Warwick Medical School has been announced as a member of a new national Consortium to tackle inequalities in maternity care.

Professor Kirstie Haywood from Warwick Medical School has been appointed as the University of Warwick's Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research Culture). Kirstie will work with the Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research), Professor Caroline Meyer, to lead the research culture agenda both internally and externally via the National Centre for Research Culture (NCRC).

A final year Warwick medical student has organised and run a very successful surgical skills day for her peers.

Satyajit Mayor, Mohan Balasubramanian and Masanori Mishima along with a group in the USA (Abhishek Kumar at Marine Biological laboratories- MBL- WoodsHole) have been awarded a Wellcome Trust Bioimaging Award.

In Phase 1 of this project, feasibility, proof-of-principle, and ease of use of the prototype light-sheet system with three detection modalities using existing and new fluorescent proteins will be established. In Phase 2, we explore a breadth of biological questions through investigation of model membranes, cultured cells (yeast, mammalian), and animal models (nematode, fly, fish). Our ultimate goal is to develop transformative imaging technology including optics and probes for widespread use by quantitative cell biologists everywhere.

Administrating life-saving drugs for cardiac arrest directly into the bone does not improve survival rates compared to the standard intravenous (IV) method according to new research from Warwick Medical School in partnership with NHS Ambulance Services.

Professor Sir Stephen Powis, National Medical Director of NHS England, recently visited Warwick Medical School to learn more about what we do within the School and the University’s Health Innovation activities.

The University of Warwick has been rated as ‘Good’ in a recent Ofsted report that focuses on its degree apprenticeships provided by departments including Warwick Medical School.

This paper presents an update on the content, accessibility and analytical tools of the EnteroBase platform for web-based pathogen genome analysis. EnteroBase provides manually curated databases of genome sequence data and associated metadata from currently >1.1 million bacterial isolates, more recently including Streptococcus spp. and Mycobacterium tuberculosis, in addition to Salmonella, Escherichia/Shigella, Clostridioides,Vibrio,Helicobacter,Yersinia and Moraxella.

The Photorhabdus bacterial genus contains both human and insect pathogens, and most of these species cannot grow in higher temperatures. However, Photorhabdus asymbiotica, which infects both humans and insects, can grow in higher temperatures and undergoes metabolic adaptations at a temperature of 37°C compared to that of insect body temperature. Therefore, it is important to examine how this bacterial species can metabolically adapt to survive in higher temperatures. In this paper, using a mathematical model, we have examined the metabolic shift that takes place when the bacteria switch from growth conditions in 28°C to 37°C. We show that P. asymbiotica potentially experiences predicted temperature-induced metabolic adaptations at 37°C predominantly clustered within the nucleotide metabolism pathway. Such information is important to understand how bacterial pathogens adapt to human infection. Read the paper hereLink opens in a new window.

Brugada syndrome (BrS) is an inherited cardiac condition that increases the risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD) due to ventricular arrhythmias. Catheter ablation has been shown to effectively reduce recurrent ventricular fibrillation (VF) episodes through targeting of abnormal electrograms predominantly located within the anterior surface of the right ventricular outflow tract. Signal frequency mapping is an emerging concept that provides further definition of pathological ventricular substrate.
Read the paper hereLink opens in a new window.

An essay by a second year Warwick MB ChB student has been showcased by the British Journal of Surgery Academy as part of an online competition.

Type VI secretion systems (T6SS) inject protein effectors directly into the cytoplasm of target cells. The T6SS is important for activities as diverse as bacterial pathogenicity, symbiosis, and inter-bacterial competition. Nevertheless, questions remain as to how the so many diverse toxins can be selected for injection by the T6SS. This study presents a searchable online database of all examples of a specific critical component of all T6SS, VgrG. This protein is a “spike” that allows the system to puncture host membranes and deliver the effector. An additional “adapter” protein is required to link the effector to the VgrG. Our database allowed us to determine six domain families encoded within vgrG loci important in the selection process. This work should facilitate other researchers in the field to better understand what effector proteins they use and how they are selected by the T6SS. Read the paper here.Link opens in a new window

Congratulations to Dr Katy Stokes, a graduate of the MRC DTP programme, who recently published a policy brief with Baroness Natalie Bennett urging the responsible use of biocides in consumer goods.

This briefingLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window will accompany the introduction of a Consumer Products (Control of Biocides) Bill in the House of Lords, which focuses on safeguarding public health and the environment. To achieve this Katy undertook an internship with the British Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (BASC)’s Parliamentary Internship Programme.

Third year Warwick MB ChB student Hannah Layton-Joyce has been awarded first place in the Tim Chard Case History Prize from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

Professor Tarvinder Dhanjal, Professor of Cardiology, has had their latest manuscript published in EP Europace journal. The project was a multi-centre, international, mechanistic VT mapping study including UHCW, Brighton and Barcelona.

Abstract:
Differentiating near-field (NF) and far-field (FF) electrograms (EGMs) is crucial in identifying critical arrhythmogenic substrate during Ventricular Tachycardia (VT) ablation. A novel algorithm annotates NF fractionated signals enabling EGM Peak Frequency (PF) determination using wavelet transformation. This study evaluated the algorithms effectiveness in identifying critical components of the VT circuit during substrate mapping.
Read the paper here.

In this study, we investigate the differences between the pathogenic activities of P. asymbiotica isolates from different geographic locations. Pathogenicity was analysed using infection assays with both cultured cell lines (THP-1, CHO, and HEK cells) and primary immune cells, and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) isolated from human blood.

Read the paper here.

Third year MB ChB student Alice Roberts has been awarded the prestigious Individual Innovation Prize by the Junior Association for the Study of Medical Education (JASME) in recognition of the sexual violence training she has developed for her peers.

Warwick Medical School has been working with the ADHD Foundation to look at how we can raise awareness and understanding of neurodiversity.

TRANSFORM, led by Professor Swaran Singh at Warwick Medical School, has been showcased in a Community Engagement and Involvement pilot study run by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR).

Endometriosis negatively impacts the health-related quality of life of 190 million women worldwide. Novel advances in nonhormonal treatments for this debilitating condition are desperately needed. Macrophages play a vital role in the pathophysiology of endometriosis and represent a promising therapeutic target. In the current study, we revealed the full transcriptomic complexity of endometriosis-associated macrophage subpopulations using single-cell analyses in a preclinical mouse model of experimental endometriosis. We have identified two key lesion-resident populations that resemble i) tumor-associated macrophages (characterized by expression of Folr2, Mrc1, Gas6, and Ccl8+) that promoted expression of Col1a1 and Tgfb1 in human endometrial stromal cells and increased angiogenic meshes in human umbilical vein endothelial cells, and ii) scar-associated macrophages (Mmp12, Cd9, Spp1, Trem2+) that exhibited a phenotype associated with fibrosis and matrix remodeling. We also described a population of proresolving large peritoneal macrophages that align with a lipid-associated macrophage phenotype (Apoe, Saa3, Pid1) concomitant with altered lipid metabolism and cholesterol efflux. Gain of function experiments using an Apoe mimetic resulted in decreased lesion size and fibrosis, and modification of peritoneal macrophage populations in the preclinical model. Using cross-species analysis of mouse and human single-cell datasets, we determined the concordance of peritoneal and lesion-resident macrophage subpopulations, identifying key similarities and differences in transcriptomic phenotypes. Ultimately, we envisage that these findings will inform the design and use of specific macrophage-targeted therapies and open broad avenues for the treatment of endometriosis.
Read the paper here.Link opens in a new window

Professor Justin Molloy has a new paper in the journal "Scientific Reports" in collaboration with Gregory I. Mashanov of the Francis Crick institute, London.
The paper describes a multiscale computer model that simulates the dynamics of individual molecules within the complex architecture of a living cell.

Read the paper here

After 12 years at the University of Warwick and an academic career spanning more than 40 years, Professor Lawrence Young retired at the end of July 2024.

Professor Swaran Singh is one of a group of prominent international academics who has made a significant contribution to the Lancet Psychiatry Commission on youth mental health published on 13 August 2024.

In this work, we explored how molecules (e.g., morphogens) move within biologically realistic domains. Our Singapore-based collaborators (Wohland lab) generated subcellular resolution maps of the developing zebrafish hindbrain using electron microscopy. Yi Ting Loo, a MathSys PhD student in the Saunders lab, built a simulation environment to explore how molecules would move within these maps. We accounted for tortuosity, dead-ends and receptor binding. Our results reveal how measurement techniques such as FCS and FRAP can lead to very different estimations of dynamic parameters (e.g., the diffusivity). Hopefully, this work provides a framework for properly accounting for biologically complex environments in estimating dynamics in living organisms.
Read the paper here.Link opens in a new window

Third year trainee medic George Webster has won a highly sought-after one-year placement as BMJ editorial scholar commencing at the end of this summer.