Kenneth Baillie awarded Wellcome Trust Fellowship
December 2021 – Dr Kenneth Baillie has been awarded a Wellcome Trust Senior Fellowship for the project "Translational genomics in critical care medicine."
The aim of the newly funded project is to translate findings from the global GenOMICC study, which explored the genetic variants underlying critical illness in Covid, sepsis, influenza and other conditions. The GenOMICC study has found key genetic associations which could help pinpoint those who are likely to become seriously ill.
Using genome editing to find causal variants, Dr Baillie's group will make predictions about therapeutic effects in subgroups of critically-ill patients, enabling them to design future computer-modelled clinical trials. The project will build technology to test multiple drug treatments in the lungs of critically ill patients. The concept of microtrials used in this project aims to rapidly prioritise promising treatments.