“I’ve worked in medical science in the NHS and university sectors for many years. Like many therefore I have been interested in the public response to the role of science in this pandemic. Many seem to like the straight-talking approach that some scientists’ have been able to bring to public briefings on the covid-19 pandemic. Others express frustration that science hasn’t yet provided answers to questions such as when will we be rid of Covid-19? Can I be infected more than once? Should we all wear face masks?
Quite when science will come up with the answers we of course don’t know. But in my experience things have never moved as quickly as they have done in the last few weeks.
As an R&D leader in a major biomedical research partnership my focus at work is on enabling an environment in which world-leading research in a wide range of diseases can flourish. Partnership working is critical to biomedical science but what’s been remarkable in the last month is how quickly new partnerships have formed. Some competitor relationships (organisational and individual) and scientific rivalries are being put aside for the common good - fighting Covid-19. The patient is at the forefront of all our minds - we need speedy answers to save lives, now and in the future. And it is the context of the ‘now’ that has been so remarkable in terms of medical science.
Matthew Syed’s commentary in the Sunday Times on 19 April ‘When scientists and engineers come together, they win grand prix races… then save lives’ makes some really important points about what is achievable when you coalesce different approaches and disciplines around a problem.
Syed’s commentary focuses on our highly effective partnership between University College London Hospitals, UCL and Mercedes, which led to the creation of the non-invasive breathing device, called WhisperFlow CPap. What is striking about this project is the speed with which clinicians at UCLH teamed up with UCL engineers and with Mercedes to reverse engineer an old piece of NHS kit – 100 hours from the initial meeting to production of the first device!
The stimulus was learning from Italy’s experience of fighting the pandemic to make a difference for patients with the infection. 10,000 of the UCL Ventura devices have now been delivered to the NHS forming an important part of the armoury against Covid-19. And this was not easy. Once the front line clinicians had come together with the engineers, the alignment of regulator, production, procurement and distribution systems was needed. It also required the input of staff at all levels of the UCLH/UCL partnership, from sourcing hand gel for the engineers to use in the repurposed lab in King’s Cross, through to influencing the highest levels of Government to secure backing for Cpap.
So 'team science’ (in the broadest sense) has become commonplace across all fields of biomedical research in the last few weeks. Team science at pace. Will this way of working endure? Collaboration and partnerships can be difficult to deliver – sometimes stymied by competing interests or by the problem of the lack of academic recognition of team science contributions. But rarely, if ever, have we had the stimulus and the unprecedented urgency that the Covid-19 pandemic has presented us with.
I often reflect on what a privilege it is to work in a world leading biomedical research partnership like UCLH/UCL, the substrate to my working days being the fantastic biomedical science portfolio that the partnership delivers.
But what has characterised the last month is the speed and scale of collaborative opportunities and ideas that have come to the fore. We are rapidly assembling new partnership teams, usually over Zoom or Microsoft Teams as social distancing dictates! The Cpap story has been hugely successful but there are many other excellent examples of energetic, new collaborations, often re-purposing people and facilities to contribute to a collective effort. This includes the design and manufacture of protective visors in UCL laboratories for clinical staff at UCLH and a Covid-19 testing programme for healthcare workers rolled out at the Francis Crick Institute. Other new collaborations are being built on the sense of urgency that currently defines our working lives, a key example being a major new partnerships in data science.
I have found myself using the terms ‘revved-up partnerships’ and ‘partnership in a hurry’ in meetings at UCLH/UCL a lot this week. Whether these phrases will have a life beyond the next few weeks, let alone the remainder of the pandemic I don’t know. There is no doubt that the singular focus on one disease – Covid-19 – explains a lot. What I do hope is that when we have a firmer grip on Covid-19 and we begin to build the new normal both in our home and working lives, we all commit to holding onto our newly learned first-hand experience that has shown us what amazing impacts are possible when we declutter scientific partnerships and work at pace. What a difference that would make when we re-open our large portfolios of biomedical research into a wide range of diseases. With a sharp focus on the actual problem you are trying to solve for patients and a collective drawing on the strengths of partners, we can surely achieve so much more.
What is your experience? Can we build a new team science ethos in the UK out of this pandemic?
Dr Nick McNally is Managing Director UCL/UCLH Research and Chief Operating Officer for the NIHR biomedical research centre at UCLH
