Queen’s University Belfast have officially opened the Precision Medicine Centre of Excellence (PMC), which will radically change the landscape of modern medicine in Northern Ireland and beyond.

The PMC is a new laboratory based at Queen’s University Belfast campus, boasting state-of-the-art technology, which will bring together high-throughput genomics, artificial intelligence and big data analytics in a fully integrated fashion.

Professor Manuel Salto-Tellez said, “No longer a ‘one size fits all’, we have seen a major shift towards precision medicine in recent years, focusing on tailored treatment for patients."

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Researchers from Queen’s University Belfast have discovered a new way of treating major diseases of the eye caused by the abnormal growth of new blood vessels.

The research recently publish in US journal JCI Insight was funded by the British Heart Foundation Northern Ireland (BHF NI).

The study shows that a specific protein found within the body called ‘CAMKII’, acts to co-ordinate the different signals that cause new blood vessel growth.

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Researchers at Queen’s University Belfast have coined jellyfish, ‘the gingerbread house’, conveying their newly discovered role in providing both food and shelter to fish.

Jellyfish have long been described as ‘arguably the most important predators in the seas’, competing with adult fish for food, or by preying on eggs and larvae to reduce survivorship and recruitment of fish stocks.  Certainly such mechanisms are at play, but a recent study led by Queen’s and published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B journal suggests they might be counterbalanced by other traits rendering jellyfish much more beneficial to marine life than previously thought.

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The Queen’s University N. Ireland Cancer Registry (NICR) released the number of new cancer cases diagnosed (incidence) in Northern Ireland in 2017.

This release provides details of the number of cancer cases diagnosed each year along with incidence rates from 1993 to 2017 for all cancers combined and for a wide range of cancer types. The number of cases and rates for a range of geographic areas is also available. Survival trends for a range of cancer types and prevalence (the number of people alive) for these cancers is also provided.

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Read the latest stories from the Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences

 

Congratulations to Queen’s University research experts who were named in the UK’s top 25 most influential researchers who study diabetes complications.

The four Queen’s University researchers are all based within the Centre for Public Health;

• Professor Usha Chakravarthy
• Dr Amy Jayne McKnight
• Professor Tunde Peto
• Professor Alan Stitt

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A number of degree courses at the School of Biological Sciences and IGFS have been granted the prestigious status of being formally accredited by the Royal Society of Biology.

The degree courses, which will be accredited for five years, are:

 

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Congratulations to Professor Danny McAuley has been appointed as the new Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation (EME) Programme Director.

The EME Programme is a Medical Research Council (MRC) and NIHR partnership. The Programme funds ambitious studies evaluating interventions with potential to make a step-change in the promotion of health, treatment of disease and improvement of rehabilitation or long-term care. Within these studies, the EME Programme supports research into the mechanisms of diseases and treatments.

 

Queen’s University Belfast is the first University in the UK using the new Laerdal SimBaby.

SimBaby is a tetherless human patient simulator and is designed to help healthcare providers to effectively recognise and respond to critically ill paediatric patients. The SimBaby simulator represents a 9-month old paediatric patient and provides a highly realistic manikin that allows learners to practice early assessment, diagnosis and treatment to help paediatric outcomes. It incorporates a number of new features such as checking ‘Capillary Refill Time’ (CRT), testing ‘Pupil Light Reflex’ and ‘Quality Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation’ (QCPR) Technology - for effective monitoring and improvement of CPR performance.

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Congratulations to the faculty staff members who have received various awards/prizes. Click here for full award details

 

We are honoured to welcome Sir Tim Smit KBE, Executive Co-Chair Eden Project International and Executive Vice Chair and Co-Founder Eden Project to deliver the annual lecture; talk entitled Some Open Minds Need to be Closed for Repair - the Battle Between the Consumer and the Citizen in All of Us.

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MHLS has long-standing links in research with a number of Jordanian Universities and the Faculty Dean of Internationalisation, Colin McCoy, coordinated a major research networking event in Jordan in January to build on this reputation and establish new areas of collaboration. Twelve academics from across MHLS and two staff from Research & Enterprise travelled to Amman to take part in the event entitled “Queen’s University Belfast – Jordan Research Symposium in Healthcare, Pharma and Agri-Food: Towards collaboration in Pharmacy, Food and Medicine.”

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The Northern Ireland Multiple Sclerosis Research Network held their 4^th annual open evening on Monday 25^th March at the Wellcome Wolfson Institute for Experimental Medicine. Over 70 guests attended including people with Multiple Sclerosis and their supporters.

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Congratulations to Professor Gerry Gormley, Centre for Medical Education, Professor Bronagh Blackwood and Professor Tim Curtis, The Wellcome-Wolfson Institute for Experimental Medicine, who held inaugural lectures in March and April 2019.

Professor Gerry Gormley – ‘Learning by performing in the theatre of simulation’

Professor Bronagh Blackwood – ‘Caring in critical illness: from bedside care to research’

Professor Tim Curtis - 'Tackling diabetic eye disease by going with the flow'

 

 

 

People from both sides of the border will benefit from 11 health intervention research trials thanks to a Cross-Border Healthcare Intervention Trials in Ireland Network (CHITIN) Project delivered by the Public Health Agency in Northern Ireland (NI) and the Health Research Board in the Republic of Ireland (ROI).

CHITIN aims to improve the health and wellbeing of people and seeks to help shape future research for those living in Northern Ireland and the border regions of Ireland (Donegal, Leitrim, Sligo, Cavan, Monaghan, and Louth) through cross border research collaborations.

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The faculty is pleased to announce the launch of the MHLS Technician Commitment website. The website highlights the support to our technicians, identifying training opportunities and events as well as highlighting the great work carried out across the faculty. 

Click here to view the website

We've had a great initial response to the 2019 Staff Survey – thanks to all of our staff who have taken the time out to take part and have their say. If you haven’t completed the Survey yet, don’t worry - there’s still plenty of time before it closes at 5.00pm on Thursday 18 April.

If you have deleted your unique Survey link or can’t locate your original email, please click here to request a replacement link.

Staff in the Centre of Biomedical Sciences, the School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences and the wider Faculty send their condolences to the family and friends of their late colleague and friend, Dr Eilish Donnelly, who died suddenly on Monday 8 April 2019.