UK: Unique collaboration funds clinical research

A university, a health trust and a charity have joined forces to establish a state-of-the-art clinical research and imaging centre. Bristol University, the United Bristol Healthcare Trust and the Wolfson Foundation have collaborated to build the £6.6 million ($12 million) centre at St Michael's Hospital, in the south-west England city, which is due to open in 2009.

It will contain a high-spec magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner, a two-room sleep laboratory, and a clinical investigation suite as well as labs and offices. The scanner, funded with £1.5 million from the Wolfson Foundation, can be used in a wide range of biomedical research areas, including addiction, stroke and dementia.

Researchers will also study links between sleep disorders and obesity in children, hypoventilation, the condition associated with cot death, and they will conduct clinical trials of new vaccines. The centre is expected to generate at least 16 new jobs for local people.

Professor Gareth Williams, dean of the faculty of medicine and dentistry, said: " The centre represents the way forward - an effective and exciting collaboration between university and NHS [Britain's National Health Service] - and will enable us to compete at last with some of the best biomedical research bases in the UK and beyond."

Graham Rich, chief executive of the health trust, said the project was the start of many more innovative joint ventures linking his arm of the UK health industry with academia, and showed a commitment to clinical research of international quality. diane.spencer@uw-news.com