Parkinson’s disease research gets £7m boost
£7 million of additional funding for research into Parkinson’s disease has been secured thanks to investment from Southmead Hospital Charity supporters.
In 2022, donations totalling £220,000, including a £99,954 pledge from Medlock Charitable Trust, helped to kickstart an ambitious three-year research project that uses artificial intelligence to monitor symptoms in Parkinson’s sufferers.
Using the findings from the first year, the research team, led by Dr Alan Whone, has leveraged a further £7 million grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to expand the research, helping to accelerate potential treatments for this devastating disease.
By evidencing our hypotheses in the first year of this research project – made possible thanks to charity donors – we’ve been able to secure a substantial amount of follow-on funding.
Dr Alan Whone, Consultant Neurologist, said:
“This additional funding will enable us to broaden the scope of the research, and develop the engineering required to provide the next generation of in-home sensing, increasing the likelihood that we’ll be able to make significant breakthroughs for people living with Parkinson’s disease in the UK and across the world.”
Research & Development
Within Research at North Bristol NHS Trust, we are dedicated to making research both relevant and accessible to the general public, to patients and their carers.
Clinical research helps us understand how to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent disease. It focuses on people, and many clinical research studies directly involve patients to see which medicines or medical treatments work best for the patient.
At North Bristol NHS Trust each year over 7,000 patients take part in research with more than 500 research staff undertaking over 500 studies each year across the organisation.
Innovation is also key at the Trust, and we work closely with our regional partners to develop new healthcare products and services designed to benefit our patients.