Helping to put research in action

Eight of the UK’s most promising leaders in medical health research will be awarded a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) professorship.

Each professor will receive around £1.5 million of funding to conduct research into conditions that affect millions of patients across the UK.

Projects that will be able to go ahead as a result of this announcement include:

•     Helping people living with cancer to have a better quality of life by using a newly identified genetic tumour signature to develop more personalised treatment;
•     Developing new surgical techniques to treat patients with bowel cancer including robotics, biosensors and fluorescent guidance; and
•     Working with soldiers and civilians to minimise the long-term debilitating effects that head injuries have on the brain.

Health Minister Anne Milton said: "The professors will be given the opportunity to develop their research programmes, but most importantly they won’t stop treating NHS patients. This will help make sure that new ideas make the leap from the bench to the bedside.We want to see medical research advance, and to do that it is essential that we nurture the very best researchers to the benefit of NHS patients.”

The professors were selected by an international panel of independent experts. The second round of the competition also opened this week, and the next group of NIHR professors will be appointed later in the year.

Professor Dame Sally Davies, Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientific Advisor at the Department of Health, commented: “Each one of these professors already has an impressive track record, and I look forward to working with them in the future and seeing them flourish. They will provide much needed research leadership in their chosen field, and help us build more capacity and capability within the NIHR in very important areas.

“Our original intention was to appoint only five new research professors, but the international expert panel found the quality of applications so high that they advised eight awards should be made."