Helping babies and families

New Embryoscope help for IVF couples

Invaluable medical support from the Warwickshire Private Hospital Charitable Trust

The Warwickshire Private Hospital Charitable Trust (WPH) was founded to help local medical causes in Coventry and Warwickshire.

They have supported Warwick with over £2 million of support for our Medical Research Institute and for specialised medical equipment.

They recently helped the Biomedical Research Unit to purchase an Embroyscope, which has helped 17 couples to have successful IVF pregnancies. In thanks for their ongoing support, the new WPH Proteomics Facility was named in their honour in April 2014.

Attendee and Trust member Mike Tansey said,

"We have always been supportive of the University and we love hearing how our grants have made a difference to people’s lives."

Provost Stuart Croft led the launch event and said,

"Warwick was built on philanthropy, and we are grateful to WPH and all our donors for their ongoing support. We do a lot of medical research which makes a difference to our community, and we hope to continue as we expand into new areas of cancer research and imaging."

What does an Embyroscope do?

"In the simplest terms, it helps couples who are undergoing assisted reproductive treatment (such as IVF) to select the healthiest embryo.

It does this by scanning the embryos microscopically every 20 minutes during the first week of growth, before they are implanted. This gives us data we couldn't otherwise get about the embryo's cells, size, shape, fragments, nuclei and so on.

Without help from WPH Charitable Trust, this equipment would have been unavailable to us, and without it our ability to discern ‘good’ from ‘poor’ embryos is limited to daily subjective assessments by a clinical embryologist."

Dr Geraldine Hartshorne
Warwick Medical School

What about the WPH Proteomics Facility?

“The facility helps fundamental research in both Warwick Medical School and the School of Life Sciences.

We use mass spectrometry to identify and quantify proteins.In the simplest terms, we can break proteins down into smaller structures.

This helps us identify molecules which react to certain viruses and discover new drugs to treat them.”

Dr. Alex Jones
School of Life Sciences

Helping premature babies with the Grace Research Fund

Neo-natal Unit Photo

"It’s been an incredible year for the GRF at Warwick, and we have too many people to thank in one page! Here are a few people we are grateful to..."

Thank you to the 50 Warwick staff, students and friends who have raised money for the Grace Research Fund in the Two Castles 10k this June! Every footstep helps us save the lives of more premature babies.
Thank you to the Sky Blues Coventry Football Club, who have worn our logo on the front of their shirts and helped with lots of projects. We estimate that the team has helped us gather £13,000 of support for research into the causes of premature births, and helped raise awareness too.
Thank you to the Rixon family and friends for a very weighty donation! Jayden Rixon was born at University Hospital, Coventry aged 28 weeks old in 2011, and spent his first couple of months in the neo-natal unit on a ventilator. To thank the team for their ongoing care and expertise, his mum and dad Carmel and Oscar began saving up every £2 coin they found – and ended up bringing an amazing £3,000 to the hospital.
Last, but not least in any way, thank you to every single person who has given us a donation. Your gifts ensure research into the causes of premature births and the best forms of neonatal care.

If you're interested you can sign up to our updates and more at www.graceresearchfund.org!"

Charlotte Maytum,
Community Fundraiser

How does the Grace Research Fund make a difference?

The Grace Research Fund has made some very important differences. One important project has been about pain and discomfort in babies, and we’ve looked at why mothers go into preterm labour and possible ways of trying to stop preterm labour.

We are grateful when we hear back from families and friends of babies we have cared for – and are extremely touched when they raise money for us too!

We’re also thankful for the ongoing support of the Volunteer Executive Committee too, and are always keen to hear from others who would like to be involved.”

Dr Andrew Coe
Paediatrician at the Neonatal Unit
University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire

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