Translational Medicine Research Collaboration

A major, fifteen-year, University of Edinburgh study involving 1600 middle-aged and elderly people with poor leg circulation discovered that more than half of those recruited had undiagnosed diabetes and that these patients had a similar risk of death from heart attack and stroke to those with known diabetes. The research also showed that a simple fasting blood sugar test was enough to identify people with high risk of dying from heart disease and stroke. The study found that people who have raised fasting blood sugar levels have an increased risk of death from a variety of causes, including heart disease and stroke.

The University of Edinburgh Cancer Research Centre (ECRC) is a translational research centre that strives for excellence in basic science research and seeks to bridge from the laboratory to the clinic and back again. It is outward looking and interdisciplinary: principle investigators comprise biochemists, geneticists, oncologists, chemists, pathologists, psychiatrists, surgeons, family practitioners, palliative medicine specialists, cell biologists. There are extensive local collaborative links particularly to the Medical Reseach Council Human Genetics Unit and also external collaborators. Integration of the ECRC with the NHS Edinburgh Cancer Centre is absolutely crucial and there are close ties to the South East Scottish Cancer Research Network. The centre is a Cancer Research UK/Chief Scientist Office Scotland Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre and a Cancer Research UK Key Phase 1 trials centre. University of Edinburgh research scientists are collaborating with researchers at Greifswald, Germany, to produce light-activated platinum drugs which can kill cancer cells but minimise the unwanted side-effects of chemotherapy. University of Edinburgh chemists and their colleagues in Greifswald have developed platinum compounds which target and destroy cancer cells but leave surrounding, healthy tissue unharmed. This breakthrough builds on pervious work carried out at Edinburgh and Ninewells Hospital, Dundee. Although light-activated cancer treatments are common, it is the first time non-toxic platinum light-sensitive compounds have been used to kill tumour cells. This 'Photo-Activated Chemotherapy' (PACT) therapy, developed at Edinburgh, has a key advantage over existing light-sensitive therapies as it does not need oxygen - often limited at tumour sites - to become active. And it is hoped that these new platinum compounds will produce fewer side-effects than existing photo-activated drugs, which can linger in the body after treatment. Some patients become so sensitive to daylight that they are unable to go outside for fear of being burned.

University of Edinburgh researchers have shown that memory loss may be improved or helped by a new drug treatment. In pilot studies, funded by the Wellcome Trust biomedical research charity, the Edinburgh Group showed that two groups one of elderly men and one of patients with type 2 diabetes — showed improvements in specific aspects of memory after only a few weeks of treatment with the drug carbenoxolone.

 

Although mild impairment of brain function and memory is a common feature of ageing, previous research has shown that raised levels of glucocorticoids — hormones which are a key part of the body’s response to stress— can contribute to the brain’s decline as a person ages. The area of the brain, known as the hippocampus, which deals with learning processes and long-term memory storage, is especially sensitive to raised glucocorticoid levels. In previous work, the University of Edinburgh Group of experts in endocrinology, psychology and geriatric medicine, had shown that an enzyme amplifies glucocorticoid effects in the hippocampus and that mice lacking the enzyme were protected from loss of memory with age. The University of Edinburgh Group has now tested the drug, which inhibits the enzyme, in small randomised trials on a group of ten healthy men aged 55 to 75 and also on 12 patients with type 2 diabetes (also known as maturity-onset diabetes). After four weeks on the drug, the healthy elderly men showed improved verbal fluency and after six weeks, the 12 patients with diabetes showed improved verbal memory.