Oxford University awarded Wellcome grant to develop medical technologies

Oxford University researchers have been awarded £4.4m for the development of innovative medical technologies and treatments under the Health Innovation Challenge Fund, a research award scheme funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Department of Health. The awards will support the development of a potential treatment for a form of incurable blindness, improved tests to determine different types of leukaemia and improved treatments for the most lethal form of muscular dystrophy. Among those to receive money is Dr Matthew Wood and colleagues at the MDEX Consortium, who get £2.5m for research into Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Professor Robert MacLaren from Oxford University's department of ophthalmology has also been awarded £1.2m to investigate a new treatment for choroideraemia, an incurable blindness and form of retinitis pigmentosa. And Dr Samantha Knight, Dr Jenny Taylor, Dr Anna Schuh and Professor Chris Holmes from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics and the National Institute for Health Research Oxford Biomedical Research Centre will get funding towards the development of specialised approaches to test the genetic make-up of blood cells from patients with B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL). Dr Knight said: "The Health Innovation Challenge Fund has provided us with a unique opportunity to develop an approach that will modernise the genetic testing of leukaemias within the NHS. It will enable doctors to provide individually tailored patient treatments, minimising side-effects and mortality and reducing NHS costs."