Cambridge

Context: The NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) lies at the heart of the Cambridge Biomedical Campus - the largest centre of medical research and health science in Europe.

Our campus combines research in world-class institutes, patient care in Cambridge University Hospitals and Royal Papworth Hospital, and development of new drugs through GlaxoSmithKline s Clinical Unit and AstraZeneca s global headquarters.

Close by are globally-recognised research facilities, including the European Bioinformatics Institute and Wellcome Sanger Institute.

Our vision is to tackle today s most significant health problems by accelerating the steps from scientific discovery to improved health, producing benefits for patients and people across diverse populations, the NHS and the economy.

Our strategic aims are to mobilise our world-leading research strengths to develop new ways to predict and detect disease at an early stage, and deliver new approaches, including new diagnostic tests, medicines and devices, to prevent and treat disease more effectively and precisely.

Overarching aims are to tailor treatments to individual peoples needs, support health policy and practice, and address health inequalities.

Our distinctive focus is understanding where diseases come from and the earliest changes in different systems that precede disease development.

Our goals are to: Engage and involve patients and the public region-wide at all steps in our research, ensuring that we address issues that matter to them. Understand the earliest changes in the body that lead eventually to disease.

Use this knowledge to help (1) predict and prevent disease, (2) detect disease early, and (3) invent new treatments that prevent more serious, irreversible problems developing. Share knowledge across themes and region-/nationwide. Offer every patient attending our hospitals the opportunity to participate in research.

Nurture early-career researchers from all professional backgrounds and a research culture that celebrates equality, diversity and inclusion. Help researchers move their discoveries from the laboratory into the clinic. Foster innovation and entrepreneurship.

We are values-driven: committed to respect for research participants and each other, to diversity and inclusion, to collaboration with patients, the public and our partner organisations, to reducing inequalities, and to scientific excellence.

Our work focuses on healthcare conditions that have been identified by patients themselves and policy-makers as high priority and that match our areas of expertise.

Key areas include antenatal, maternal and child health, obesity and diabetes, cancer, heart and lung disease, infections, immune disorders, transplantation, and dementia, nervous system and mental health disorders,.

We will engage with diverse communities and patient groups across our region to help frame the research questions we ask, using a range of methods for involving people in our research – including through our innovative Patient-Led Research Hub, the Cambridge-led NIHR BioResource (over 200,000 people nationally helping in research), and new online platforms designed to promote inclusion.

We will use a wide range of research methods, from analysis of DNA, X-ray images and health data (including with artificial intelligence) through to experimental studies involving volunteers and samples they provide, invention of new healthcare tools and devices, and trials of new therapies. Improved health for all is our goal.