The Clinical Research Podcast

This week our guest is Professor Guru Aithal, Deputy Director of the NIHR Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre and a world-leading researcher in gastrointestinal and liver disorders.

Professor Aithal talks to Matt Hurst from Research & Innovation about how science and his own personal experiences have shaped his views on why every researcher needs to build trust with ethnic communities.

In a wide-ranging conversation Professor Aithal gives his perspective on the lasting legacy of historic unethical research practices, the impact of Black Lives Matter, COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and health inequalities. He draws on his own research in the UK and in India into the impact of diet on gastrointestinal health and also the significant inequality in rates of premature death from liver disease in different populations. For more information about Professor Aithal's research please visit: www.nottinghambrc.nihr.ac.uk/research/gastrointestinal-liver

You can listen to interviews with more of our leading scientists, clinicians and academics by subscribing to The Clinical Research Podcast on your favourite Podcast app. If you enjoyed this episode then please rate, review and subscribe. This will help others to find our Podcast and raise awareness of clinical research. Do it for the science.

Our guest this episode is Helen Navarra from the Children's Research Team at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. Helen is in conversation with Andrew Bennett and explains how COVID-19 changed everything for families taking part in clinical research at our hospitals.

Helen herself is one of several members of the Children's Research Team, as well as the whole team and the work they did in partnership with the Cripps Health Centre in Nottingham, who received multiple nominations in our COVID-19 Research Heroes Awards last year. Helen explains the support they were able to give to children, young people and families which enabled them to take part in COVID-19 research. 

You can listen to interviews with some of our other COVID-19 Research Heroes, and many more people speaking about their research, by subscribing to The Clinical Research Podcast on your favourite Podcast app. This will help the work of heroes like the Children's Research Team get to a wider audience and to spread the word about research more generally.  Thank you.

An introduction to a report on a joint project between Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (and the Major Trauma Centre it hosts), and national charities Redthread and the Health Foundation.

Violent crime victims are often caught up in a lifestyle that's going to see them returning to Nottingham's emergency department over and over again, often with more and more serious injuries. It's not just a healthcare issue, it's also about law and order, safeguarding and social care. 

But while we're treating their injuries, there's also a chance to break that repeated pattern. Nottingham University Hospitals sees a lot of victims of violence, partly because it's in a big city, but also because it hosts the Major Trauma Centre for the East Midlands region.

We've been working with Redthread and the Health Foundation on how we can bring together healthcare, law and order, and social care, and we've just published a report on what we found.

This report has been written independently under the guidance of The Health Foundation, an independent charity committed to bringing about better health and health care for people in the UK.

Other links:

This Podcast is brought to you by the Research & Innovation team at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. Follow us on @ResearchNUH and @NottmBRC, or email R&[email protected].

If you haven't already, please subscribe to the podcast where ever you get your podcasts, and like/review us on Apple Podcasts especially. It's for science.

Kathryn Fairbrother is the new Head of Nursing for Research & Innovation at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. 

In this episode of The Clinical Research Podcast she talks about what inspired her as a nurse to get involved in clinical research and how she is hoping to now inspire other nurses - and healthcare professionals - to embark on their own research careers. Kathryn is in conversation with Matt Hurst from the Research & Innovation Communications Team.

The Clinical Research Podcast is written and produced by the Research & Innovation team at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. To find out more about our research please visit: www.nuh.nhs.uk/research or follow us on Twitter @ResearchNUH. You can email us at: R&[email protected]

If you haven't already, please subscribe to the podcast where ever you get your podcasts, and like/review us as this helps other people to find our episodes. It's for science.

This episode's Research Hero is Laura Looby a children's clinical research nurse - normally. Fairly early on in the Covid outbreak it became clear that relatively few children were being affected so she was drafted to help with adult covid patients many of whom were at the other end of the age spectrum.

She mentions 'dex' at one point. That's dexamethasone, one of the drugs trialled against Covid-19 early on, which turned out to be so effective it very quickly became part of the standard treatment. it's a really clear example of how research can lead to clinical treatment and researchers talk about it a lot.

This Podcast is brought to you by the Research & Innovation team at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. Follow us on @ResearchNUH and @NottmBRC, or email R&[email protected].

If you haven't already, please subscribe to the podcast where-ever you get your podcasts, and like/review us on Apple Podcasts especially. It's For Science.

In the UK, about 1.3 million people are living with COPD - chronic obstructive pulmonary disease - , and there's no cure - but there's a lot of research into its treatment.

In one type of COPD, emphysema, disease destroys alveoli in the lung so they can't transfer oxygen into the blood. It doesn't just mean there's less working lung, it means the now useless lung is taking up chest space so the patient can't inhale as deeply as they need to in order to get sufficient oxygen to the remaining working alveoli. So treatment often focuses on creating space in the chest so that patients can inhale more deeply - that means either surgery, or finding a way to make the emphysematic lung tissue take up less space. And either of those approaches have their own complications.

Respiratory consultant Sam Kemp has recently joined Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust and part of his work is testing a new technique with the potential to help patients with condition, working with US company Pulmonx.

This Podcast is brought to you by the Research & Innovation team at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. Follow us on @ResearchNUH and @NottmBRC, or email R&[email protected].

If you haven't already, please subscribe to the podcast where-ever you get your podcasts, and like/review us on Apple Podcasts especially. It's For Science.

Ask most people who they are, and they'll talk about their job, their likes and dislikes, their appearance. But there's another way of defining your identity - by the groups of people you mix with. We're a social species and who we choose to be with affects how we see the world, and ourselves. It can be a vital part of mental health. That's why occupational therapist and researcher Emilia Deakin chose to study how people with psychosis interact with the groups as they recover, for a study for her PhD, called UNFOLD. And then lockdown happened, and all of the normal social groups stopped. She told me how she solved the problem.

As of August 2021, UNFOLD is still recruiting, so if you'd like to know more about it you can email [email protected]. There's more infomation on the study website, https://www.researchintorecovery.com/research/unfold/ 

This Podcast is brought to you by the Research & Innovation team at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust with the NIHR Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre. Follow us on @ResearchNUH and @NottmBRC, or email R&[email protected].

If you haven't already, please subscribe to the podcast where-ever you get your podcasts, and like/review us on Apple Podcasts especially. It's For Science.

Clinical research is very much about collaboration, which means it can often also be very much about lots of organisations, with lots of initials. We try not to burrow too deeply into that particular rabbit hole unless we really have to, but for this episode - we really have to. Rather than people or particular studies, It's about plans for the future of clinical research in Nottingham, which means understanding a little bit of how all the parts fit together.

You'll hear four people - in order, hepatology Professor Guru Aithal, then Professor Penny Gowland who is part of the MR imaging team, then Neil Guha, who's a hepatology professor, and Dr Gordon Moran, who's an associate professor of gastro enterology.

A couple of the team mention some work by a colleague called Luca. That's Professor Luca Marciani, whose study called MAGIC helps treat constipation in children by using isotopic markers to track food moving through their digestive systems.

Show links

Professor Aithal started by talking about how funding was focused in specific research areas.

Increasingly clinical research is being led by a broader range of clinical professionals - but there is more to do to encourage physiotherapists, healthcare scientists and every profession to make research part of their careers.

In this episode Vicky Booth, a physiotherapist from Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust explains to Matt Hurst of the Research & Innovation department how working with falls patients who also had dementia led her to develop her own career as a clinical academic. 

Vicky is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Nottingham School of Medicine specialising in rehabilitation research. She is also one of the Allied Health Professional Clinical Academic Co-Leads at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust supporting the capacity and capability development of clinical academic careers in the hospital's AHP workforce. Vicky talks to us about how she is now working with other clinical academic leads in Nottingham to encourage others to follow their own route into clinical research and ultimately better care for patients.

This Podcast is brought to you by the Research & Innovation team at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. Follow us on @ResearchNUH and @NottmBRC, or email R&[email protected].

If you haven't already, please subscribe to this podcast where ever you get your podcasts, and like/review us to help others find our about clinical research. It's for science.

John Sweeney is a cleaner working at Nottingham City Hospital who was nominated for an award by the Respiratory Research Team for his part in supporting them on a number of COVID-19 research studies in 2020. 

But in turns out that not only is John a genuine NHS hero, he also has a pretty inspirational story about how he came to be working at the Hospital at all. He tells his remarkable life story to Matt Hurst from Research & Innovation. 

This episode is a tribute to the countless unsung heroes who together combine to make clinical research possible. It is also a tribute to everyone who "lives for the day". Thank you to John.

Find out more about our COVID-19 Research Heroes online. 

This Podcast is brought to you by the Research & Innovation team at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. Follow us on @ResearchNUH and @NottmBRC, or email R&[email protected].

If you haven't already, please subscribe to the podcast where ever you get your podcasts, and like/review us to help others find our about clinical research. It's for science.