Welcome to the May WMAHSN Update

We have a new-look newsletter to bring you the best in news, project spotlights, events, and more. See what's coming up in May...

Multiple sclerosis mystery solved: Glandular fever virus is the cause.

Monash Warwick Alliance antimicrobial resistance (AMR) training programme in Emerging Superbug Threats – Call for Research Fellow Mentors

Academic colleagues are invited to apply to become a mentor for a philanthropically funded research fellow associated with this programme, which aims to deliver interdisciplinary AMR research training across the Warwick and Monash campuses to recent PhD graduates with relevant expertise. Further information about the goals and structure of the programme, and details of how to apply can be found here https://warwick.ac.uk/global/partnerships/mwa/current/amr/. The deadline for submitting applications is 28 Feb 2022.

Welcome to November's AHSN Funding Newsletter. This bulletin alerts you to funding opportunities, international opportunities, events and other relevant AHSN news. For each opportunity we have provided a brief summary and a link to full details.

Dr Thomas Barber was interviewed by Medical News Today on current insulin research and potential future developments. Listen to the interview here.

The fund aims to strengthen or initiate exchange between Warwick researchers/educators and their counterparts from leading international universities or institutes by enabling them to jointly undertake preliminary research, organize meetings, conferences, or workshops.

An immunotherapy combination could be better than standard ‘Extreme’ chemotherapy as first-line treatment for some patients with relapsed or metastatic head and neck cancer, or both, a major phase III trial suggests.

A new drug to lower cholesterol which was appraised by Warwick Evidence will be made available to hundreds of thousands of NHS patients

A new Patient Public Community Hub has been launched within Academic Primary Care, with content developed with NIHR Research Champions (public volunteers who raise awareness about research ) from the West Midlands. The hub is aimed at helping to create an environment that makes local health research results more accessible to the public and provides opportunities for local involvement and engagement with health research. It's being developed as part of a qualitative research project by Eleanor Hoverd, Research Nurse and NIHR Pre-doctoral Clinical Academic Fellow at UAPC, supervised by Professor Sophie Staniszewska and Professor Jeremy Dale.

We've just launched a new network, in partnership with University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire (UHCW) and Bruntwood SciTech, called the West Midlands Health and Wellbeing Innovation Network. The Network will find and develop the next big innovations in healthcare transformation.

Using the expertise and resources of the University and hospital, businesses in the healthcare, technology and wellbeing sectors can benefit and grow, and ultimately help us to take on new and existing healthcare challenges. The Network has also received £100,000 funding from the West Midlands Combined Authority's Innovation Programme to create and develop responses to health challenges that will impact our region. Read on below to find out more about the Network.

The impact of high breathing efforts on the lungs of patients suffering with acute respiratory failure due to COVID-19 has been investigated by researchers at the University of Warwick, who assessed the likelihood of resulting lung injury.

The Centre for Mental Health & Wellbeing has been awarded £3,608,627 in NIHR funding to undertake an asset-based approach to improve access to mental health care in slums, entitled 'The TRANSFORM Project.'

Slum populations in low and middle-income countries (LMICs) have high rates of serious and enduring mental disorders (SMDs – psychotic disorders and severe mood disorders, often with co-occurring substance abuse) and very poor access to mental health care. Sufferers and their families often choose traditional and faith-based practices since these are more accessible, considered affordable, and are in tune with their cultural beliefs and traditions. Faith-based and traditional healing can play an important part in delivering care in LMICs, especially for common mental disorders like anxiety and depression, both in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian subcontinent but those with SMDs require additional biomedical treatment and follow-up.

The TRANSFORM project aims to improve access to care and outcomes of SMDs in slums, by developing an innovative collaborative care model involving traditional/faith healers, mental health professionals, primary care practitioners and community health workers (CHWs). This multidisciplinary research programme is being conducted across two slum communities in two ODA-eligible countries.

We are conducting in-depth studies to understand local communities' awareness and understanding of SMDs and sit with traditional and faith healers to understand who seeks care, how care is given and how healers identify and could refer those with treatable SMDs to medical care. We will develop an understanding of the explanatory models of illness and care in relation to SMDs from the perspectives of community members, healers and health professionals.

Based on these findings, we will develop two training packages, one for healers and one for CHWs, focused on identification, referral to local psychiatric services and ongoing support for patients (18+) with SMDs. We will evaluate the effectiveness of the training programmes in increasing referrals to and the provision of community mental health care of cases of SMDs and conduct a cost-effectiveness analysis of the intervention and its outcomes.

The proposal was developed in detailed discussion with local research teams, slum community leaders, CHWs and local traditional/faith healers, who will be ongoing partners of the project. Besides disseminating findings through the usual channels of scientific publications and policy papers, we will develop street theatre and documentary films on our findings to increase the impact of our research and to further engage slum communities, raise awareness, reduce stigma and provide information on plural health care for SMDs.

Cancer services at University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire (UHCW) NHS Trust are set for a ground-breaking advancement, with major funding secured to develop technology that can detect tumours and guide robots to remove them.

The Terabotics project, which is being led by Professor Emma Pickwell-MacPherson at the University of Warwick, will use probes that use terahertz (THz) radiation, or T-rays, to scan for tumours under the skin.

Welcome to all the latest news, event and funding information from the West Midlands Academic Health Science Network.