Projects and studenships we have funded
Our latest studentship
There are two types of stroke. The first is when clots in the blood supply prevent nutrients getting to brain tissue. The second is when leakages from blood vessels lead to internal bleeding. This studentship focusses on the second type, which is the cause of around 13% of all strokes. The team will be exploring the potential of materials derived from parasitic worms. These worms have been shown to have the properties needed to stop the leakage of blood. The team is led by Dr Hilary Carswell at the University of Strathclyde.
Schizophrenia
We are supporting Dr Rajeev Krishnadas and his colleagues. They are using advanced medical imaging techniques to study information circuits in the brain in patients presenting with schizophrenia. One of the challenges is to study the patients before they get antipsychotic drug treatment as that could affect the pattern of brain activity. They are making good progress.
Stroke, head injury and Alzheimer’s Disease
The researchers are Dr Kristin Flegal who came to Glasgow University from the University of California and Dr Will McGeown at Strathclyde University. They are developing self-help strategies to limit the effects of memory loss in these patients. The technique being explored in this project is called adaptive training. This is where the level of difficulty of training tasks increases throughout the training period. We like this study as it aims to give the subjects some ownership of their condition rather than just relying on drugs.
Early detection of deterioration in children who have had a head injury
This project is led by consultant neurosurgeon Mr Roddy O’Kane and clinical scientist Dr Ian Piper. This award helped them to set up a European network to investigate why patients often develop unexpected complications after head injuries. The network has been established successfully. There are centres in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Liverpool, Oxford, Nottingham, Newcastle, Barcelona, Leuven (Belgium) and Iasi (Romania) plus Bristol, London (St George’s), Manchester, Riga in Latvia, and Bucharest in Romania. As a result of the initial study that we funded, further grant income was secured. The researchers were awarded an EU Grant of 600K Euro’s from the EU ERA-NET-NEURON programme to undertake studies using the network infrastructure.
Read some final project reports
1) Cognitive impairment in Parkinson’s disease is multifactorial: A neuropsychological study
Final Report by Callum Smith – June 2020
2) Memory training for stroke and head injury patients
Final Report by Drs Flegal and McGeown – November 2020
3) Research In The Intensive Care Units
Our enabled Dr Ian Piper to obtain preliminary data that helped to secure a €2.3M framework 7 grant from the European Union. Dr Piper’s work can be followed at http://www.brainit.org/
4) Metabolic Imaging with MRI: the GOLD project
The original award of ~£10,000 from NSF has so far led to a further £1.6M grant income. It also included 5 full peer reviewed publications and formation of a spin out company – Aurum Biosciences. The project aims to establish methods of assessing tissue metabolism in conditions such as stroke, cancer and epilepsy. Further information is available at http://www.aurumbiosciences.com
5) Brain Tumour Project
We raised £150,000 to support the pioneering work of Professor Moira Brown. Professor Brown demonstrated that a modified version of the HSV virus that causes cold sores could selectively destroy rapidly dividing cancer cells and not normal brain cells. Progress can be followed at http://www.virttu.com
