This submission presented work carried out by researchers in the Departments of Natural Sciences; Design Engineering and Mathematics; and Adult, Child and Midwifery at Middlesex University. A total of 32 researchers were involved, working in four research groups: Biophysics and Bioengineering; Biomarkers and Molecular Biology; Public Health Policy; and Nursing Research.
The impact we achieved
This research project has pioneered the use of Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT), which can be used to image organ function in real time (100 images/second). Compared with existing technology it is highly portable, inexpensive and lends itself readily to remote imaging to save lives. The project's key impacts are:
The research behind it
The impact described above evolved from a series of specific developments employing EIT, including:
The research continued to flourish and diversify throughout the coronavirus pandemic when we repurposed the hardware and techniques for monitoring COVID-19 pneumonia in adult ITUs.
The people involved at Middlesex and beyond
The Middlesex research team behind the project consists of Professor Richard Bayford, Dr Andrew Tizzard, and Dr Andy Bardill.
Along the way, the team has collaborated with several universities, hospitals and industry partners – locally, nationally and globally – including the Great Ormond Street Hospital and UCL (UK); Oulu University Hospital and University of Oulu (Finland), Nicosia General Hospital (Cyprus), Sentec (previously called Swisstom) and Emergex (UK); and Dartmouth College and Florida State University (USA).
The impact we achieved
This research project addressed global non-communicable disease (NCD) challenges, impacting on both public policy, and health and wellbeing. The World Health Organization's (WHO) NCD Global Monitoring Framework (WHO-GMF) enables global tracking of progress in preventing and controlling major NCDs and their key risk factors. The project's key impacts are:
The research behind it
Our Public Health and Biomarker Research Groups have a proven track record in the analysis of cardio-metabolic risk factors and the identification of novel biomarkers for a range of pathologies linked with cardiovascular diseases and cancer. Specifically, the impact described above evolved from Middlesex research across global health and clinical innovation commencing in 2006 including:
The people involved at Middlesex and beyond
The Middlesex research team behind the project were led by Professor Ajit Shah, Dr Frank Hills, Dr Mariachiara Di Cesare, and Dr Britta Stordal.
The team has collaborated with universities, research centres and industry partners including: WHO Collaborating Centre on NCD Surveillance Epidemiology at Imperial College London, King’s College London, Iduron Ltd, and Ascend Diagnostics (UK).
The impact we achieved
The development of new drug therapies costs up to £4bn to reach FDA approval stage however many therapies are not reliable despite this significant investment. For example, approximately 99% of drugs administered through freely circulating methods do not reach their target site.
This work focuses on the use and understanding of gold nanoparticles (GNP) for more effective and targeted therapies with the following impacts:
The research behind it
Our research is focused on the use and understanding of GNP including in the delivery of therapeutic drugs which is of considerable importance for pharmaceutical research and industry.
The underpinning research looked at:
The people involved at Middlesex and beyond
Our research team included Professor Richard Bayford, Dr Song Wen and Professor Ajit Shah.
We worked with industrial partners Emergex vaccines, Proxima Concepts and Ascend Diagnostics. We collaborated with Imperial College London and Institute of Nano-Resolution Optics at Nanjing University.
