PIHR Building a Rich Research Environment 2024

In recognition of this the Plymouth Institute of Health and Care Research (PIHR) organised a joint research conference between University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust (UHPNHST) and the University of Plymouth with the aim of fostering engagement and encouraging collaboration. The conference, which was held at the John Bull Building in July 2024, was attended by researchers and practitioners from both organisations as well as external stakeholders. 

The focus for the morning of the conference was on research around new advances in medical devices and medical imaging. Dr Elsa Fouragnan led the presentations after the mid-morning break and spoke about her pioneering work on Transcranial Ultrasound Stimulation (TUS). TUS is a non-invasive neuromodulatory technique that uses focused ultrasound waves to target and influence specific areas of the brain. By temporarily enhancing or inhibiting neural activity, it has the potential for treating conditions like depression and chronic pain, as well as improving cognitive functions. 

Read more about Elsa's work and TUS  

The first of the speakers form University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust was Dr Peter Wright who is Director of Science and Healthcare Technologies at the hospital. Peter's presentation focused on the use of software as a medical device including its use in wearables, implantable devices and virtual wards. He drew on both local examples as well as those from other areas like the Sheffield 3D Lab and the use of scientific computing in Southampton. The talk also set out the potential opportunities to support academic and clinical groups to make use of the huge imaging dataset available in the South West Peninsula. 

Following a networking lunch, there was a talk from Dr Ellie Edlmann (Associate Professor in Neurosurgery at the University and Consultant Neurosurgeon at the Hospital) on how the changing demographics of head injury patients has impacted on clinical research in the field. 

While it can be very rewarding, undertaking research does present a number of challenges to clinicians, who have to balance this with their day job. Dr Lucy Leeman , Consultant Clinical Immunologist at the Hospital, gave a presentation on her own research journey and highlighted the key lessons she had learned. 

Following this theme, the afternoon also featured presentations about potential support services available to researchers at both the University and Hospital including one from Dr David Mozley , on producing and safeguarding intellectual property and Dr Karen Piper on the new  Joint Clinical Research Office (JCRO)  – which has been set-up to support clinical research involving both institutions. 

The conference concluded with two talks. One from Stewart Brown (Cardiology Registrar at Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton and PhD student at the University of Plymouth) was about a collaboration between the University, the NHS and industry around using implantable cardioverter defibrillators to predict adverse events amongst patients. 

The final presentation was led by Kofi (James) Ackah (ST5 Thoracic Surgery, University Hospitals Plymouth) and Adrian Marchbank (Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon and Caldicott Guardian, University Hospitals Plymouth). Their talk described their work on lung cancer resection and especially the role of the Da Vinci surgical robot in improving the accuracy of lung segmentectomies (where the piece of the lung containing the cancer is removed) and so increasing survival rates.