News

I am sure I speak for everyone when I say how pleased I am that the number of cases of COVID19 in Nottingham and elsewhere in the UK is reducing. However, there is still a need for high quality research on this disease.

As a BRC we are continuing to deploy our research resources to the frontline of treatment trials for COVID-19 patients and also to study the wider impacts of the virus on health and wellbeing for all of us.

Professor Paul Greenhaff who is part of our Musculoskeletal Theme, published a white paper on the worsening effects on our general health due to physical inactivity as a consequence of lockdown measures during the COVID-19 pandemic . It is a timely reminder, even as restrictions start to be eased in the UK, that inactivity has been linked with increased risk of mortality and significant problems such as cardiovascular disease and poor metabolic health.

I am very pleased to say that our expertise and resources in Nottingham have enabled us to open two additional COVID-19 studies and also to support the first UK-wide vaccine trial.

This week we are setting up to recruit patients into ACCORD-2. This is a collaborative platform trial that will accelerate the development of new drugs for patients hospitalised with COVID-19. ACCORD (Accelerating, COVID-19 Research & Development), aims to get an early indication of the effectiveness of potential drug treatments for COVID-19. If positive results are seen, these drugs will then be able to advance rapidly into large-scale trials.  We are already supporting large scale national treatment trials including the RECOVERY trial, which in Nottingham currently has 186 patients taking part and overall there are 1,776 patients contributing to our COVID-19 studies.

Nottingham patients will also be able to participate in the RECOVERY-RS; this research is comparing the effectiveness of three ventilation methods; continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), high flow nasal oxygen (HFNO) or the standard way of administering oxygen through a normal face mask or nose tube.

Nottingham’s experience in supporting previous vaccine trials now means that a partnership between clinical researchers, academics and Primary Care will see the Cripps Health Centre at the University of Nottingham join the national vaccine trial, led by the University of Oxford.

The vaccine is an adenovirus vaccine vector (ChAdOx1) and was developed at Oxford’s Jenner Institute. It was chosen as the most suitable vaccine technology for a SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) vaccine as it can generate a strong immune response from one dose and it is not a replicating virus, so it cannot cause an ongoing infection in the vaccinated individual. This also makes it safer to give to children, the elderly and anyone with a pre-existing condition such as diabetes.

Professor Gilbert and team at Oxford have previously developed a vaccine for another human coronavirus disease, which is Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), and this has shown promise in early clinical trials.

In Nottingham, the vaccine will initially be offered to healthcare staff as part of this large scale study, which will involve around 10 centres across the UK. Full details of how NHS staff can volunteer, including an online form to register interest will be available shortly.