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Pre-eclampsia is a major contributor to death and disability in pregnancy. Diagnosis, based on accurate blood pressure (BP)/proteinuria determination, is limited by measurement errors and being late features of the disease. In collaboration with industry, King's College London (KCL) researchers have developed an inexpensive, accurate, simple BP device suitable for rural clinics. This device allows intervention to reduce mortality/morbidity and is currently being rolled out in a Gates Foundation project in Africa and Asia. KCL researchers have also helped the company Alere Inc. with the development of a diagnostically accurate test of placental growth factor (PlGF) in women with suspected pre-eclampsia: Alere Triage®PlGF. This demonstrates high sensitivity, superior to current tests, and following commercialisation is being adopted internationally. Their work is additionally reflected in guidelines of international standards for BP device accuracy.
Evidence about the need for and provision of health visiting services generated through research undertaken at King's College London (KCL) has underpinned major changes in national policies for health visiting. Our findings about health visitors' practice, availability and distribution of services and effectiveness in terms of parenting/child outcomes, revealed both shortfalls in provision and opportunities for improvement and led to the development of a new caseload weighting tool and funding model for service planning. The accumulated evidence from this research helped convince the UK Government in 2010 to commit to 4,200 more health visitors by 2015 — a workforce expansion of nearly 50% — in a time of austerity and restraint elsewhere in the public sector.
Professor Pratt's work on the conceptualisation, measurement and operationalization of the cultural and creative industries has had significant impact within the field of cultural and economic policy at the urban, regional, national and international levels. These ideas have been taken up and used by policy makers to identify the contribution of the cultural economy. Professor Pratt's work has been instrumental in devising the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Framework for Cultural Statistics (2009), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Creative Economy Report (2010 and 2013), and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) report on the economic and social consequences of copyright for the creative industries (2013).
Eating disorders affect 5-10% of young people and in many cases persist into adulthood. At their most severe they can evoke intense emotional responses from those closest to the person. King's College London (KCL) research established that the response from others, combined with personal factors and beliefs, were key maintaining factors in the disorder. As a result, KCL researchers developed self-help materials that reduced distress and improved carers' ability to manage the person they were helping. This intervention programme has been adapted into a workshop, a self- help book, a DVD and a clinical handbook. The programme has been adopted by two of the largest UK eating disorder charities (BEAT and SUCCEED) and is recommended by the USA-based international charity FEAST and forms the basis of local NHS and international services including in the USA and Australia.
Whether assisted dying should be legalised is often treated as an ethical question transcending national boundaries and legal systems. Work in this field is dominated by partisan exhortation by proponents or opponents of legalisation. Professor Lewis's comparative research on legal change on assisted dying highlights the central importance of the choice of legal route in shaping regulatory regimes, evaluates the impact of legalisation on non-voluntary euthanasia (the `slippery slope' argument) and assesses the effectiveness of regulation in permissive jurisdictions. Her critique of the unsatisfactory legal position in the UK coupled with expert interventions, have shaped and informed policy debate, and directly influenced the campaign to legalise assisted suicide and ongoing judicial challenges to the current position. Elsewhere, her work has directly contributed to legal change in Canada and a Bill in Australia.
Myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN) are a group of blood disorders that affect more than 9,000 people in the UK every year. King's College London (KCL) research on the biology, diagnosis and treatment of MPN has had the following significant impacts:
King's College London (KCL) research has made a major contribution to improving the quality of life for patients who have anaemia linked with chronic kidney disease. Studies undertaken by KCL researchers established that intravenous iron supplementation was required in anaemic patients with advanced kidney disease, in whom oral iron therapy was ineffective, and defined the best regimes for administration of intravenous iron. Subsequent KCL work on drugs that stimulate production of red blood cells (erythropoiesis) defined the target levels of haemoglobin to aim for in chronic kidney disease patients. Most recently, KCL researchers made the key discovery that the novel drug peginesatide for the first time enables the rescue of patients who develop a rare and potentially fatal reaction against erythropoietin (which is the commonest treatment for anaemia in chronic kidney disease). These KCL research studies have had a significant impact by making a major contribution to national and international clinical guidelines, including UK NICE guidelines and the 2012 National Kidney Foundation KDIGO Clinical Practice Guideline for Anemia in Chronic Kidney Disease.
Armed Forces personnel are twice as likely to die on the road as civilians, and around 2.5 times more likely to report alcohol misuse. Evidence from King's College London (KCL) has helped highlight these issues and led to the development of specific post-deployment interventions for service personnel in order to mitigate the impact of deployment on driving behaviour and alcohol use. Delivered during post-deployment decompression, as a result of KCL research these interventions have been mandatorily provided to up to 20,000 service personnel returning from deployment and have led to a significant reduction in road-traffic deaths.
Research carried out at King's College London (KCL) showed that percentage carbohydrate deficient transferrin (%CDT) can be used as a means to monitor continuous drinking in high-risk offenders. The accurate screening of such drivers helps reduce the number of unsafe drivers on British roads. KCL work has resulted in a change to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency's (DVLA) national policy for assessing drink drivers. Percentage CDT has been approved as the sole biomarker for the purpose of re-licensing high-risk drink drivers. This enables faster release of a licence to an abstinent high-risk offender; provides a better basis for the refusal of release in other cases and provides a more reliable control and therefore, a more practicable service, especially for periodic re-granting of licences for special (buses, heavy trucks) drivers.
King's College London (KCL), operating a state-of-the-art Drug Control Centre (DCC) in collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), delivered the anti-doping analysis at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. This operation, undertaken in their World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) accredited laboratories, was characterised by unprecedented scale, speed and accuracy. It succeeded in protecting the health of athletes and the integrity of the Games. KCL was chosen to undertake the 24/7 anti-doping operation based on its cutting-edge bio-analytical research in drug control. Although a number of athletes were disqualified in the pre-Games testing, the deterrent effect of the KCL work was evidenced by the few doping cases during the Games itself. Using the new biomarker test developed by the DCC at KCL in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Southampton, the team identified for the first time the administration of recombinant human growth hormone (hGH) in two athletes. The findings of the KCL-led operation are already being used to develop similar testing facilities for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and have opened up the science of drug-testing to schools through the "Scientists in Sport" initiative.