From Whitechapel to the world

Barts Life Sciences will deliver on three healthcare priorities – prevention, prediction and precision. To deliver on these priorities, we have four core areas of focus for translational research, through which we are already delivering world-leading results:

Precision-omics

Studying why different people get sick in different ways, so we can produce more personalised medicine tailored to individuals

Digital health

Using technology to help people monitor different conditions remotely, keeping them healthy, better able to track when they need support and become less reliant on hospitals

Population health

Studying the social, environmental and behavioural issues that may impact on how different conditions develop for different people, and finding better ways to prevent and treat them

Advanced medical technologies

Developing new materials to use in operations that will aid recovery and comfort

Precision-omics

Studying why different people get sick in different ways, so we can produce more personalised medicine tailored to individuals

Digital health

Using technology to help people monitor different conditions remotely, keeping them healthy, better able to track when they need support and become less reliant on hospitals

Population health

Studying the social, environmental and behavioural issues that may impact on how different conditions develop for different people, and finding better ways to prevent and treat them

Advanced medical technologies

Developing new materials to use in operations that will aid recovery and comfort

Delivering Translation Medicine

To ensure we are able to discover and deliver these medical breakthroughs of the future, we have access to cutting-edge laboratories and facilities to support our research, including DNA sequencing and analysis, metabolomics and proteomics. Some of our most notable facilities include:

The Queen Mary Bioenterprises Innovation Centre which hosts drug discovery start-ups and supports over 400 jobs
the William Harvey Research Institute, which is one of the largest pharmacological research institutes in Europe
our Centre for Experimental Cancer Medicine, which has up to 120 trials open at any one time
the Wolfson Institute of Preventative Medicine, which translates research into public health strategies to help the reduction of disease and disability.

We recognise the value of inter-disciplinary research from medicine and basic sciences, through engineering, social sciences and humanities in facilitating innovation. This approach is at the heart of Barts Life Sciences and we believe it will drive innovative research in precision medicine and improve patient care. We plan to co-locate research staff directly alongside clinicians and life scientists within our campus, using proximity to help create the environment required to translate research into results, and new treatments.

Today’s technology, tomorrow’s medicines

Cutting-edge technology, from AI technology to robotics and bio-engineering, will power our four core research pillars – digital health, precision-omics, advanced technologies and population health.

Technologies like AI play a vital role in allowing us to predict which medical conditions might affect people, how the condition might evolve over time and what treatments might prove most effective, and we believe we have the rich and diverse datasets that will unleash AI’s full potential in healthcare.

Through the London Local Health and Care Record Exemplar (LHCRE) initiative, we have already collated vast amounts of anonymised data from across primary, secondary and mental health sectors in East London. This initiative is helping us to embed digital change and enable service transformation on the ground, by making clinical information instantly available to teams delivering care to the population, allowing them to make more informed decisions.

We have deep experience in robotics and bio-engineering, with exciting new advancements including the creation of surgical robots that are capable of adapting to their environments better than their traditional rigid-body counterparts.

CAP-AI is a Barts Life Sciences pioneering research programme, aiming to place healthcare in East London at the forefront of the AI and technology revolution. CAP-AI will provide SMEs with access to clinicians, academics and high-quality data from London’s largest NHS Trust, as well as high-performing computational power and technical expertise and talent.