SRMRC colleagues earn grant award

Colleagues from the NIHR SRMRC have been awarded just under £10,000 from the West Midlands Neuroscience Teaching and Research Fund to complement other novel research being conducted in the trauma research centre.

Dr Jon Hazeldine, Professor Janet Lord, and Professor Tony Belli will use the money to buy new materials that will extend the range of analyses that can be performed using blood and other samples collected for the ‘Golden Hour’ research study.

The focus of the study is to investigate adults’ inflammatory and immune response in the first hour after a traumatic brain injury, to help to identify early predictors of patient outcome. Specifically, the researchers will study whether cytokines, which are released by the body as part of an inflammatory response, can be used to help predict, for example, whether patients develop infections or if any of the other cells in the body are affected in any way. The team will also try to understand whether there are differences in the effect of cytokines in younger compared to older patients.

Dr Hazeldine said, “We are excited to receive this award from the West Midlands Neuroscience Teaching and Research Fund so that we are able to extend the fantastic work we are doing as part of the ‘Golden Hour’ project.

“The research will help us to identify molecules, genes, or other characteristics within the blood or other bodily fluids that should allow us to improve the diagnosis and monitoring of patients. Ultimately, this will help us to identify the best methods to treat traumatic brain injuries.”

Working in collaboration with the West Midlands Ambulance Service Medical Emergency Response Incident Team (MERIT) and Midlands Air Ambulance, the project will continue to run until 2016, by which time the team hope to have collected data from 100 patients.