The University and United Bristol Healthcare Trust (UBHT) are joining forces to establish a new state-of-the-art Clinical Research and Imaging Centre (CRIC) at St Michael's Hospital on St Michael's Hill.
The Centre, which will cost £6.6m to build, is being jointly funded by the University, UBHT and a £1.5m award from the Wolfson Foundation. It is due to open in 2009.This unique collaboration between the University and the NHS will allow people in Bristol and the South West to benefit from the latest, high-quality, cutting-edge research being conducted locally.
The Centre will cover an area of approximately 1,100 square metres and will comprise:A high-spec magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner
- A two-room sleep laboratory for adults and children
- A clinical-investigation suite (CSI) for adults and children
- Accommodation, access to high-performance computational facilities, labs and offices
The MRI scanner, which is wholly funded by the Wolfson Foundation, can be used in a wide range of biomedical research. For example, it will be used to monitor blood flow in the brain and identify changes in brain activity in people with mood disorders (anxiety and depression), addiction (alcohol and drugs), stroke and dementia. It will also be used for cardiovascular investigations, notably the use of stem cells in heart repair and new cardiac surgery procedures, and to monitor shrinkage of the pancreas in type-1 diabetes.
The sleep laboratories will house studies into the links between sleep disorders and obesity in children, hypoventilation (the condition associated with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) or cot death), and the links between sleep disturbances and mood disorders and addiction in adults. The work on children will be led by Professor Peter Fleming, whose work on cot deaths is estimated to have prevented 100,000 infant deaths worldwide.
The clinical-investigation suite will be used to measure hormone levels in blood and tissue, which has major implications for the diagnosis of endocrine disorders, for example those affecting the thyroid, adrenal and other endocrinal glands. Other work will include early-phase clinical trials and the first studies on humans, e.g. of new vaccines designed to halt the progression of new-onset type-1 diabetes.