. All of the treatments have side effects and being able to discontinue ineffective treatments very quickly will avoid the patient enduring these side effects unnecessarily. With a £24,600 grant from the charity the study will explore whether a simple blood test could be used to predict treatment response. If this is successful it could lead to ineffective treatments being stopped early and a more effective treatment started more quickly, keeping side effects to a minimum.
The charity also funded Dr Mark Kotter’s lab research into the harmful effects of inflammation on the ability of brain cells to send signals and communicate. Inflammation causes the cells of the brain to ‘fire’ abnormally, and this has been associated with currently incurable conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and certain psychiatric disorders. Viral and bacterial infections, as well as traumatic injury, can also create inflammatory environments. The research is investigating this abnormal signalling, as well as restoring normal communication between cells, and if successful, these results will form the basis of a therapeutic approach. Dr Nataly Martynyuk, the lead researcher on the project, comments that, “Early-stage funding, such as the grant provided to us by Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust, is key to allowing junior researchers to take crucial steps in testing new hypotheses, which is necessary to devise transformative treatment strategies”.
Research projects like these can only happen with donations from the public. Donations help the Addenbrooke’s team develop the innovative ideas that will make the hospital even better and contribute to national research too. To view a recent webinar featuring Dr Miles Parkes talking about research at Addenbrooke’s please visit bit.ly/MilesParkes
Shelly Thake, CEO of Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust said, “Research is the cornerstone to improving patient care and treatment. The combination of the complexity of cases and world class doctors at Addenbrooke’s provides the best environment to drive leading research. Over 25 clinicians and professors volunteer their time to consult and advise the charity on our investment in research. This governance enables us to support research that impacts not just Cambridge but beyond, on a national and international scale. Supporting early research careers, developing the hypotheses for research projects and funding broader research roles and projects means that our donors make every difference to the course that healthcare takes today and in the future. This is an immensely important aspect of our support to Addenbrooke’s.”
To help fund more research and make Addenbrooke’s even better for patients please visit helpyourhospital.co.uk/donate.
This article appeared in the 9 September edition of the Cambridge Independent.
