NIHR Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust CRF

The Imperial Clinical Research Facility (ICRF), hosted by Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust (ICHNT), comprises dedicated space, equipment and professional staff to support high-intensity and high-risk clinical research in adults (at Hammersmith Hospital) and children (St Mary s Hospital).

The adult unit, which opened in 2012, is purpose-built and its flexible configuration (including isolation rooms) provides a safe location for inpatient and outpatient studies of high complexity, close to specialist NHS clinical investigation and intensive care.

More recently, the ICRF has expanded with a children s unit embedded in the paediatric service, close to the ICHNT paediatric intensive care unit, to address the gap in studies of new treatments for children.

With access to a diverse, multi-ethnic local population (2.3M) through London s Whole Systems Integrated Care database (Bottle et al 2019), the ICRF is the clinical home for early phase and experimental medicine studies led by investigators from across the Trust and Imperial College. In the last 5-years, it has supported cutting-edge studies of small molecule drugs (e.g.

Abbara JCI 2020, Carhart-Harris NEJM 2021), gene therapies (Rangarajan NEJM 2017), diets (Petropoulou Nature Food 2020) and devices (Rawson Lancet Digital Health 2019) for diseases spanning cancer, cardiovascular and metabolic medicine, infectious disease and mental health.

It has accommodated viral challenge studies (Chiu JCI 2020) and has been the centre for vaccine trials in ICHNT during the pandemic (Ramasamy Lancet 2020, Folegatti Lancet 2020, Emary Lancet 2021, Voysey Lancet 2021).

To address current and emerging healthcare challenges in adults and children over the next 5-years, the ICRF, in collaboration with the national network, will: Engage with clinicians, scientists and bioengineers to support the translation through clinical studies of innovative ideas from across the Imperial ecosystem: the Biomedical Research Centre, two NIHR Health Protection Research Units, two UK Dementia Research Initiative Centres, a Cancer Research UK Convergence Science Centre and Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre, the British Heart Foundation Imperial Centre of Research Excellence, the Centre for Antimicrobial Optimisation, two UKRI doctoral training programme (on Artificial Intelligence for Healthcare and Experimental Medicine, respectively), the MRC London Medical Sciences Centre and 27 College-wide cross-Faculty research networks.

Increase capacity for commercial studies in North West London through (a) the North West London Clinical Trials Alliance, (b) strategic agreements with AstraZeneca, Novartis and Boerhringer Ingelheim and (c) proactive interaction with Small and Medium-size Enterprises located in the incubator hub on the new £2B Imperial College White City campus.

Develop capacity for clinical studies in children, in association with the West London Children s Healthcare Alliance and ICHNT s Connecting Care for Children.

Expand capability for delivering clinical research by training healthcare professionals, bioscientists and bioengineers, in partnership with the Clinical Academic Training Office, through access to ICRF resources, expertise, courses and mentorship.

Achieve true representation of the local population in clinical studies and integrate research into real world health and social care settings, by working with GPs and the local community, a programme of collaborations with local schools and Hammersmith and Fulham Council and the use of digital technology.