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IMPROvED pregnancy outcomes by early detection
Funded by the European Commission’s Framework 7 Health Innovation programme, Keele’s share is over £460,000.
One in 20 first time pregnancies are complicated by pre-eclampsia, the leading cause of maternal death in Europe. No clinically useful screening test exists; consequently, clinicians are unable to offer targeted surveillance or known/emerging preventative strategies.
Keele is playing an important part in a large consortium of researchers who are pioneering a personalised medicine approach to identifying blood-borne biomarkers. The IMproved PRegnancy Outcomes by Early Detection or "IMPROvED" consortium is making maximum use of recent technological advances, especially in the fields of mass spectrometry and the comprehensive mapping of the blood metabolome and proteome. Professor Shaughn O’Brien will take part in the clinical aspects of the study, based on many years of his own research into pre-eclampsia, while Professor Phil Baker has the role of Deputy Coordinator, drawing on his 20 years research into potential screening tests for pre-eclampsia, including metabolomics and proteomics. Co-ordinator of the study is Professor Louise Kenny of University College, Cork, and working with Keele are 10 other partners from the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and the USA. The overall project budget, funded by the European Commission’s Framework 7 Health Innovation programme, is Euro 6 million, of which Keele’s share is over £460,000.
The overall objective of the IMPROvED project is to develop a sensitive, specific, high-throughput and economically viable early pregnancy screening test for pre-eclampsia. This will involve a multicentre, phase II a clinical study to assess and refine novel and innovative prototype tests based on emerging metabolomic and proteomic technologies developed by SMEs within the consortium. The study will:
i) recruit 5000 first-time pregnant women;
ii) establish a high calibre bio bank, augmented by accurate clinical metadata;
iii) determine whether prototype predictive assays and algorithms translate to the clinical environment;
iv) assess potential synergy of a combined metabolomic and proteomic approach and
v) progress regulatory approval and development of the selected test into the clinical arena.
In partnership with local hospitals in Stoke, Stafford and Shrewsbury, Prof O’Brien will recruit three research midwives and technical staff to carry out the Keele-based part of the study.
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