̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Frank Waldron-Lynch

Vice-Chancellor’s awards recognise the difference researchers make to society

cjb250 — Thu, 13 Jul 2017 10:44:35 +0000

̽��ֱ��announcement was made at a prize ceremony held at the Old Schools on 13 July. At the same event, one of Cambridge’s leading experts on EU law – and in particular, Brexit – received one of the Vice Chancellor’s Public Engagement with Research Awards for her work around the EU Referendum.

Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, Vice-Chancellor of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, says: “I would like to offer my warm congratulations to the recipients of our Impact and Public Engagement Awards. These are outstanding examples that reflect the tremendous efforts by our researchers to make a major contribution to society.”

Vice-Chancellor’s Impact Awards

̽��ֱ��Vice-Chancellor’s Impact Awards were established to recognise and reward those whose research has led to excellent impact beyond academia, whether on the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life. Each winner receives a prize of £1,000 and a trophy, with the overall winner - Dr Alexander Patto from the Department of Physics – receiving £2,000.

This year’s winners are:

Overall winner: Dr Alexander Patto (Department of Physics)

WaterScope

Using an open-source flexure microscope, spin-out company WaterScope is developing rapid, automated water testing kits and affordable diagnostics to empower developing communities. Its microscopes are being used for education, to inspire future scientists from India to Colombia. Its open-source microscope is supporting local initiatives, with companies such as STIClab in Tanzania making medical microscopes from recycled plastic bottles.

Elroy Dimson (Judge Business School)

‘Active Ownership’: Engaging with investee companies on environmental and social issues

‘Active Ownership’ refers to commitment by asset owners and their portfolio managers to engage with the businesses they own, focusing on issues that matter to all stakeholders and to the economy as a whole, including environmental, social and governance (ESG) concerns. By providing evidence to guide ESG strategy, Professor Dimson’s research has had a substantial impact on investment policy and practice.

Professor Nick Morrell (Department of Medicine)

From genetics to new treatments in pulmonary arterial hypertension

Severe high blood pressure in the lungs, known as idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension, is a rare disease that affects approximately 1,000 people in the UK. ̽��ֱ��condition usually affects young women and average life expectancy is three to five years. Existing treatments improve symptoms but have little impact on survival. Professor Morrell has introduced routine genetic testing for this condition, and found that one in four patients carry a particular genetic mutation associated with more severe disease and worse survival. His research has identified new ways to treat the disease, the most promising of which is being commercialised through a university spin-out biotech company.

Professor Lawrence Sherman, Peter Neyroud, Dr Barak Ariel, Dr Cristobal Weinborn and Eleanor Neyroud (Institute of Criminology)

Cambridge Crime Harm Index

̽��ֱ��Cambridge Crime Harm Index is a tool for creating a single metric for the seriousness of crime associated with any one offender, victim, address, community, or prevention strategy, supplementing traditional measures giving all crimes equal weight. ̽��ֱ��UK Office of National Statistics credits the index as the stimulus to institute its own, modified version from 2017. Police use the Cambridge index to target highest-harm offenders, victims, places, times and days, differences in crime harm per capita differs across communities or within them over time, adding precision to decisions for allocating scarce resources in times of budget cuts.

Vice-Chancellor’s Public Engagement with Research Awards

̽��ֱ��Vice-Chancellor’s Public Engagement with Research Awards were set up to recognise and reward those who undertake quality engagement with research. Each winner receives a £1000 personal cash prize and a trophy. This year’s winners are:

Professor Catherine Barnard (Faculty of Law)

In the run up to the EU membership referendum Professor Barnard developed a range of outputs to explain key issues at stake including migration, which forms the basis of her research, in addition to the wider EU law remit. Harnessing the timeliness of the political climate, Barnard’s videos, online articles, radio and TV interviews have supported her engagement across 12 town hall events from Exeter to Newcastle, an open prison and round-table discussions with various public groups. She has also provided a number of briefing sessions to major political party MPs and peers. She has become a trusted public figure, and researcher, on EU law, Brexit and surrounding issues, ensuring that the voices of those key to the research process are heard and listened to.

Dr Elisa Laurenti (Wellcome/MRC Stem Cell Institute and Department of Haematology)

Dr Laurenti has engaged over 2,500 people, at six separate events, with her Stem Cell Robots activity. She collaborated with a researcher in educational robotics to produce this robot-based activity, which maps a stem cell’s differentiation to become a specific cell type. ̽��ֱ��activity has provided a platform for children, families and adults to discuss ethics and clinical applications of stem cell research.

Dr Nai-Chieh Liu (Department of Veterinary Medicine)

Dr Liu has developed a non-invasive respiratory function test for short-skulled dog breeds, including French bulldogs and pugs, which suffer from airway obstruction. She has engaged with dog owners by attending dog shows, dog club meetings and breeders’ premises to break down barriers between publics and veterinarians working to improve the health of these dogs. As a result of this engagement, the UK French bulldog club and the Bulldog Breed Council have adopted health testing schemes based on Dr Liu’s research.

Dr Neil Stott and Belinda Bell (Cambridge Centre for Social Innovation, Judge Business School)

Dr Stott and Miss Bell established Cambridge Social Ventures to embed research around social innovation into a practical workshop to support emerging social entrepreneurs. Since the first workshop in 2014, they have reached almost 500 people wanting to create social change by starting and growing a business. ̽��ֱ��team goes to considerable efforts to reach out to participants from non-traditional backgrounds and to ensure workshops are inclusive and accessible to a wide range of people by incorporating online engagement with work in the community.

Amalia Thomas (Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics)

Amalia Thomas researches photoelasticity, a property by which certain materials transmit light differently when subjected to a force. Amalia has developed an engaging exhibition for secondary school students comprising interactive elements, which uses photoelasticity to visualise force, work and power.

Dr Frank Waldron-Lynch, Jane Kennet and Katerina Anselmiova (Department of Medicine and Department of Clinical Biochemistry)

Since the commencement of their research programme to develop drugs for Type 1 Diabetes, Dr Waldron-Lynch, Ms Kennet and Ms Anselmiova have developed a public engagement programme to engage participants, patients, families, funders, colleagues, institutions, companies and the community, with the aim of ensuring that their research remains relevant to stakeholder needs. Amongst their outputs, the team has formed a patient support group in addition to developing an online engagement strategy through social media platforms. Most recently, they have collaborated with GlaxoSmithKline to offer patients the opportunity to participate in clinical studies at all stages of their disease.

An open source, 3D-printable microscope that forms the cornerstone of rapid, automated water testing kits for use in low and middle-income countries, has helped a Cambridge researcher and his not-for-profit spin-out company win the top prize in this year’s Vice-Chancellor’s Impact Awards at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Nithi Anand

I drink because I'm thirsty

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New approach to treating type 1 diabetes aims to limit damage caused by our own immune system

cjb250 — Tue, 11 Oct 2016 18:00:47 +0000

Type 1 diabetes is one of the most common chronic diseases in children and there is a rapid increase in the number affected each year. About 400,000 people in the UK are affected, 29,000 of them children. In type 1 diabetes, the body’s own immune system mistakes the insulin producing cells of the pancreas as harmful, attacks and then destroys them. ̽��ֱ��result is a lack of insulin, which is essential for transporting glucose from the blood into cells. Without insulin, glucose levels in the blood rise, causing short term and long term damage: hence patients have to inject themselves several times a day with insulin to compensate.

In a study published today in the open access journal PLOS Medicine, a team led by researchers from the JDRF/Wellcome Trust Diabetes Inflammation Laboratory at the Cambridge Institute of Medical Research used a drug to regulate the immune system with the aim of preventing a patient’s immune cells attacking their insulin-producing cells in the pancreas.

̽��ֱ��drug, aldesleukin, recombinant interleukin -2 (IL-2), is currently used at high doses to treat certain types of kidney tumours and skin cancers. At much lower doses, aldesleukin enhances the ability of immune cells called regulatory T cells (Tregs) to stop the immune system losing control once stimulated and prevent it from damaging the body’s own organs (autoimmunity).

Critical to this approach was to first determine the effects of single doses of aldesleukin on Tregs in patients with type 1 diabetes. To achieve this the team employed a state-of-the-art trial design combined with extensive immune monitoring in 40 participants with type 1 diabetes, and found doses to increase Tregs by between 10-20%. These doses are potentially enough to prevent immune cells from attacking the body, but not so much that they would supress the body’s natural defences, which are essential for protecting us from infection by invading bacteria or viruses.

̽��ֱ��researchers also found that the absence of response of some participants in previous trials may be explained by the daily dosing regimen of aldesleukin used. ̽��ֱ��current trial results suggest that daily dosing results in Tregs becoming less sensitive to the drug, and the recommendation from the study is that the drug should not be administered on a daily basis for optimal immune outcomes.

“Type 1 diabetes is fatal if left untreated, but the current treatment – multiple daily injections of insulin – are at best inconvenient, at worst painful, particularly for children,” says Dr Frank Waldron-Lynch, who led the trial. “Our goal is to develop a treatment that could see the end to the need for these life-long, daily injections by curtailing the early damage caused by the patient’s own immune system.

“Our work is at an early stage, but it uses a drug that occurs naturally within the body to restore the immune system to health in these patients. Whereas previous approaches have focused on suppressing the immune system, we are looking to fine-tune it. Our next step is to find the optimal, ‘Goldilocks’ treatment regimen – too little and it won’t stop the damage, too much and it could impair our natural defences, but just right and it would enhance the body’s own response.”

̽��ֱ��researchers say that any treatment would initially focus on people who are newly-diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, many of whom are still able to produce sufficient insulin to prevent complications from the disease. ̽��ֱ��treatment could then help prevent further damage and help them to continue to produce a small amount of insulin for a longer period of time.

̽��ֱ��research was largely funded by the type 1 diabetes charity JDRF, the Wellcome Trust and the Sir Jules Thorn Charitable Trust, with support from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.

Angela Wipperman, Senior Research Communications Manager at JDRF, said: “Immunotherapy research offers the potential to change the lives of those affected by type 1 diabetes. We eagerly await the next steps from this talented research team.”

Reference
Todd JA, Evangelou M, Cutler AJ, Pekalski ML, Walker NM, Stevens HE, et al. PLOS Medicine; 11 Oct 2016; DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1002139

Researchers at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge have taken the first step towards developing a new form of treatment for type 1 diabetes which, if successful, could mean an end to the regular insulin injections endured by people affected by the disease, many of whom are children.

Our goal is to develop a treatment that could see the end to the need for these life-long, daily injections by curtailing the early damage caused by the patient’s own immune system

Frank Waldron-Lynch

Jill Brown

Diabetes (rotated)

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Using the internet to boost participation in clinical trials

cjb250 — Mon, 27 Apr 2015 23:00:44 +0000

Type 1 diabetes, the disease that I mainly focus on, is relatively common in the UK – around one in 300 people in the UK alone are affected by it and face multiple daily insulin injections. So one might imagine we would have no problem recruiting patients for the trial of an exciting potential new treatment that could mean an end to those injections in the future.

As you may know already, type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease – the immune system mistakes cells in the pancreas as harmful and attacks them. When these cells are damaged the pancreas is unable to produce enough insulin, which plays an essential role in transferring glucose out of the bloodstream and into cells to be converted into energy. This is why patients have to regularly inject themselves with insulin to compensate.

Type 1 diabetes is a genetically complex disease – there is no single gene that causes it, but rather dozens of genes that increase the risk of developing the disease. But we do know of one particular set of genes – interleukin-2, or IL-2 – which plays a prominent role, helping regulate the immune system. We wanted to see whether IL-2 in the form of a drug called aldesleukin could halt the damage to the pancreas in people with newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes and, if so, what dose of the drug gives the best results.

̽��ֱ��problem, of course, is that not everyone with type 1 diabetes is aware of these essential studies and the ability to recruit enough patients can make or break a trial – not enough participants and the trial will be dead in the water before it has even begun. ̽��ֱ��solution is the internet, which provides a direct communication route to individuals with type 1 diabetes allowing them to find out about studies and then immediately with ease connect to the specialist teams running these studies. To get our message out on the web we turned to our funders and the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

We were very excited at the prospect of trialling this drug – and so, too, were our funders. ̽��ֱ��Wellcome Trust and the ̽��ֱ�� issued a joint press release, which they, together with the JDRF, ran on their websites and promoted through social media. When we looked at the number of people visiting our study website, we could see clear peaks of activity immediately after the stories appeared – and what’s more, this translated into people signing up to the trial: registration increased six- to seven-fold.

Recruitment to the study was also helped massively when Wired.co.uk picked up on the press release and ran a story about the trial – in fact, the single biggest peak of traffic to our site by far came from traffic referred to us from Wired.

Diabetes UK, too, posted an article about the trial. Interestingly, this post increased registrations from clinics and registry sources. We think this is because it stimulated interest from clinicians and research nurses, who then encourage enrolment from their patients.

Overall we found that the internet compared to traditional method of recruitment, to be the most successful and popular method for individuals with type 1 diabetes to find out and participate in the DILT1D study. ̽��ֱ��success of the active internet recruitment strategy campaign meant that we were able to successfully complete our study 11 months ahead of schedule and continue the development of the treatment in our next study.

Dr Frank Waldron-Lynch is Head of Experimental Medicine at the JDRF/Wellcome Trust Diabetes and Inflammation Laboratory in the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research

Reference
Heywood, J et al. Effective recruitment of participants to a phase I study using the internet and publicity releases through charities and patient organisations: analysis of the adaptive study of IL-2 dose on regulatory T cells in type 1 diabetes (DILT1D). Trials; 11 March 2015

̽��ֱ��success of a clinical trial hinges on its ability to recruit enough patients. Dr Frank Waldron-Lynch from the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research explains how the use of the internet to directly contact patients with type 1 diabetes greatly accelerated the recruitment leading to the early completion of his team’s study of a potential new treatment for type 1 diabetes.

̽��ֱ��ability to recruit enough patients can make or break a trial – not enough participants and the trial will be dead in the water before it has even begun

Frank Waldron-Lynch

rachellynnae©

High blood glucose

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