WIN research is feeding into two NIHR funded Biomedical Research Centres (BRC) at Oxford, both of which have been recently renewed for five years from December 2022. BRCs are partnerships between Universities and NHS trusts to drive translation of research into clinical practice.
NIHR Oxford Health BRC is a partnership with Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust and is particularly focused on brain health. It includes a number themes that intersect with WIN. A second BRC, the NIHR Oxford BRC, is a partnership with Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and has a wide scope across clinical medicine. It includes an imaging theme.
Brain Technologies
This theme is led by Kia Nobre and Heidi Johansen-Berg. It is focused on developing brain imaging technologies for clinical practice. This includes development of new imaging biomarkers as well as software reporting tools, to improve diagnosis, prediction and treatment targeting. This theme is supporting WIN core support for clinical translation.
Pain
This theme is led by Ben Seymour, and allows us to translate basic science insights into clinical practice. The pain theme has a particular focus on re-thinking new chronic pain management pathways - for instance deprescribing ineffective medications, and introducing novel state-of-the-art brain and cognitive technologies.
Dementia
This theme is led by Clare Mackay and Masud Husain, and includes important contributions from several WIN members who are focused on translating imaging acquisition and analysis methodology for experimental medicine. An example of the work supported in this theme is The Oxford Brain Health Clinic.
Imaging
This theme is led by Peter Jezzard, and aims to translate some of WIN's research imaging work into clinical practice by collaborating with radiologists in the Oxford MRI Centre at the John Radcliffe Hospital. This will be aided by a shared Siemens platform at the John Radcliffe site on both the University and NHS sides