Supercomputing facilities set up to track the spread and evolution of the Covid-19 pandemic have received £1.2m in government funding to expand globally. Cardiff University says the new funding will enable the CLIMB COVID-19 project, which it leads with the University of Birmingham, to carry out significant upgrades to computational equipment to process and store … Continue reading Covid-19 genome sequencing project gets a major upgrade

The Cloud Infrastructure for Microbial Bioinformatics (CLIMB) project has been recognised in the 2020 HPCwire Readers’ and Editors’ Choice Awards. It received the Readers’ Best High Performance Computing Collaboration award for its role in supporting the COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) Consortium. The consortium is a UK wide partnership working to sequence SARS-CoV-2 virus genomes to … Continue reading Computing system for Covid-19 sequencing analysis wins major award

Family carers for children and adults with intellectual disabilities have reported rates of mental health problems under lockdown that are up to ten times higher than parents without those responsibilities, according to a new study. Swansea University reports the carers were five times more likely to report severe anxiety, and between four and ten times … Continue reading Mental health problems among family carers up to 10 times higher during lockdown

A Birmingham based medtech company has secured £250,000 in new funding from the Welsh Government to manufacture a device which can shield NHS staff and carers from Covid-19 and other infections. BusinessLive reports AerosolShield, which is based on the University of Birmingham’s research park, will use the capital to help it develop and scale production … Continue reading AerosolShield secures Welsh Government funding for protective tent

Researchers at Cardiff University have been awarded £155,000 from the Brain Tumour Charity to develop a standardised way of recording patient reported outcomes for brain tumour trials. Brain cancer studies traditionally focus on tumour size and maintaining patient survival. But there is growing recognition that studies need to better consider information about outcomes such as … Continue reading Cardiff University awarded £155k to improve brain cancer treatment

Bionema Ltd, a leading biotech Swansea University-based company, has received a grant award from Innovate UK to further develop technology that could help combat pests which cost the worldwide economy billions every year. The £765,000 grant was awarded under Innovate UK’s Open Competition and will fund part of a collaborative project with the University of … Continue reading Bionema receives £765,000 Innovate UK grant

Promising innovations that are transforming the way that health services are provided will benefit from rapid evaluation to ensure their impact is fully and more quickly understood. The University of Birmingham reports a new national Rapid Service Evaluation Centre, known as BRACE, has been launched following the award of £2m in funding over five years … Continue reading Rapid evaluation for healthcare solutions

The University of Birmingham and Guangzhou Women & Children’s Medical Center have signed an agreement to establish a Joint Research Institute (JRI) that will use health data to help tackle childhood diseases. The University of Birmingham reports its expertise in data science will support Chinese researchers in exploring a range of maternal and childhood health … Continue reading Using health data to tackle childhood diseases

Successful weight loss maintainers have different behavioural and physiological responses to food than obese people and lean people, according to new research by the University of Birmingham and the University of Amsterdam presented at the European Congress on Obesity in Vienna. The University of Birmingham reports the findings indicate a reduced physiological response to highly … Continue reading Different behaviour and physiology maintains weight loss

University of Birmingham (UoB) scientists are working with partners in Guangzhou to develop new drugs that could help to tackle global health epidemics that also have an impact on China’s rural communities. The University of Birmingham reports its researchers identified a promising hit for anti-tuberculosis therapy and quickly initiated a drug discovery effort. Researchers at … Continue reading UK-China partnership to tackle global health epidemics