News and events 2017

The biannual Androgens meeting brings together medical professionals and researchers of all disciplines interested in the action of androgen hormones in health and disease.

December 2017: Proteus has been granted a major funding boost worth £3.8M to continue developing their research into diagnosing and managing lung diseases.

December 2017: Dr Tom Craven has been awarded The Intensive Care Foundation Research Gold Medal for 2017.

November 2017: Congratulations to Dr Alan Serrels

November 2017: A study led by the Medical Research Council Toxicology Unit, and supported by researches from the Medical Research Council Centre for Inflammation Research, has provided strong evidence that certain carbon nanotubes used in manufacturing could pose the same cancer risk as asbestos. 

November 2017: A 'Communicating Immunology' grant has been awarded to Iris Mair, David Taggart, Julia Dorin and Donald Davidson by the British Society for Immunology to develop new Science Festival activities with the theme of 'Denny and the T team fight cancer'.

October 2017: ECAT PhD student Ruairi Lynch wins best poster prize at the Macrophage Biology in the Single-Cell Era Meeting in Ghent

October 2017: A potential treatment to prevent deadly muscle scarring that contributes to chronic heart failure has been uncovered by scientists.

October 2017: Worms could prevent asthma and offer the hope of a cure to the 5.4 million people in the UK with the condition, according to a breakthrough study funded by Asthma UK

October 2017: Fresh insights into how cystic fibrosis affects immune cells could pave the way for new treatments for the condition

September 2017: A new technique that targets drugs to specific cells could lead to improved therapies for diseases caused by an overactive immune response.

September 2017: A camera is being developed that will be able to locate medical tools, such as endoscopes, inside the body without the need to resort to inconvenient X-rays.

August 2017: Fresh insight into how the immune system keeps itself in check could lead to new ways of fighting chronic lung disease

August 2017: Congratulations to Professor Elaine Dzierzak

July 2017: A project being developed by Proteus in conjunction with the University of Glasgow to help school children better understand biomedical engineering is currently touring Rwanda.

June 2017: Trainee awards for "Excellence in Public Engagement" were presented to Cathy Hawley and Iris Mair at the inaugural MRC Centre for Inflammation Research at the University of Edinburgh Away Day on 29 June 2017.

June 2017: Staff and students from across the Centre attended the first CIR away day

June 2017: On 28 and 29 June 2017, the first EPSRC all-IRC conference for healthcare technologies took place at the University of Bath, during which the work of Proteus was showcased.

June 2017: Exposure to sunlight releases a compound from the skin that can alleviate symptoms of eczema

June 2017: The MRC CIR ran a free interactive workshop to introduce "Supercytes" (our new game-based schools' resource, focused on immunology and inflammation) to teachers working in Edinburgh and Lothians schools.

June 2017: Congratulations to Dr Chris Lucas

June 2017: Congratulations to Sarah Walmsley and Kev Dhaliwal

May 2017: Mary Erskine’s S1 pupils visit the CIR to learn about inflammation research

May 2017: The Edinburgh Café Scientifique hosted an informal discussion on the health effects of air pollution with Professor Ken Donaldson, Dr Mark Miller and Dr Craig Poland, University of Edinburgh.

May 2017: Congratulations to Dr Ahsan Akram

May 2017: Colleagues from the MRC Centres for Reproductive Health and Inflammation Research publish findings in The Lancet of a major consultation process into endometriosis

May 2017: Early stage clinical trial with a new drug developed by researchers in the MRC Centre for Inflammation Research in collaboration with Galecto Biotech shows promise as a new treatment for patients with lung fibrosis.

May 2017: David Dorward and colleagues from the Rossi group publish a study in Thorax delineating the role of mitochondrial proteins and their signalling in driving lung inflammation.

April 2017: Gwo-tzer Ho publishes recent study in Mucosal Immunology highlighting the importance of damaged mitochondria and gut inflammation

April 2017: Prestigious Award for CIR Principal Investigator

April 2017: The CIR participates at the Edinburgh International Science Festival with the Amazing Immunology workshop

March 2017: Congratulations to Chris Lucas

March 2017: Congratulations to Douglas Gibson

March 2017: A new imaging tool that rapidly diagnoses bacterial lung infections could help prevent unnecessary use of antibiotics in intensive care units

March 2017: Congratulations to the sustainability team in the QMRI

March 2017: The Centre's new educational resource 'Supercytes' was presented to High School Biology teachers at a Scottish Schools Education Research Centre CPD Training event.

March 2017: Congratulations to Mr Iain Murray

February 2017: Patients facing surgery to remove liver cancers could benefit from advanced imaging technology

January 2017: Dr Gwo-tzer Ho speaks about Precision Medicine in Crohn’s disease and Ulcerative Colitis in American Journal of Gastroenterology

January 2017: Professor Haslett recognised in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours list