New partnership for paediatric excellence

NIHR Children and Young People MedTech Cooperative (NIHR CYP MedTech), which is hosted by Sheffield Children’s, is taking part in a new research project, the Paediatric Excellence Initiative.

The initiative brings together Sheffield Children’s with Great Ormond Street Hospital, Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital and Alder Hey Children’s Hospital around a vision to transform the health of children, by combining cutting-edge research methods with world-leading clinical trial expertise to accelerate discovery of new treatments for children with rare and complex conditions worldwide.

It is supported by a fourth term of funding awarded this month to the NIHR Great Ormond Street Hospital Biomedical Research Centre (NIHR GOSH BRC).

The initiative’s five themes will bring together world-leading expertise from diverse researchers and involvement of our unique patients, to focus on the following areas:

• GENE STEM and CELLULAR THERAPIES builds on our world-leading expertise to develop new therapies for childhood cancer and immunological, blood, brain, neuromuscular, skin and metabolic conditions.
• GENOMIC MEDICINE uses cutting-edge technology and new ways of analysing large datasets to improve diagnosis and help develop treatments.
• ACCELERATING NOVEL THERAPIES supports bringing new medicines into clinical practice by delivering clinical trials and stem-cell based evaluation of therapies.
• TISSUE ENGINEERING and REGENERATIVE MEDICINE develops pioneering laboratory and surgical techniques to repair, replace or regenerate tissues or organs.
• APPLIED CHILD HEALTH INFORMATICS uses advanced data analysis methods, leveraging GOSH’s electronic patient data, to improve management of children with rare and/or complex conditions.

Professor Paul Dimitri, Clinical Director for NIHR Children and Young People MedTech Co-operative and Professor of Child Health at Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We are delighted to be a partner in the Paediatric Excellence Initiative that will have benefits for the health of young people across the world.

“NIHR CYP MedTech will carry out work within the Applied Child Health Informatics theme. Our focus will be on developing novel devices and repurposing current devices to provide new accurate data in a useable format for paediatric practice, establishing novel pathways of care through data acquisition to reduce hospital admission, and improving trust in data sharing and device technology by involving patients and families.”

For more information about NIHR Great Ormond Street Hospital Biomedical Research Centre visit https://www.gosh.nhs.uk/our-research/our-research-infrastructure/nihr-great-ormond-street-hospital-brc/about-brc/