(L-R: Dr Pip Nicolson, Mrs Hannah Nieto, Dr Mat Orzalkiewicz, Dr Manvir Hayer, Dejo Olaleye)

 

The QEHB Charity has funded many projects at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, from vital new facilities like Fisher House to world-leading technology such as CyberKnife. Yet there is another significant but less well-known area where the charity also makes financial contributions: research. Medical research is essential for developing new treatments and improving patient outcomes such as quality of life and survival. The newly-opened Institute of Translational Medicine (ITM) on the site of the QE focusses in particular on helping new laboratory research get as quickly as possible from the lab to the clinic. Applying for a research grant is a difficult and time-consuming process which doctors usually have to complete in their ‘spare’ time, alongside their full-time clinical work. At the ITM, QEHB Charity have now funded five ‘starter fellowships’, which allow junior doctors to spend a year conducting pilot research so they can apply for more long-term funding. The fellows are able to concentrate much more time on the research they want to carry out than they would otherwise be able to, and during their fellowships have full access to education facilities at the University of Birmingham, University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB) and Birmingham Children’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (BCH). Aside from their own research, fellows also teach medical students, undertake medical cover work at the Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility, and continue with a varied amount of clinical work to ensure they stay up to date. We caught up with this year’s ITM research fellows to hear more about their work and find out what your donations have made possible.

 

Dr Manvir Hayer, Specialty Registrar in Renal Medicine (Kidney)

Manvir is looking into the onset and consequences of scarring (or ‘fibrosis’) in the heart, in patients with kidney disease. Chronic kidney disease affects one in ten people and is becoming more common. Kidney disease is also a risk factor in heart disease that is often not recognised, with kidney damage causing scarring to the heart. Using new MRI technology that looks for scarring, Manvir hopes to be able to identify high-risk patients in order to understand the reasons behind it and eventually prevent the onset of heart disease.

 

Dr Mat Orzalkiewicz, Specialty Registrar in Cardiology

Heart attack is the leading cause of death in humans and is caused by structures called ‘plaques’, which are found in coronary arteries, rupturing. Some plaques rupture and some don’t, and we don’t currently know what factors make a plaque more vulnerable to rupture. Mat’s research is focussed on identifying which plaques are vulnerable and why, so that in the future doctors may potentially be able to identify at-risk people early and develop strategies to prevent heart attacks from happening.

 

Dejo  Olaleye, Specialty Registrar in Otolaryngology (Ear, nose and throat surgery)

Dejo is conducting research into the role of the human papilloma virus (HPV) in causing throat cancer. HPV is the name for a group of viruses that affect your skin and mucous membranes like the cervix, anus and throat and can be responsible for a number of minor problems like skin warts and verrucas. It is also known to cause cervical cancer and some throat cancers. Dejo is hoping to find out who is at risk of developing throat cancer because of HPV, and why they are at risk. How does the virus enter human DNA? And how can we use this information to improve treatments to block it? Dejo's funding comes specifically from the Get A-Head Charitable Trust.

 

Mrs Hannah Nieto, Specialty Registrar in Otolaryngology  (Ear, nose and throat surgery)

Thyroid cancer affects an increasingly wide group of people worldwide, including young people, and has a high rate of recurrence – meaning it can affect people more than once. This makes it more difficult to treat effectively. Hannah’s research will examine DNA taken from thyroid cancer patients and the behaviour of thyroid cells in the McCabe laboratory with the goal of being able to identify who is most at risk of having their cancer recur. In the future, identifying these patients early would facilitate more accurate prognosis. This would also allow doctors to tailor treatments to individual patients with personalised medicine.

 

Dr Pip Nicolson, Specialty Registrar in Clinical Haemotology

 

Pip is carrying out research into Ibrutinib, an anti-cancer drug for treating patients with certain types of blood cancer, such as Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia (CLL). Clinical trials for the drug seem very promising, and it is predicted that it is going to revolutionise treatment for these blood cancers, particularly CLL. However, some patients involved in the trials have experienced spontaneous bleeding as a side effect. Pip wants to find out why some patients experience these serious side effects while others are unaffected, to gain a better understanding of who should not be prescribed the drug, how to prevent the bleeding from happening, and how to treat it if it does happen. To support research funded by QEHB Charity, please make a donation by clicking here. You can find out more about the ITM here.