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Development of the human cell GADD45a assay enabled accurate identification of carcinogens in vitro, with a low rate of misleading positives. Through the spin-out company Gentronix, this research is reducing costs to industry and decreasing the use of animals in research. Industrial collaboration has enabled commercial adoption of the technology in many sectors. With a 10-fold increase in orders in 2012 versus 2008, Gentronix is a profitable business employing 17 people and with an annual turnover of £1.88m. During 2008-12, Gentronix released a series of new products, established testing services, and signed a product license agreement with GlaxoSmithKline. More than 100 companies worldwide are using Gentronix kits, including pharmaceutical, agricultural and health and beauty companies, along with manufacturers of food flavourings and household goods. The Gentronix assay is currently being reviewed by the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods.
Reduction of unpleasant ambient noise during MRI has been enabled through innovative engineering solutions developed at the Medical Research Council Institute of Hearing Research (MRC IHR). Intellectual property was licensed to Optoacoustics Ltd and the resulting OptoActive™ active noise-cancelling headphones for MRI are the only one of their type commercially available, enabling free conversation between patients and clinicians. The product was formally launched in September 2012 and has worldwide sales including in the USA, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
Afterall is a research and publishing organisation founded in 1998 by Research Fellow Charles Esche and Professor Mark Lewis at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London (UAL). Afterall focuses on contemporary art, and its relationship to wider theoretical, social and political fields. Researchers associated to Afterall undertake and commission research, which is disseminated to an international audience through publications and events. Afterall impacts on the cultural sector and an extended audience by providing a platform for critical and creative responses to art, curatorial and cultural practice and by shaping discourse in this area. The significance and wide reach of this impact is demonstrated through partnerships and high-profile cultural events, publication reach, and support from the cultural community.
Alternatives to acute admission in mental health are crucial, not least because of the high cost of inpatient care. We have carried out a major research programme that includes the only randomised controlled evaluation of crisis resolution teams and the only major UK study of crisis houses, which are community-based, residential alternatives to hospital admission. This programme demonstrated the efficacy of community treatment and has significantly influenced decision making at a local and national policy level, including commissioning guidance and three sets of NICE guidelines. This has contributed to changes in the way acute services for severely mentally ill adults are configured in the NHS, and internationally.
The decision about whether to fund new health care interventions is increasingly being informed by evidence of cost-effectiveness in terms of the cost per Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALY). The SF-6D health index is widely used internationally for calculating QALYs from patient reported health outcomes collected in clinical trials and other surveys. It contributes to health system efficiency from being used by health technology agencies around the world (including Australia, Canada, England, Scotland, Ireland and Norway) to calculate QALYs to facilitate decisions about the most efficient use of limited health care resources. The SF-6D is freely available to non-commercial bodies, including researchers and policy makers. Commercial benefits come from the licensing of the measure to pharmaceutical companies, health insurers and others to assess the cost-effectiveness of their products with 460 licenses being sold since 2008. A further 521 licenses are distributed on a non-commercial basis to academic researchers, public sector and charitable organisations.
Research led by Dr Holmes has identified a novel variant of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in livestock. This represents a previously unidentified reservoir of infection which has had impact on the epidemiology of MRSA and its management. This research also impacts on antibiotic use in agriculture and its role in the emergence of antibiotic resistance. As a consequence of these research findings commercial tests and testing protocols have been developed to detect the new MRSA variant, which are now used widely in clinical settings throughout Europe. The discovery has also been used to inform policy decisions at a governmental level in the USA and Europe.
One of the world-leading systems for large-vocabulary Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) has been developed by a team led from the University of Sheffield. This system, which won the international evaluation campaigns for rich speech transcription organised by the US National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2007 and 2009, has led directly to the creation of one spin-out, been largely instrumental in the launch of a second, has had significant impact on the development and growth of three existing companies, and has made highly advanced technology available free for the first time to a broad range of individual and organisational users, with applications including language learning, speech-to-speech translation and access to education for those with reading and writing difficulties.
Trafficked persons have benefitted directly from van den Anker's research at UWE through improved support and legislation. Her policy model on human trafficking prevention assisted changes in the UK, Ireland, Portugal, Czech Republic, Belgium and Sweden and informed local policy development through her training of politicians, civil servants and NGOs in Bristol, Birmingham and Wales. Increased multi-agency working promoted by van den Anker has led to the establishment of new support services like a safe house and the Migrant Rights Centre in Bristol, directly benefiting migrants. International dissemination contributed to agenda changes in international organisations such as the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
Mathematical models recently developed in York have improved our understanding of the dynamics of marine ecosystems. They underpin paradigm-changing proposals to orient fisheries policy towards a "balanced harvest" and away from the traditional selective harvesting of species and sizes. These proposals have:
A new design methodology which enhances the quality and accuracy of information derived from non-market valuation surveys is now the instrument of choice for many consultancy projects worldwide. The approach — known as Sequential Efficient Bayesian (SEB) design — enhances the decision-making process and the efficiency of service providers and is now available in major commercial software such as JMP from SAS (the integrated statistical software package created by SAS Corp and used by many businesses and academic institutions around the world). The methodology is routinely used in the design of surveys to analyse consumer and public choices in relation to willingness to pay for health, transport and environmental services. The research team's external affiliation since 2012 with the business consultancy CENSOC Sydney helps to provide tailored SEB designs to commercial clients, including several international, blue-chip corporations listed on the CENSOC site:http://www.censoc.uts.edu.au/about/members/external.html