Leeds Teaching Hospital

The National Institute for Health & Care Research Leeds Biomedical Research Centre (NIHR Leeds BRC) is a £20.4M infrastructure award to the Leeds Teaching Hospital NHS Trust in partnership with the University of Leeds and the University of York. The current NIHR Leeds BRC award (2022-2027) has allowed us to expand into 6 Research themes.

Produced in collaboration with our patients and underpinned by existing strengths across our partnership, our research ambitions capitalise on today’s technologies: advances in our ability to identify disease early; detecting changes in the human body as a result of disease; applying technology therapeutically; using computers to perform tasks traditionally requiring humans such as using images to increase the accuracy of diagnosing. These will drive meaningful research informed by the patient and public voice; to deliver research and improved patient outcomes and quality of care that is relevant, inclusive, and impactful to our communities, particularly those who are most at need.

The NIHR Leeds BRC also recognises the need to attract, train and retain an inclusive, multi-professional workforce that drives world-leading research, and, through our Academic Capacity Development strategy, our infrastructure to endeavour to support researchers from a wide range of professions, specialisms, ethnic and social backgrounds, and levels of research readiness.

The NIHR Leeds BRC has been funded to address the urgent clinical challenges of an ageing population and the reality that patients do not live with just one disease but multiple conditions with a vision to improve health and wellbeing by accelerating diagnosis, enabling early treatment that is personalised for each patient and, where possible, prevent disease and infection.

Our Theme and their research ambitions are:

Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection: will accurately identify patients at risk of antibiotic resistant infections; ensure our existing antibiotics are working; and develop new infection treatments.

Cardiometabolic Disease: will discover new principles for detecting and treating heart disease, particularly in terms of complications from diabetes.

Haematology: will identify the determinants of poor outcomes, enabling development of personalised-treatment strategies for blood-related cancers.

Musculoskeletal Disease: will identify people at-risk of developing rheumatoid and other forms of arthritis to: prevent them from developing these conditions; and develop individually targeted, cost-effective treatments for a variety of musculoskeletal conditions

Pathology: using AI and screening advances, we will improve the accuracy and speed of bowel diagnosis, enabling early and more effective treatment.

Surgical Technologies: will develop and apply new surgical technologies to: provide more precise surgery that is tailored to the biology of the underlying disease; improve healing of bone and soft tissues; and limit disability following orthopaedic surgery.

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