Current projects
CAMARADES is currently engaged in a variety of systematic review and research improvement projects.
Living systematic reviews and living evidence summaries
CAMARADES are developing automated approaches to systematic review, using methods such as machine learning and text mining. Using these tools, we aim to provide online resources, automatically updated in real-time, that summarise all primary studies in specific research domains. These online resources will help inform the design and development of human clinical trials with a higher rate of success.
Increasing the Reliability and Usefulness of Laboratory Stroke Research
This project, supported by the Stroke Association, will investigate the potential sources of bias that limit our ability to reproduce scientific findings from animal and other preclinical research. We aim to develop an automatically-updated and free online resource that summarises all pre-clinical studies of stroke, the drugs tested, and the quality of experiments. A further aim of this project is to inform the design of animal studies, with a focus on the 3Rs, and use patient experience to inform meaningful pre-clinical models of stroke.
Project overview on the Stroke Association website
Key contact: Dr Emily Sena
AD-SOLES (Systematic Online Living Evidence Summary of Alzheimer's Disease Research)
This project aims to provide a useful and continually updated summary of existing pre-clinical Alzheimer's research. The summary will assess the quality of studies, investigate sources of heterogeneity, and generate hypotheses for future Alzheimer's disease research, using systematic review and meta-analysis methodologies. This workflow enabled us to begin 3 systematic review sub-projects (as part of EQIPD) focussing on different outcomes: The open field test paradigm, sleep EEG, and synaptic plasticity (measured in hippocampal slices).
Synaptic plasticity review protocol
Key contact: Dr Kaitlyn Hair
Repurposing Living Systematic Review for Motor Neuron Disease (ReLiSyR-MND)
Living systematic reviews of clinical and preclinical literature of motor neuron disease (MND) and other neurodegenerative diseases to inform the selection of drugs for repurposing in MND clinical trials, in collaboration with MND-SMART (Motor Neurone Disease – Systematic Multi-Arm Randomised Trial).
MND-SMART clinical trial platform website
Key contact: Dr Charis Wong
Edinburgh Research Improvement Project (ERIP)
A project in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh's Animal Welfare and Ethical Review Body (AWERB) to improve the design, conduct, analysis and reporting of research at the University of Edinburgh. The main aim of the project is to develop and deliver educational materials for everyone involved with preclinical animal research at the University of Edinburgh, including researchers, technical staff, and students, and measure the impact of implementing these approaches on research performance and output.
Edinburgh Research Improvement Project overview on Edinburgh Research Explorer
Key contacts: Dr Gillian Currie