Log in
Local authorities, the UK government and the European Commission have benefitted from the widespread application of new molecular methodologies, developed in 2005 and applied by the University of Reading's Vertebrate Pests Unit (VPU) to identify and quantify anticoagulant rodenticide resistance in rodent populations. Rodents are a major global pest that consumes our food, causes contamination with urine and faeces, damages structures through gnawing, transmits diseases, and impacts on species of conservation concern. Due to historical success and recent regulatory restrictions, anticoagulant rodenticides are the most common control method for these pests. However, physiological resistance to anticoagulants is now widespread and the VPU has been involved in mapping this resistance and identifying the genetic basis for the resistance. Their research has led to new methodologies to identify anticoagulant resistance that have been adopted by the global plant science industry and to new guidance in treating resistant populations that has been adopted by the European biocides industry.
The Abraham solvation parameter approach developed at UCL has become integral to the work carried out by drug discovery teams at [text removed for publication] and other major pharmaceutical companies, as well as research and development groups at international chemical companies including Syngenta and [text removed for publication]. It enables chemists to predict physicochemical and biochemical properties of chemicals, including drugs and agrochemicals, rapidly and efficiently, without the need to conduct time-consuming experiments. The method helps drug discovery teams to identify and optimise the most promising compounds, and often results in fewer compounds being made before a candidate is selected, saving time and resources. The approach has been integrated into software used for drug discovery [text removed for publication].
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.
As a result of our discoveries of a new splice variant (ASIC1b) and a new member (ASIC4) of the ASIC family, and elucidation of their roles in pain caused by tissue acidity, several pharmaceutical companies are now working on ASIC-targeted analgesics and one company has been set up specifically to focus on this work. ASIC-related therapies for a wide variety of conditions are now in clinical trials, with substantial patient involvement. Our work has allowed new therapeutic applications to be conceived for already existing prescribed compounds, and for naturally-occurring compounds, that act on ASICs. Thus, our research on ASICs has had clinical and commercial impact.
Series of images from animal behaviour studies contain vast quantities of complex and highly valuable data. Extracting the value from this scientific data often requires expert annotation. This is frequently an intuitive process based on experience gained through years of training to make important decisions. Experts are rare, expensive and hard to train so the iBehave project at the University of Edinburgh (2006-2009) sought to reverse this model and deliver systems that learned to mimic expert annotation of video data. This effort resulted in a new spinout from the School of Informatics, a software company called Actual Analytics Ltd (Actual). Founded in 2010, Actual delivers innovative software solutions for behaviour analytics which use machine learning algorithms to process video data of laboratory animals to improve the accuracy of the experimental process and reduce the need to use animals in scientific research.
Haemophilia, an inherited bleeding disease, is treated by frequent and extremely expensive infusions of recombinant versions of the missing factors. Advances in gene therapy have now been achieved at UCL, with successful treatment of Haemophilia B in 10 severely affected patients. The novel factor IX expression cassette has been patented and licensed to an industrial partner (UniQure). Savings to the NHS in excess of £1.5m have already been made and increase every month. Pre-clinical advances have also been made in Haemophilia A, and the factor VIII expression cassette has been patented and licensed to an industrial partner (BioMarin).
Impact: Policy / animal welfare. Policy implementation changed and bird welfare improved.
Significance: Our research informed welfare guidelines impacting upon housing of around 200 million laying birds in the EU. Our work has been adopted in EC regulations, and they are pushing all EU member states to ensure all their producers install aerial perches over slatted surfaces.
Beneficiaries: Laying birds, welfare organisations, egg producers, and the general public.
Attribution: Prof. Sparks, Dr. Sandilands (SRUC). Involved collaboration with Prof. Green at Heriot Watt University acting as a vision specialist.
Reach: Guidelines have been adopted in EU legislation.
Research into electrochemical biosensors conducted at the University of Cambridge between 1998 and 2002 led to the development of the WaveSense™ line of diabetes products by start-up, AgaMatrix. By 2012 AgaMatrix had sold 3M glucose meters & 3B biosensor test strips worldwide across 20,000+ retail locations including Boots UK, and since 2010 also globally in partnership with Sanofi. [text removed for publication] AgaMatrix UK continues to grow its business with compound annual growth rates for revenue in excess of 100%. Agamatrix UK now supplies over one million glucose test strips per month to the NHS. Agamatrix has developed >10 FDA-cleared products since 2008, including the first FDA approved smartphone linked diagnostic device.
African Wild Dogs (Lycaon pictus; referred to as `AWDs' hereafter for brevity) have been classed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for 22 years. Large, well-managed captive breeding programmes provide a safety net to restore wild populations. However, the management of the AWD population has been difficult owing to an incomplete family record of captive AWDs, which risks introducing genetic disorders caused by inbreeding. A genetically informed management plan developed by University of Glasgow researchers has provided a genetic measure of diversity and establishes a genetically informed pedigree, which is used in the European Endangered Species Programme for African Wild Dogs. This has introduced a more informed means to manage the captive AWD population, to maintain the genetic diversity of the species across the European zoo network (roughly half the world's captive AWD population), with 53 zoos in 16 European countries (and Israel) currently participating.
Impact: EaStCHEM spin out Albachem (1994), subsequently incorporated into the Almac group, enabling the latter company to become a world leader in the provision of chemically synthesised proteins.
Significance: Chemical synthesis is competitive with recombinant methods for commercial production of the therapeutic polypeptides that represent ~50% of drugs in big pharma pipelines and have a market value in 2008 of over $13B. The value attributable to Ramage's methods for polypeptide syntheses over the REF period is estimated at approximately £6M.
Beneficiaries: Drug manufacturers, contract research organisations, patients, clinicians.
Research: Studies (1993-6) led by Ramage (at the University of Edinburgh) on new methods for high-yield total syntheses and purification of long polypeptides.
Reach: Almac's protein-manufacturing team remains in the UK with 24 staff members. The Almac Group, headquartered in N. Ireland, has 3300 employees globally (1300 outside UK) and sells to 600 companies worldwide.