Inflammation, Immunity and Immunotherapeutics Research Proposals Awarded

The UCLH BRC Inflammation, Immunity and Immunotherapeutics Theme (III) recently awarded grants to support research proposals for translational research closely aligned to the III Theme’s strategy.

The theme received a total of 22 applications, of which 12 were shortlisted. After a rigorous scoring process by the BRC III Board and external reviewers, 8 applications (listed below) have been granted funding to the tune of £528K.
 

The proposals submitted had to meet three key objectives:

  • Identification and validation of targets for novel therapies
  • Validation of biomarkers and novel functional imaging to assess responses to novel therapies
  • Delivery of novel therapies (including drug development, drug repurposing, cell & gene therapies, regenerative medicine) in proof of concept clinical trials.

 

BRC III Theme Call Proposals Awarded:

1. Neutrophil activation as a novel biomarker and therapeutic target in interstitial lung disease  - Dr J Porter.

2. Endotyping SLE and Sjogren’s syndrome patients in adult, adolescent and paediatric populations for precision medicine therapeutic approaches (The NUANCE Study) - Dr C Cuirtin.  

3. Interferon regulation of lipid metabolism in Autoimmunity: Towards patient stratification and identification of novel targets for cardiovascular risk in SLE – Dr I Pineda-Torra.

4. Precision prescribing for clinical infection syndromes (PRECISE) - Dr L Shallcross.

5. Functional modelling of novel STAT1 variants amenable to gene editing – Dr S Burns, Dr. S Hanson

6. Quantitative imaging biomarkers of skeletal inflammation (Biological Validation and Response Prediction) - Dr T Bray.

7. Determining the clinical utility of measuring complement Factor H – Dr R Sofat.

8. Functional consequences of B cell depletion therapy on adaptive immunity to Streptococcus pneumoniae – Prof J Brown.