Collaboration is the lifeblood of Teesside University’s National Horizons Centre (NHC) and this ethos even transcends into the architecture of the national centre of excellence for the biosciences and healthcare sector. Indeed, stepping through the front doors of the impressive £22.3 building on Darlington’s Central Park, one is greeted immediately by a large multi-floor atrium. Glass-fronted laboratories look out onto this atrium and with multiple breakout and social areas to facilitate interaction, the building has been designed specifically to enable serendipitous connectivity.
Bringing together industry, training and research expertise under one roof with partnership working at its core is what makes the National Horizons Centre unique, says its Director, Professor Vikki Rand.
“We’ve worked hard to ensure that everything we do delivers immediate impact for our partners,” she says.
“Our ability to house both researchers and industry professionals working and collaborating in multiple disciplines under one roof is what makes the NHC a really exciting place to work.
“We have the facilities and expertise to take a concept from a piece of bench research to work with industry partners to scale it up, and then work with end-users to train them in its delivery and implementation.”
Indeed, this close partnership working was highlighted by Dame Kate Bingham, the Chair of the UK Vaccine Taskforce. In her biography, The Long Shot, she acknowledges that the close working relationship the NHC enjoyed with industrial partners including the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI) and Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies was crucial to establishing the North-East as a hotspot for biological manufacturing and training throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.
The personal touch
Disease-specific research forms a key strand of the NHC’s output with particular focus around biomarkers – biological indicators that can be used to predict, diagnose, and monitor diseases and conditions. Biomarkers can be found in tissue biopsies, blood, urine, and other bodily fluids, and their analysis provides valuable information about a patient’s health status and response to treatment.
Researchers at the centre are using advanced technologies such as genomics and proteomics to identify specific biomarkers that are associated with different types of cancer. This research has the potential to revolutionise cancer diagnosis and treatment, allowing for earlier detection and more targeted therapies.
With a background in cancer genomics, Professor Rand takes a hands-on approach to the NHC’s research output, and is involved in several projects investigating aggressive cancers. Her work in aggressive lymphoma has discovered a link between a specific gene and the survival rate of children with the disease. By demonstrating that mutations of the TP53 gene is linked to an inferior survival rate of children with aggressive B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma, the research has made it possible to highlight patients who are less likely to be cured with current therapies.
“Being able to identify which patients are more likely to respond to specific treatments is absolutely vital to effective treatment of cancer,” says Professor Rand.
“We now hope that this research can eventually be used to enable clinicians to tailor their treatments to ensure that children affected by this disease can maximise their chances of recovery.”
Developing new therapies and treatments
The development of new therapeutics is a major focus of research at the NHC. The unique collaborative environment afforded by the NHC has resulted in new opportunities to translate research and develop and deliver new therapeutics for a range of diseases.
Linda Popplewell, Professor of Genetic Medicine at the NHC, has developed several patented therapies which have entered clinical trials. She is particularly interested in finding new gene therapies for rare diseases such as Neurofibromatosis Type 1 and Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. As with the development and production of the Covid-19 vaccine, the close working relationship with CPI and Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies will enable the translation of bench science to clinical application.
Likewise, the close links that the NHC has built with local NHS and healthcare bodies has enabled Professor Popplewell to liaise directly with patients themselves.
“Being diagnosed with a rare disease can be devastating. Meeting with patients and understanding the impact their disease has on their quality of life provides us with inspiration for everything we do; they are our ultimate stakeholders,” she says. “Developing drugs for rare diseases is complicated by the lack of understanding of the diseases themselves, hence the need for biomarker studies, and by the small numbers of patients affected, making clinical trials difficult and not cost-effective for investment by drug companies.”
“Our research is about a making a real difference to people’s lives and the NHC is the ideal location to bring all the stakeholders together to take drug development through to completion.”
The NHC is also at the forefront of research into developing new diagnostics and wearable technology to help patients suffering from chronic conditions manage their healthcare.
One project, led by Professor John S. Young, is piloting new digital devices to enable people receiving dialysis to monitor key treatment measurements at home, without the need for invasive blood tests or hospital visits.
“The ultimate aim is for this technology to enable patients to track their potassium levels and other important measurements regularly at home,” says Professor Young. “This could save lives by facilitating timely treatment of abnormal blood results; if potassium levels are too high or too low, this can be fatal.”
Together with industry
Industry links are integral to the success of the NHC. Industry partnerships ensure the NHC is developing the requisite training and development to enable the Tees Valley to continue as a global centre of excellence for the biosciences. At the same time they help Teesside University fulfil its strategic mission to deliver research with real-world impact.
Undergraduate and postgraduate degrees and professional apprenticeships, ensure that there is a pipeline of graduate talent entering the sector. Alongside these qualifications, the NHC also delivers CPD courses, developed in conjunction with industry and the NHS to train and upskills the region’s existing workforce.
Academic expertise and research partnerships also help organisations in the sector develop innovative solutions to grow their business.
Hexis Lab engages with skin care companies and cosmetics ingredient manufacturers to develop products using its proprietary deep learning algorithms and a big-data computing platform, Pro X®, to understand the effects compounds have on different skin types. Based in the NHC, it is working with researchers and using its facilities to test it product ideas and research the different properties of natural compounds.
Through its partnership with Teesside University, Hexis Lab was successful in accessing grant funding through Tees Valley Launchpad, a £6m collaborative research and development fund established by Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, to work with University academics to develop new ways to manufacture high-value biochemicals using organic waste products coming from agricultural and marine waste. In doing so, it will avoid the need to use ingredients from petroleum products and exotic plants, helping to create a circular biomanufacturing process.
“Working at the National Horizons Centre is fundamental to our company strategy,” says Founder and Chief Executive Dr Olusola Idowu. “Not only does it have fantastic facilities, but it allows us to work collaboratively and in partnership with the academics here.”
Discover. Develop. Deliver
The three-word mission statement of the NHC is not merely marketing alliteration, but a statement of true purpose for a facility which has delivered tangible impact in the Tees Valley and beyond. Since opening in 2019, through the dark days of the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent recovery, the NHC has played an integral part in delivering skills and expertise in a sector which is acknowledged as playing a key role in the economic success of the UK in the 21st century. With an ever-growing talent pipeline and research outputs still to be delivered, the NHC is set to become a keystone in the North-East bioscience and healthcare ecosystem.
Find our more at the National Horizons Centre website