ResearchTogether: Patients Guiding the Future of Science 2025
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You are invited to attend our free patient-orientated event to share your experiences, whether you are living with or caring for someone with the conditions listed below.
11th February 2025, Edgbaston Park Hotel and Conference Centre, 53 Edgbaston Park Rd, Birmingham, B15 2RS
EPSRC-SFI Joint Centre for Doctoral Training in Engineered Tissues for Discovery, Industry and Medicine (lifETIME CDT) is a partnership between the University of Glasgow, the University of Birmingham, Aston University and CÚRAM – Science Foundation Ireland.
We aim to develop new human-relevant models, which will be more predictive and ethical, compared to animals commonly used in research, allowing new treatments to be found quicker.
Register for our ResearchTogether event here by Friday 10th January 2025.
The event will take place at the Edgbaston Park Hotel and Conference Centre, which is wheelchair accessible, on Tuesday 11th February 2025. The event will begin at 09:00 and finish at 17:00, followed by an evening dinner at 19:00.
About the Event
Our ResearchTogether event brings together patients, researchers, clinicians, carers and charities to discuss recent research advancements as well as how to improve research targeting healthcare improvement in the future. The event will focus on conditions relevant to the attendees, bridging the gap between patients and scientists.
In this way, scientists can ensure their research best supports patients, whilst patients can gain insight into the cutting-edge research being carried out for their condition.
Your opinion and experience is hugely invaluable to help us train the new generation of scientists to continue improving healthcare research in the UK.
We welcome all those with experience in a range of conditions:
- Diabetes
- Epilepsy
- Bone and Joint Damage
- Nerve Damage
- Brain Trauma and other conditions affecting the Brain
- Wounds and Burns
- Heart Disease
- Cancer (Liver, Bone, Skin, Breast, Blood)
- Stem Cell Therapies
- Brain Trauma
Programme
The programme will include introductions talks about our current research projects as well as talks from patients with lived experiences, charities, and researchers.
There will be a facilitated session to provide you with the opportunity to propose talking points that are of interest to you. These points will then form the basis of a round table discussion that will be openly discussed between all attendees.
Feedback and recommendations expressed during this event will shape our approach to training the future researchers. Once we look through all the feedback, we will let you know how we are planning to incorporate your thoughts and ideas into our future research.
Dinner and Social
We would also like to invite you to our conference dinner that will take place at the Edgbaston Park Hotel. During the meal, we will have an external company Perfect Murder facilitating a Murder Mystery as the entertainment. Please state if you would like to attend when registering for the event.
Event Location
The event will take place at the Edgbaston Park Hotel and Conference Centre which is located on the University of Birmingham campus. The venue is two miles from Birmingham City Centre, with direct train routes to the University station.
Information about the venue is available here and the Google map link can also be found here.
Expenses Policy
The event is an open event, free of charge and expenses will be covered, including accommodation.
We want to ensure that cost is not a factor in participation to achieve a broad reach, we will therefore contribute towards the (reasonable) expenses that you might incur in attending.
All patients will be reimbursed £150 for your time to attend our event.
Please see our Expense Policy here – PPIE Reimbursement Policy.
Funded research grants
EPSRC are a funding body that allow this ground breaking research to continuously develop. Below are the research grants that our scientists are involved with, which will be discussed and referred to during the event.
Mechanomeds, co-funded by EPSRC and MRC
As we get older, we develop CHIP (clonal haematopoiesis of indeterminate potential) as a mechanism to carry on producing blood – modern medicine and hygiene keep us alive beyond our historical life expectancy. This can tip into blood cancer especially after highly aggressive treatments like chemotherapy / radiotherapy.
In this project we are developing predictive technologies and robotic systems based on use of human cell systems on-chip and using Brillouin microscopy (that can look at how the cells change as they tip towards cancer).
The grant is led by University of Glasgow and includes partners at University of Strathclyde (mechanical cell stimulation, on-chip devices) and University of Liverpool (robotic systems).
Engineering the bone marrow niche to control stem cell regulation, metastatic evolution and cancer dormancy, funded by EPSRC
The bone marrow is the site of blood cell production and this environment can tip into disease (cancer evolution). It is also a preferred site of cancer metastasis that can give secondary tumours.
In this project we are producing first generation human cell containing laboratory models of bone marrow that can support blood production and in which cancer can develop (and migrate to). This will reduce Pharma reliance on animal models that give poor prediction of drug effects for blood cancers and will thus accelerate therapy development.
The programme brings together University of Glasgow for biology and materials along with University of Strathclyde (cell stimulation technologies and lab-on-chip technologies), University of Birmingham (small molecule binding technologies) and University of Oxford (spectroscopy and synthetic vesicle technologies).
lifETIME CDT, funded by EPSRC
lifETIME CDT graduates will develop multidisciplinary, high-value skills in the design, creation and application of new knowledge to accelerate therapeutic discovery. Along with our industrial, clinical and charitable partners, the lifETIME CDT will build the cohort of talent the sector needs to thrive.
To find out more about the lifETIME CDT research projects, please see our website: https://lifetime-cdt.org/students.
An action summary was agreed following the ResearchTogether event held in 2023.
To view the agreed action summary and event programme, please click on the link below.