Media Monitoring – 18th – 25th June

Over £1 million awarded to Newcastle University to tackle antimicrobial resistance

Over £1 million has been awarded to a Newcastle University researcher to study how bacteria change form to protect against antibiotics
Dr Katarzyna Mickiewicz, from the Biosciences Institute, has received the funding from UKRI’s Impact Acceleration Account to study the importance of L-form switching in antibiotic evasion and recurrence of bacterial infection
Part of a £118 million package announced for critical early-stage translation of UK research to transform public services and create new businesses and jobs

England appoints Dame Lesley Regan as first woman’s health ambassador

England’s first women’s health ambassador has argued for “one-stop shops” where women can solve all of their health requirements
Dame Lesley Regan, who is a practising doctor, is seeking to make it easier for women and girls to access care such as contraception and smear tests in the community
She will also play a crucial role in the Government’s new women’s-health strategy

All NHS trusts now have a net zero strategy in place

On Clean Air Day – 16th June 2022 – NHS England announced for the first time all 212 trusts have strategic plans in place to reach net zero
The plans are expected to reduce carbon emissions by more than a million tonnes over the next three years – the same as taking 520,000 cars off the road

Russian researchers unveil new sensor which detects cancer

A research group from the Russian HSE University, Skoltech University, Moscow Pedagogical State University (MPGU) and National University of Science and Technology (MISIS) has developed a nanophotonic-microfluidic sensor which can help with cancer diagnoses
The researchers found that the new hybrid sensor device can identify liquids and gases which have been dissolved at low concentrations using a highly sensitive analysis
The small size microfluidic channels are able to send the specimens to the sensors, therefore results can be achieved even from miniscule samples

Micro-device could pick up early signs of heart attack or stroke

Biomedical engineer Dr Arnold Lining Ju, from the University of Sydney, is developing a biomedical micro-device to detect changes in the blood before a heart attack or stroke takes place
Using a pin-prick test, the micro-device would take a blood sample from a person’s finger. The sample would then be analysed for platelet clotting and white cell inflammation responses, information that would be immediately processed by an external operating system
Dr Ju is working with a team of PhD students to build highly sensitive computational fluid dynamics simulations to better understand the impact of mechanical forces that could lead to blood pooling and clots

UK launches ambitious trade deal with Gulf nations

Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan is launching free trade negotiations between the UK and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), made up of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE
Equivalent to the UK’s seventh largest export market, the GCC bloc’s demand for international products and services is expected to grow rapidly to £800 billion by 2035, a 35% increase – opening huge new opportunities for UK businesses
A strong trading relationship would allow the UK to play to our strengths as a manufacturing powerhouse and a world leader in technology, cyber, life sciences, creative industries, education, AI, financial services, and renewable energy

Pre-clinical screening technology could increase cancer test numbers by 50 times

A screening tool developed at the University of Strathclyde, UK, could increase the number of tests on a solid tumour sample by up to 50 times
The Strathclyde-led study has developed a miniaturised platform for screening 3D tumour models to evaluate the toxicity of CAR-T therapy towards cells. The platform enabled visualisation and quantification of how CAR-T cells rapidly targeted, broke up and killed cancer cells without causing significant harm to other cells

£3m NIHR funding boost for digital diagnostics in African healthcare systems

A new £3m NIHR award will see Imperial College London and 13 other institutions work together to research and develop digital diagnostics for African healthcare systems
Over the next four years, the funding will enable the GHRG to develop and evaluate next-generation digital diagnostic tests for infectious diseases
These digital diagnostics will use Lacewing – a handheld electronic device developed by Professor Pantelis Georgiou’s team at Imperial – which performs highly-sensitive detection of nucleic acids (such as DNA) on the surface of a microchip
The tests have similar accuracy to large laboratory machines but are rapid, low-cost, and portable