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NUH clinicians advance research thanks to national grant scheme
The CARP (Clinical Academic Research Partnership) was launched in 2019 and three consultants from NUH were amongst the first be awarded funding for their research. Two years later and a further eight NUH consultants are now waiting to hear if they will be shortlisted for the third round of CARP later this Spring.
In May, they will find out if they will follow in the footsteps of Drs Akram Hosseini, Radu Tanasescu and Sherif Gonem to gain major national support for their research and increase their skills and experience as investigators.
But how did our 2019 CARP winners benefit from their awards? And how will their research help patients?
Dr Sherif Gonem, a consultant respiratory physician based at Nottingham City Hospital, said:
“As NHS consultants, we often come across pressing clinical questions which would be amenable to research. The CARP award is a great opportunity to get funded research time so that you can answer those questions and hence improve patient care.
“The MRC CARP is a prestigious award and is an ideal springboard for those who wish to have a dual clinical/academic career. My own study is about developing an improved scoring system for respiratory inpatients using big data and machine learning methods.”
Dr Radu Tanasescu, a consultant neurologist based at the QMC, said:
“Being a CARP awardee opens pathways to networking and gives the opportunity to work with established high-level academic researchers.
“The CARP scheme is an opportunity for NHS consultants to dedicate some protected time to research, to increase research skills and experience by engaging and working with established academic partners - people and excellence research groups.
“This can help with and foster the cross-seeding of ideas, the perspectives of development and the networking necessary to support future research activity and projects.”
Dr Akram Hosseini (pictured), consultant neurologist based at the QMC, said her study, known as BiTAN (Brain Iron Toxicity and Neurodegeneration) was designed to help improve researchers’ understanding of how iron accumulates in the brain and the relationship of this build-up to memory and thinking (cognition).
Dr Hosseini said: “There is a pressing need to find new methods of diagnosing early signs of Alzheimer’s disease, a devastating condition which affects many people, including some who are still at working age.”
She added: “We hope this study will produce a foundation for future research and ultimately help patients who have Alzheimer’s disease.”
CARP has been developed by the MRC and is a new initiative which aimed at supporting more NHS clinicians to take part in clinical research.
It provides a new flexible route for research-qualified healthcare professionals at consultant level or equivalent to increase their research skills and experience by engaging with groups and centres of biomedical and health research excellence. CARP is a catalyst for sharing perspectives, ideas and connections needed to underpin translational biomedical and health research.
Working in partnership, the MRC and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) are committing a further £6 million of funding this year. From this, an anticipated 20-25 awards will be made.