NPL’s new approach informed by government priorities, consultancy with industry and the NHS, and a century of expertise, will see it focus on some of the world’s biggest health challenges, from supporting the diagnosis and treatment of cancer and dementia, to reducing attrition rates in drug development, to creating new antibiotics.
The National Physical Laboratory (NPL), the UK’s National Measurement Institute, is re-launching to help ensure the UK continues to lead the world in translating life sciences research, accelerating access to new diagnosis and treatment techniques, and helping to support rapid adoption of advanced healthcare technologies across the country.
The re-launch is in direct response to government policy, including the Accelerated Access Review and more recently the Life Sciences Industrial Strategy report, as well as extensive consultation with pharmaceutical companies, clinicians and equipment manufacturers.
The re-launch sees NPL unveiling a number of new programmes and facilities to accelerate access to medical innovation:
Establishing a UK multi-modal mass spectrometry imaging facility to deliver world-beating imaging of tumours and to support chemical and biological imaging needs of biomedical researchers in industry and academia. The facility is the first of its kind in the UK, and will focus on more personalised diagnosis through better understanding of disease, more effective treatments of cancer (including by quantifying the extent of a tumour), and reducing time and costs in drug development (by identifying failing drug formulations earlier in the development process before expensive clinical trials).
Creating a new centre to accelerate medical imaging technologies through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund. The centre will support companies developing innovative imaging technologies to accelerate development and adoption of their products, with an initial focus on new medical imaging technologies. Working closely with a broad range of stakeholders (large companies and SMEs in the medical equipment and pharmaceutical sectors, leading clinicians, academic groups and Innovate UK Catapults), NPL will ensure that the latest measurement techniques and best practice to assess, validate and commission innovative imaging technologies are developed and widely adopted.
Creating a new family of antibiotics to fight antimicrobial resistance (AMR). NPL is working to discover, screen and validate new classes of antimicrobials with Ingenza and the University of Plymouth, through an Innovate UK grant, to tackle AMR, a problem that some estimate could cause up to 10 million deaths each year by 2050 . The project will use a range of antimicrobials, called epidermicins, that naturally target superbugs like MRSA, and look to enhance the range of bacteria they can kill as well as the potency at which they can do this. The project will also look to scale up production of these antimicrobials for further testing and clinical trials, to accelerate their development. In addition to this project, NPL is working with University College London to convert a breast milk protein into an artificial virus that kills bacteria on contact.
Currently in development, a new medical device to improve diabetic life expectancy and quality of life, using thermal mapping (thermography), funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). NPL’s breakthrough medical imaging device, called DFIRST, uses temperature changes – identifiable before visible signs – which provide an early alert of problems and enable preventative action, reducing or even eliminating the ulceration and associated risk of infection. The technology is potentially suitable for home use, empowering patients in their own care and monitoring risk throughout their life.
Developing a new ultrasound imaging system for breast cancer diagnosis that has the potential to provide a standardised high-quality image without the need for highly skilled operators that has the added advantage of being less uncomfortable, and lower cost, with no side effects. This does not use x-rays (so the patient isn’t exposed to radiation) and the screening is carried out with the breast submerged in warm water, without compression, which is a more comfortable experience for the patient. Its capabili...
(All Rights Reserved)