Clinical research
We have processes, teams and technologies to support clinical research from approvals to sample analysis.
Academic and Clinical Central Office for Research & Development (ACCORD)
Based in: Queen's Medical Research Institute (QMRI)
Lead contact: ACCORD Enquiries
ACCORD is a partnership between the University and NHS Lothian Health Board, formed to support clinical researchers to obtain research approvals and conduct research in compliance with research governance and regulatory requirements. Please contact ACCORD as early as possible when planning a clinical research study.
All health-care related research involving humans, their tissue or data needs a sponsor to take responsibility for the overall management and conduct of a study, and ensure appropriate insurance is in place. The University and/or NHS Lothian act as sponsor for research led by University or NHSL employees or University students.
In addition to sponsoring or co-sponsoring studies, ACCORD provide essential support in key areas of clinical research:
- sponsorship and facilitation
- pharmacovigilance
- quality assurance
- monitoring
- NHS Lothian R&D management approval.
British Heart Foundation (BHF) Cardiovascular Biomarker Laboratory
Based in: QMRI
Facility manager/ lead contact: Dr Takeshi Fujisawa
The BHF-supported Cardiovascular Biomarker Laboratory offers secure receipt, processing, archiving, shipment, and analysis of clinical samples. Secure sample storage is also available.
The facility participates in the UKNEQAS (UK National External Quality Assessment Service) External Quality Assessment for Cardiac Biomarkers scheme (hsTnI and NT-proBNP) and offers a range of cardiac biomarkers and clinical chemistry assays on an Abbott ARCHITECT ci4100 Integrated Analyser. The facility obtained ACCORD accreditation in 2021 and can analyse locally sponsored clinical trial samples.
BHF Cardiovascular Biomarker Laboratory website
DNA Sanger sequencing service
Based in: Institute for Genetics and Cancer (IGC)
Lead contact: DNA sequencing services
This service provides a Sanger sequencing/genotyping service to all University of Edinburgh researchers. The service is operated by two experienced technicians and the main operating platform is a 96 capillary 3730 xl. The standard set-up provides read lengths of up to ~1000bp. Longer read lengths are possible and, if required, the length can be increased. In addition they offer a human cell line authentication service.
DNA Sanger Sequencing service website
Please note that the booking service from this website is only open to researchers based in IGC, but contact details are provided for others who may wish to use the service.
Edinburgh Clinical Research Facility
Based in: Edinburgh BioQuarter and Western General Hospital campuses
Facility manager/ lead contact: Various - please click here for a list of relevant personnel and details
A joint venture between the University and NHS Lothian, the CRF provides state-of-the-art facilities, including building space and highly qualified research nursing staff, to support multidisciplinary clinical research locally, nationally and internationally.
Operating on both the Western General Hospital and Edinburgh Bioquarter campuses, CRF's expertise focuses particularly on early-stage, Phase I and first-in-human studies.
Clinical Research Facility website
Edinburgh Reproductive Tissue Biobank
Based in: QMRI and Simpson’s Centre, Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh
Facility manager/ lead contact: Professor Rebecca Reynolds
The Edinburgh Reproductive Tissue Biobank (ERTBB) aims to assist medical and scientific researchers in the field of reproductive research with the long term goal of improving the health, diagnosis and treatment of pregnant women and their un-born infants.
The Biobank can provide the collection, processing and secure storage of high-quality tissue and blood samples along with matched medical data in an anonymised form for researchers working on projects which have already obtained ethical approval from an appropriate ethics committee.
Edinburgh Reproductive Tissue Biobank Website
Tommy's National Reproductive Health Biobank
Genetics Core of the Edinburgh Clinical Research Facility (ECRF)
Based in: Institute for Genetics and Cancer (IGC) but serving researchers across the College.
Facility manager/ lead contact: Mr Lee Murphy
The Genetics Core team can provide support for clinical research from sample collection to genetic analysis, working to the principles of Good Clinical Practice for Laboratories.
Healthcare Technology Accelerator Facility (HTAF)
Based in: QMRI and IRR
Facility manager/lead contact: Emma Scholefield
The Healthcare Technology Accelerator Facility (HTAF) is an initiative aimed at expediting the development and commercialisation of healthcare technology.
By integrating physical scientists, biomedical scientists and clinicians into the same environment with bespoke translational expertise and facilities, HTAF removes the barriers that frequently preclude the development and translation of new healthcare technology.
HTAF has a footprint in QMRI and IRR at the Edinburgh Bio-Quarter site and also 1 George Square and provides the following infrastructure to support technology development:
Facilities:
- Physical science laboratories with associated biological validation facilities.
- Laboratories and clean rooms for instrumentation development and validation.
- Formulation development, manufacture and stability assessment of chemical entities to GMP grade in a dedicated chemistry facility.
- MHRA licensed sterile liquid product manufacture.
- MHRA licensed non-sterile manufacture, repackaging and blind labelling of Investigational Medicinal Products.
Capabilities:
- Support for business development, commercialisation, product design, legal and trial design.
- Experienced clinical project managers.
- Experienced translational project managers.
- Direct portal for industry access/collaboration.
- Embedded quality management systems for in-human technology development.
- Regulatory specialists and translational multi-disciplinary scientists.
Host and tumour profiling unit (HTPU): microarray services
Based in: IGC
Facility manager/ lead contact: Alison Munro and Kenneth Macleod
This service provides protein, antibody and transcriptomic microarray facilities for the analysis of complex signalling pathways and secreted factors across multiple pre-clinical and clinical sample types:
- NanoString nCounter - highly sensitive profiling of hundreds of mRNAs, microRNAs, SNVs, CNVs or protein using colour-coded molecular barcodes to provide a digital count of target molecules. Optimised for difficult sample types including FFPE, tissue and lysate samples.
- Reverse phase protein arrays (RPPA) - a sensitive antibody based proteomic approach enabling simultaneous quantification of multiple proteins and post-translational modifications. Our portfolio of antibodies covers key cancer survival, cell cycle and canonical signalling pathways that can be used to profile multiple pathway responses.
- Forward phase antibody microarrays (cytokine arrays) - utilises well-validated capture/detection antibody pairs for the relative quantification of secreted factors associated with inflammation and angiogenesis i.e. chemokines/cytokine/adipokines.
The facilities are available to all within the University of Edinburgh, and to external groups through funded collaboration or fee-for-service contract. The NanoString service obtained ACCORD Accreditation in 2021 and can analyse locally sponsored clinical trial samples.
HTPU Microarray Services website
Specialist Assay Laboratory
Based in: QMRI as part of SuRF
Facility manager/ lead contact: Dr Kirsten Wilson
The Specialist Assay Laboratory has three focuses to the service:
- It offers several in-house steroid hormone ELISAs which can be used in a range of matrices and species, and can provide expertise to run commercial kits alongside offering advice on kit selection.
- Additionally, it has three automated analysers. There is a primary focus on measuring liver, kidney and cardiovascular parameters with these analysers; serum LFTs are the most popular set of tests for the facility. The Roche e411 Analyser is designer for automated immunoassays and is ideal for testing large numbers of samples; kits are available for a wide range of applications on this technology.
- The lab has experience with a range of sample matrices (serum, plasma, saliva, urine, cell/tissue culture media) and have analysed from a range of species, including wild and exotic animals such as giant panda, polar bear, koala, tiger and skate.
Specialist Assay Laboratory website