Projects

A number of short term projects are being funded within this Science Bridge. A key criterion for project funding approval is the identification of experimental results that exemplify patent claims.

Here are just a few of the areas where we are currently undertaking joint collaborative research.

Osteoporosis

Globally, osteoporosis increases susceptibility to fragility fractures and affects 1:3 women and 1:5 men over 50 years of age worldwide (WHO). In addition to the incidences of road traffic accidents, several hundred million people are estimated to already suffer from bone and joint diseases, with dramatic increases expected in the demand for treatments due to a doubling in the number of people over 50 years of age by 2020. In orthopaedic procedures, 5-10% of people experience impaired healing of bone fractures. The risk factors associated with delayed healing include age, poor nutrition; chronic conditions such as diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and lifestyle habits such as smoking. We aim to develop a cell based assay to screen small molecules that can act as activators to stimulate bone growth and therefore enhance healing.

Alzheimer's

Alzheimer's, in common with other degrading neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinson's, Huntington's disease, and dementia incapacitate and shorten the life of the individual. There is a significant health care burden in the administration of care and prevention of secondary complications that are expensive to treat. Alzheimer's disease is a common degenerative and terminal condition that is generally diagnosed in people over the age of 65 years, but also has an early-onset form. Early symptoms are psychosocial and usually diagnosed as stress and age-related concerns after damage has occurred.
These diseases impact different classes of neurons and symptoms vary, perhaps because of the differences in the expression of the affected proteins. As a consequence, diverse symptoms appear among sufferers, but they share a common imbalance between the production and disposal of proteins in the cell and impaired metabolic processes leading to cell distress, cell death and the presentations of symptoms post-impairment. There are few drugs available to treat the condition. We aim to develop an assay for early clinical diagnosis of neurodegenerative disorders. This project aims to deliver a biochemical method for early diagnosis of the disease condition and therefore enhance the effectiveness of treatments through targeted health care intervention strategies.

Nanobiotechnology

A drug encapsulation and intracellular delivery system capable of transporting materials into cells has been developed as part of this collaboration. The system can encapsulate, transport and deliver both solid and liquid materials with different solubilities. A variety of release triggers can be utilized including acid degradation, prolonged, targeted or stimuli-responsive drug delivery to achieve release profiles that can be tailored by application to a broad range of clinical conditions in comparison to conventional systems. Nanomaterials are at the cutting edge of biomedical applications, in the rapidly developing area of nanobiotechnology. Solid materials may include nanoparticles that are contained within a 'vehicle' which is absorbed by e.g. cancerous cells to achieve a narrow, but selective distribution. There is potential to reduce dosage, side effects and the cost of treatments, to increase patient accessibility to new and effective treatments.

Cancer

Cancer is a manifestation of mutations in the genome that results in uncontrolled proliferation. In man, the study of these mutations is made difficult by the level of molecular redundancy present in the genome. The genome of the Drosophila fly does not contain a high level of gene redundancy and retains remarkable conservation of cellular pathways. In addition, the flies are easy to genetically manipulate, low cost to maintain and have a compacted lifespan which enables monitoring from the start to the natural end of life. The profiling of human cancers is invariably conducted on clinical samples that have developed and reached an advanced stage. The fly model enables tumour progression to be tracked from inception through stages of proliferation, invasion and metastasis. Investigations of the fly genome have shown signature mutations and genetic mis-regulations similar to mammalian tumours. The fly model provides a potential model to screen successively known and new anti-cancer drugs at different stages in the progression of the disease to determine effectiveness. Our research using the fly model may further assist in clarifying the chemical biomarkers that could assist early diagnosis of the disease in susceptible individuals. The low cost of the fly model and short life cycle could facilitate more rapid progress in understanding human clinical pathologies.