3 October 2024
Three colleagues at Royal Brompton and Harefield have been awarded funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). The funding will give them protected time within their current roles for research.
Sam Irving (chief paediatric respiratory research physiologist), Dr Haifa Lyster (consultant pharmacist in transplantation and Harefield clinical research facility lead) and Dr Sarah Collins (cystic fibrosis specialist dietitian) were successful in their applications for the NIHR Senior Clinical and Practitioner Research Award. This new award was created to support the career development of senior clinicians or practitioners.
We spoke to Sam, Haifa and Sarah to find out how they each plan to use the funding and what it means to be awarded.
Sam Irving is a respiratory physiologist within Royal Brompton’s paediatrics department, working with children with lung conditions. She applied for the award to support research in bronchiectasis, a long-term condition where the airways of the lungs become widened, leading to a build-up of excess mucus that can make the lungs more vulnerable to infection.
“Bronchiectasis is a rare condition in children,” Sam says. “Usually, symptoms don’t develop until well into adulthood. And because it’s rare to see bronchiectasis in children, it’s under-researched, and we therefore don’t know a great deal about how to manage and monitor it.
“The Royal Brompton is one of only a few centres in the UK that has a large number of paediatric patients with bronchiectasis, so I was absolutely delighted to be awarded funding for protected time to dedicate research time to this.
“My aim with part of the funding is to start a multi-centre collaboration with other specialist lung centres to discuss and study how we can better perform lung function testing for children with bronchiectasis, and how we can better manage the condition.”
Sam will use the rest of her funded hours to support the development of non-medical clinicians who have an interest in combining research with their clinical practice, for example healthcare scientists at the Trust as well as respiratory physiologists nationally.
She adds: “Supporting the development of careers and people’s interest in research is something I am incredibly passionate about. With the rest of the funding I’ll be developing education materials, resources, and trying to increase the number of clinicians in our hospitals - who are not medics - that are engaged in research.”
The funding will support Sam’s research for three years, and it is already underway. She says: “It’s come at a great time in my career. Having completed my PhD, this funding will enable me to gain a solid foundation in research and then transition to a stage where I am applying for bigger grants, under my own name, to support students in their research careers.”
Sarah Collins, a cystic fibrosis specialist dietitian, explains why she was delighted to receive this award: “It's hard for non-medics to get dedicated research time as part of their clinical role. It’s what makes this funding unique – it makes research accessible to allied health professionals and other underrepresented professions.”
Sarah co-leads the cystic fibrosis diabetes service. As part of her PhD, Sarah developed an online, evidence-based, self-management programme for people with cystic fibrosis diabetes, called MAGIC. It helps people manage and monitor their condition while also increasing their knowledge about it.
With the NIHR funding allowing her at least two days a week for research, Sarah’s aim is to develop the MAGIC programme further.
She says: “Cystic fibrosis care is constantly evolving, for example, the efficacy of drugs means that, generally, people with the condition are less unwell. Plus, our expanding knowledge of nutrition helps those with cystic fibrosis diabetes manage their symptoms better. This means a tool like MAGIC needs to constantly evolve if it’s to offer effective interventions.
“As part of my funding, I will be evaluating the MAGIC programme, conducting focus groups with patients, carrying out extensive research reviews and undertaking training and visits with various specialist diabetes centres in the UK and the US.
“My aim is to produce a grant application for an advanced clinical academic fellowship to take the MAGIC programme forward, and ultimately see it incorporated into routine clinical care so that cystic fibrosis centres across the UK can use it to support patients with their diabetes management.”
Haifa Lyster is a consultant pharmacist in transplant and mechanical circulatory support (MCS) and clinical research facility lead at Harefield. With the NIHR funding, she is continuing the work of her PhD in pharmacokinetics, studying how the body interacts with medicines. Haifa’s goal is to develop her modelling skills that can be applied to the design and implementation of clinical trials and translational Model Informed Precision Dosing (MIPD), to personalise drug dosing for patients with complex conditions such as people who are critically ill and have organ transplants.
She explains: “Often a drug will come with a manufacturer’s dosage recommendation, but these don’t consider all the variables at play in our special patient populations, and this can lead to suboptimal results. For example, extremes of body weight, inflammation, protein levels and genetics; also what other medications or supplements they’re taking, their clinical condition changes day to day or week to week. All of these will have an impact on how a patient will respond to drug treatment – it’s not a ‘one dose fits all’.
“The funding will allow me to have dedicated research time to continue training in pharmacokinetic (PK) modelling and become an expert. Population PK modelling will look at variables that might affect drug dosing, by building a software model from a clinical trial in a group of patients. Physiologically-based PK will look to build simulation models from what we know about the drug itself and the patient – and based on these, predict how the patient would react to specific dosing, and then run clinical trials to validate the findings. In addition, I will be incorporating pharmacogenomics into these models. These two different techniques will ultimately help us personalise dosages more accurately, and support bedside clinical dosing decisions.”
With a unique patient population at Harefield, Haifa’s other goal is for the hospital itself: “Some truly ground-breaking work happens here, so my other aim with this funding is to help make Harefield a centre of excellence in clinical pharmacology and research studies.”
Haifa adds: “I am so excited to get started. The beauty of this funding is that it’s not restricted to a particular drug or project, so I have freedom and will continue to apply for project grants. It’s about developing leaders in research and paving the way for others.”
The new NIHR Senior Clinical and Practitioner Research Award was open to senior clinicians and practitioners who have previously obtained a PhD/MD. It provides between 20% and 50% protected time within their current roles to engage in research activities.
Find out more: NIHR Senior Clinical and Practitioner Research Award (SCPRA) Round 1.