Newcastle BRC is at the Heart of Research into Ageing

The NIHR Newcastle Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) began another five years of translational research and experimental medicine in December 2022 – with funding from the NIHR for its outstanding work on ageing and multiple long-term conditions (MLTC).

Image of Professor Avan Sayer

In this blog, our Director, Professor Avan Aihie Sayer, outlines how the achievements of the previous BRC funding from 2017-2022, stand us in good stead for further ground-breaking work at the heart of ageing research in Newcastle.

"We have much to be proud of and much to build on over the next five exciting years at the NIHR Newcastle BRC.

The BRC is a partnership between Newcastle Hospitals, Newcastle University and the Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear (CNTW) NHS Foundation Trust and we have a common vision of transforming lives through world-class research in ageing and multiple long-term conditions."

An inclusive and diverse team

We have established an inclusive, collaborative style of leadership across the BRC which has led to an increase in the number (from 5 to 16) and diversity (age, sex and ethnicity) of BRC theme leads.

We have also built a strong pipeline of individuals, who have the skills to drive synergistic experimental medicine and apply their expertise in ageing, individual and multiple long-term conditions.

There have been many fellowships and career development awards throughout the last five years – and this has led to the expansion of the BRC leadership and a group of outstanding Emerging Leaders in place.

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We have supported the career development of early and mid-career researchers in biology, epidemiology, exercise science, qualitative research, and have developed posts in statistics and data science. All these efforts have been underpinned by the development of an expert team of science administration personnel.

Collaboration

We have placed a strong emphasis on building greater coherence within and across our themes, incentivising cross-theme and interdisciplinary collaborative research. Although challenging, it has been crucial to allow us to design and deliver innovative research in individual long-term conditions at the interface with ageing.

Existing areas of research excellence have grown and developed while emerging areas have reached critical mass allowing them to be established as research themes in the newly-awarded BRC.

For example:

Digital Health Theme - BRC researchers lead two major European Union Investigative Medicines Initiative (IMI) awards developing digital health solutions.

Mobilise-D is a €50m international consortium of 34 academic and industry partners from 13 countries which aims to use digital technology to develop better methods to measure mobility in the real-world.

It is applying the approach in a range of conditions so that it can better measure and treat mobility loss in conditions related to ageing. The results of the work will drive forward innovations in clinical trials, as well as in healthcare.

Musculoskeletal Theme - Professor Fai Ng leads a €42m digital health project focussed on research into a variety of neurodegenerative and inflammatory diseases. The Identify Digital Endpoints to Assess FAtigue, Sleep and acTivities of daily living (IDEA-FAST) is using wearable and portable digital technology to identify novel digital endpoints for fatigue, sleep disturbances and disabilities in daily activities.

This builds on Prof Ng’s BRC-funded strategic project TOOLS (Develop objective assessment tools for measuring fatigue in clinical studies) which continued his important fatigue research in Sjogren’s syndrome.

Making a difference – our impact

Delivering a step change in ageing research capacity

We have delivered much-needed increases in ageing research capacity required to meet the challenge of an ageing population.

  1. We have invested in training the next generation. Activities have included:
  • Ageing research taster modules for students and trainee doctors
  • Masters research project supervision
  • Supporting PhD students research on ageing syndromes
  • An ‘Introduction to Research for Older People’ course with national reach
  • The 3rd NIHR Newcastle BRC Academic Geriatric Medicine workshop
  • The 2021 International Sarcopenia Translational Research Conference showcasing the work of early career researchers on sarcopenia.
  1. We have led guidance on inclusive research design and delivery, via the NIHR INCLUDE project to improve inclusion of under-served groups. INCLUDE has had significant impact across NIHR and beyond, changing research funder requirements and catalysing multiple sets of condition and population-specific guidance.
  1. We have developed two new patient registries funded by the BRC: SarcNet (older people with sarcopenia) and MULTIPLE (an MLTC Registry). We have worked with the NIHR Newcastle BioResource to enhance recruitment and characterization of older people. Together, these activities enhance our capacity to match patients to research studies and improve inclusion of older people in research.

Improving the diagnosis and management of Dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB)

Through our NIHR-funded project, DIAMOND-Lewy, we found that only 4.6% of dementia cases in clinical services received a DLB diagnosis and only 9.7% of those with Parkinson’s disease (PD) received a diagnosis of PD dementia – rates which were much lower than expected.

Delays in diagnosis of DLB/PDD were significant and health costs of DLB/PDD were double those of other dementias.

To address the issue of underdiagnosis we have developed structured diagnostic assessment toolkits and found that, following the introduction of the toolkit, diagnostic rates for DLB almost doubled to 9.7%.

Our work shows that it is possible to improve diagnostic rates for DLB using simple assessment toolkits and that taking a systemised approach to the management of LBD can lead to real world benefits.”