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A top team of academics have picked up a prestigious award for developing a device which rapidly diagnoses drug-induced liver damage.
Dr Kersaudy-Kerhoas an Associate Professor from Heriot-Watt and Honorary Fellow at the University of Edinburgh with a team of clinicians and biologists received the award from the Rosetrees Trust.
It’s fantastic news that our collaboration with clinicians and scientists at the site of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh has been awarded this prestigious prize. I look forward to this exciting project.
Drug induced liver injury is often the result of drug misuse, it is very rare but can be lethal.
Now the group will use the funding to develop a device, which will rapidly measure a new class of blood markers.
The new 'biomarker' will be more sensitive and specific than current markers and will help in the fight against drug induced liver injury.
Dr James Dear, Lead Investigator at Edinburgh, added: “Our project will make a new device to rapidly measure a new class of blood test. This microRNA can diagnose liver damage from drugs more accurately than current tests.”
Richard Ross, Chairman of the Rosetrees Trust, said: “This year the judging panel found it extremely hard to choose a winner because there were so many outstanding projects. Thank you to the many high quality applicants to whom we wish luck in attaining funding for their exciting projects.”
The university researchers are joint winners, along with Professor Yaakov Nahmias from Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
The theme of the 2017 Rosetrees Interdisciplinary Prizes is to promote collaborative research between medicine and engineering.