The UWE Centre for Biomedical Research (CBR) held its second annual conference on the 8th of September. A year after the establishment of the new centre, the theme of the meeting was to emphasise and build on our connections with our academic and industrial collaborators.
The one day event again served to highlight the world-leading and internationally excellent research taking place across our core themes of Human Health and Disease, Biosensing, Bioanalysis and Diagnostics and Workforce and Practice Development. It further highlighted both our industrial and academic linkages.
We were delighted to have Dr. Aoife Morrin from Dublin City University as our keynote speaker. Her talk entitled “From Diagnosis to Dialogue: Unravelling Skin Volatile Profiles for Health and Beyond” illustrated the many intersections with CBR research, such as volatilomics, bioanalysis and diagnosis of disease (along with sharing a few embarrassing old photos!). These intersections could be seen in the work of Dr. David Qualtrough’s team as presented by James Claar which is investigating volatile organic compound signatures in colorectal cancer.
The work of Dr. Qualtrough and Clarr is a part of the strong bioanalytical base within the centre, as well as the newly formed Forensics Group. Talks from Chelsey Jordan, Louise Mclachlan and Dr. Kevin Honeychurch focused on both the methodologies and applications of analysis across the field of drug and chemical detection and analysis. Our long-established and continuing strength in biosensing was also on show from Dr David Ferrier’s study on exploring emerging green synthetic methods.
Prof. Tony Killard’s research, while often relating to both sensors and volatile analysis in diagnostics, the topic of his talk was addressing issues of technology implementation and integration into healthcare systems. The topic of healthcare deployment was also explored by Prof. Richard Luxton, through his involvement in the new NHS England Centre of Digital Excellence (CoDE) and his investigation into the application of ambient voice technology in primary care; as well as by Prof. Aniko Varadi who has also been working with the NHS for many years to integrate genomics into clinical practice through nurse teaching practice.
Our links with the SWBio Doctoral Training Partnership were highlighted by Dr. Lucy Crompton. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, of Dr. Alex Greenhough’s student, Selina Diether, we were unable to showcase some of the excellent post-graduate research taking place within this programme at CBR. However, this was very much compensated by the excellent work presented by UWE Wallscourt Fellow Laura Perry on signalling mechanisms in colorectal cancer. Our expertise in genetics was also on show, both through Prof. Mike Ladomery’s exploration of the impact of ant-cancer drugs on RNA splicing; while Dr. Ruth Morse also presented some fascinating insights into the role of ring chromosomal DNA in human disease.
Interest in the role of the microbiome was also on display at both epidemiological and public health health perspectives, through the work of one of our guest speakers, Dr. Zheng Feei Ma of the UWE School of Health and Wellbeing and his study of the links between nutrition, gut microbiome and health; as well as in the work of Prof. Emmanuel Adukwu’s student Syed Ayaan studying the role played by hand drying technologies in the transmission of drug resistant microorganisms.
Our excellent research links with our industrial partners were demonstrated through the joint presentation given by Juliet Munns and Lance Hiley from Mass Spec Analytical on the development of the application of amino acid analysis in traumatic injury diagnosis. It was also wonderful to have the participation, support and presentations from our sponsors and exhibitors , Horiba, PCR Biosystems and ProteinTech.
Congratulations also go to Juliet Munns and Sofia Meresentoglou as winners of the student talk and poster presentations, respectively.
Finally, big thanks to Dr. Lili Ordonez who was central to all the meeting organisation, and Eleri Heathcote for her assistance.
The centre looks forward to further growing its connections and collaborations over the coming year.