Medical research - What it can do for you and you for it
Most of us want to enjoy a successful career. We also want a happy and healthy life and to bring up children and grandchildren who will start with a good education and go on to achieve in their own way. My parents did this and went one step further. In 1987 they celebrated their Golden Anniversary and established Rosetrees as a charitable trust, so that others could share their good fortune. There are many options when choosing charities to support and Rosetrees chose medical research instead of the more standard welfare charities.
Why?
There was a simple logic in their decision, supporting a welfare charity helps, but does not solve, the underlying problem. For instance supporting Alzheimer’s research will one day prevent Alzheimer developing and could save a parent or grandparent having to go into a care home.
Over the past 20 years Rosetrees has applied a business style, efficient, cost conscious analysis to medical research, seeking world class professors who lead their field. The focus is primarily on early practical patient benefit whether as an expedited diagnosis or an improved treatment.
Rosetrees has created its own tailor made one page reports, to be presented by researchers in simple layman’s English twice a year. At the end of the research a similar simple report summarises what the professor set out to achieve, what was the outcome and how it will benefit patients.
Dealing with hundreds of research projects over 20 years and applying a focused business assessment in terms of patient benefit has given Rosetrees an expertise over all the main areas of medical research, working with leading experts. At any one time Rosetrees will be contributing to up to 100 research projects and there are four areas of emphasis:
1\. encouraging youngstar researchers at the beginning of their career. Dr. Rachel Batterham is studying a protein in the brain which controls appetite.
With Rosetrees’ support she is working to develop a treatment for obesity by controlling the level of this protein. This work led to her winning the Young Investigator Award for 2008.
2\. practical clinical improvement - by supporting Fellowships for surgeons. Rosetrees supports Royal College of Surgeons Fellowships by which surgeons use their experience to investigate improvements in treatment.
Sophie Noblett saw that stress following major bowel surgery delayed recovery. She showed that extra monitoring of heart function and giving extra fluid during surgery improved outcome leading to quicker recovery and fewer complications. As a result hospital stay was reduced by three days.
Sherif Awad investigated the practice of pre-operative starving of patients. Giving patients a high nutrient drink shortly before surgery, helps improve outcome and speed recovery.
Catherine Doran is using a test to quickly identify how well the blood will clot in a severely injured patient. The new test takes two minutes to show results that previously took an hour, a life-saver for severe injuries.
3\. diagnostic tests.
Professor Simon Lovestone has developed a blood test to diagnose Alzheimer’s Disease and is now refining it to show Alzheimer’s progression. This will enable the effects of drugs to be measured which will speed up and reduce the cost of trials and greatly improve drug development prospects.
4\. Funding to obtain large grants.
Dr. Jeremy George and Sam Janes - Rosetrees funding of research into Early Lung Cancer Detection and Treatment at UCL Hospital is helping to save patients’ lives. The researchers believe it will lead to a new treatment for early cancerous growths. Major Funding
of £1.5 million was obtained from Cancer Research UK to expand the programme to other major treatment centres.
Rosetrees contributes to Professor Sian Harding’s research to grow heart cells from embryonic stem cells, to be used for screening new drugs prior to patient trials and also to repair heart muscle damage. This has led to major grants from the British Heart Foundation and other funders of nearly £2 million.
We all have family, friends or colleagues who have suffered from a major illness and supporting medical research is the way to find solutions to problems that affect us all.
Rosetrees has accumulated expertise in supporting world class research work and made a unique contribution.
Rosetrees would like to share their knowledge and skill (at no cost) with co-donors who want to contribute to medical research. Professors spend 30-70% of their time raising funds for their research and this time saved could enhance and quicken results.
This country has world class researchers, who need financial support. Without it their research projects will not proceed and their highly skilled PhD’s with no job may have to give up medical research for all time.
The government has always underfunded medical research and this support may well fall further this year. The medical research skills developed in this country need to be expanded, to replace declining parts of the economy, to build on skills developed over hundreds of years and to apply these skills around the world.
The 20th century brought us antibiotics and keyhole surgery, the 21st century promises tissue engineering from stem cells to replace parts, as our bodies wear out and personalised drugs to optimise our health. It is exciting, interesting, stimulating and your co-donation with Rosetrees will help this country continue as one of the leading medical research centres in the world.
If you want to know more, please contact Rosetrees Trust on 0208 952 1414
