Wade celebrates the 2023 Research Awards and Medical Innovation
The 2023 Research Awards Ceremony brought researchers, healthcare professionals and supporters together at the Wade Conference Centre on 5 September 2023 to celebrate a diverse range of innovative medical research projects.
The event recognised six projects receiving funding through the NSMI Research Awards, with a combined value of £132,713.
Guests heard short presentations from each of the award recipients, providing an opportunity to learn more about their research, the challenges they were seeking to address and the potential impact of their work on future healthcare.
Supporting innovative medical research
The 2023 awards supported research spanning cancer diagnosis, long COVID, tuberculosis vaccines, cerebral vasospasm, perinatal health and the monitoring of intracranial pressure.
The funded projects demonstrated the breadth of medical research taking place and the importance of supporting new ideas that could lead to improvements in diagnosis, treatment and patient care.
Dr L Dowling – £24,782
Dr Dowling received funding for research into single cancer cell detection in blood using Fourier Transform Infrared Microspectroscopy.
The project explored an innovative approach to cancer pathology, investigating techniques that could help identify individual cancer cells circulating within the bloodstream.
Dr G Somayajula – £9,599
Funding was awarded for the SPLaT ER project, examining symptom patterns and experiences of post-acute COVID-19 in children and young people.
The research compared long COVID coding within primary care electronic health records with cases identified through questionnaires, helping researchers better understand how the condition was being recognised and recorded.
Dr D Papakonstantinou – £24,857
Dr Papakonstantinou received funding to investigate conserved Mycobacterium tuberculosis proteins as potential new vaccine candidates for tuberculosis.
The project focused on identifying promising approaches that could contribute to the development of future protection against this significant infectious disease.
Dr A Harper – £24,400
Funding supported the development of a vessel-on-a-chip model of human cerebral vasospasm.
By creating a laboratory model that more closely reflects the behaviour of human blood vessels, the research aimed to provide new opportunities to study cerebral vasospasm and improve understanding of the condition.
Dr P Wu – £24,948
Dr Wu’s project focused on perinatal mortality, investigating risk factors and the causes of hospital readmissions and General Practitioner consultations.
The research aimed to build greater understanding of the factors affecting mothers and babies during the perinatal period and help inform future approaches to care.
Dr P Chatzistergos – £24,127
Funding was also awarded for research into the non-invasive monitoring of intracranial pressure using ultrasound shear wave elastography.
The project investigated whether ultrasound technology could provide a less invasive method of assessing pressure within the skull, with the potential to improve monitoring and care for patients.
Celebrating research and collaboration
The ceremony provided an opportunity not only to recognise the successful applicants but also to highlight the importance of research in advancing healthcare.
By bringing award recipients together to present their work, guests were able to hear directly from the researchers and gain an insight into the scientific and clinical questions being investigated.
The Wade Charitable Foundation is proud to support opportunities that encourage medical research, innovation and the development of ideas with the potential to benefit patients and healthcare professionals.
The 2023 Research Awards Ceremony demonstrated the range and quality of research being undertaken and celebrated the people working to improve our understanding of disease, diagnosis and patient care.