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Our Graduate Studies video on YouTube gives an overview of life as a graduate student at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry.
Preventive Medicine and Public Health
Barts and The London is a world-leader in discovering and understanding the causes of disease so that these can be prevented.
The key element is the study of whole populations to determine the incidence of disease in different groups: in men, in women, in younger people compared with older people, in people in different countries, occupations, or genetic background.
All of this provides clues to the causation of disease: for example, the relatively recent discovery that the common neural tube birth defect, spina bifida, is caused by a vitamin deficiency that is present in many populations, including those in economically developed countries.
Preventive medicine and public health are located in two Institutes within the School: the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine; and the Centre for Health Sciences in the Institute of Health Sciences Education.
The Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, returned in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise in Epidemiology and Public Health, was 2nd out of 21 in terms of 3* and 4* outputs, and 3rd overall, ahead of Oxford, University College London and Bristol. In Health Services Research, Barts and The London was ranked 4th overall out of 28, ahead of Oxford, University College London and Kings College London.
Public Health and Primary Care inaugural professorial lectures
A series of inaugural professorial lectures on the theme of Public Health and Primary Care. Speakers include: Trish Greenhalgh (Professsor of Primary Health Care), Khalid Khan (Professor of Women's Health and Clinical Epidemiology), Allyson Pollock (Professor of Health Systems Research and Policy) and Ian Basnett (Director for Public Health East London and the City). The series runs until June.
The Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine
With an international reputation, the Wolfson Institute is a leading world centre for research and teaching in epidemiology, preventive medicine, and public health. The main areas of research are cardiovascular disease prevention, cancer prevention, cancer screening, antenatal screening and perinatal epidemiology, smoking cessation, mental health and medical statistics.
The Wolfson Institute is distinctive in that it captures scientific opportunities that arise from laboratory-based epidemiological and screening research into common diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer and congenital malformations through integrating epidemiology and statistics with pathology and clinical medicine. Much of the research is funded by medical charities including Cancer Research UK, Wellcome Trust, and the BUPA Foundation.
The Institute comprises three centres:
- Centre for Environmental and Preventative Medicine headed by Professor Sir Nicholas Wald
- Cancer Research UK (CRUK) Epidemiology, Mathematics, and Statistics (EMS) Unit, headed by Professor Jack Cuzick
- Centre for Psychiatry, headed by Professor Stephen Stansfeld
Professor Peter Hajek heads the Academic Psychology section, part of the Centre for Environmental and Preventative Medicine which is based at Whitechapel and includes the Tobacco Dependence Research Unit. There is an active group of statisticians and a statistical advisory service headed by Professor Joan Morris.
Over 150 staff work in the Institute, which houses state-of-the-art laboratories and screening suites. There is a focus on academic discipline, the translation of research into public health strategies and their practical implementation - all dedicated to the reduction of disease and disability.
Research is conducted using a number of methods, such as large scale randomised prevention trials, screening research projects and epidemiological studies into the causation of disease. Teaching and research go hand in hand; there are study days and lectures in areas such as Down’s syndrome, Medical Psychology and postgraduate courses in Transcultural Mental Healthcare.
Many discoveries and applications from the Wolfson Institute have been adopted by health agencies worldwide with staff playing a key role in translating research findings into practice.
Examples of recent ground-breaking research include the development of Polypill, the drug treatment preventing myocardial infarction and stroke, for people aged 55 and over and to be taken as a single daily pill. Ranked as one of the top medical stories of 2003, this pill may reduce the incidence of heart disease and stroke by over 80 per cent.
Barts and The London is also at the forefront of antenatal screening research. This has resulted in two major studies, the SURUSS study and the FASTER study, the largest worldwide project on the subject of antenatal screening, published in 2006. This study yielded results on the screening performance of different combinations of first and second trimester markers in antenatal screening for Down’s syndrome. It showed that the Integrated Test (combining first and second trimester screening), developed by the centre previously, has by far the best screening performance, detecting 85 per cent of affected pregnancies with a false positive rate of only one per cent.
National Down Syndrome Cytogenetic Register
The National Down Syndrome Cytogenetic Register, maintained by the centre, is also a valuable resource, providing information on numbers of prenatal diagnoses and live births and the exact nature of the association between Down’s syndrome risk and maternal age.
Prominent in the work of cancer research have been trials of tamoxifen and more recently the aromatase inhibitor anastrozole, in the treatment of women with established breast cancer and as a primary prevention of breast cancer. A significant reduction in the incidence of breast cancer was discovered with tamoxifen, while the ongoing international trial is expected to show an even greater preventive effect from anastrozole in postmenopausal women at increased risk
Centre for Health Sciences
The Centre for Health Sciences led by Professor Chris Griffiths is making remarkable strides in implementing a translational research strategy. Work to date has centred on the role of vitamin D in health and illness. Staff have established the Translational Research Unit for the MRC Asthma UK Centre in Allergic Mechanisms of Asthma.
MRC Asthma UK Centre in Allergic Mechanisms of Asthma
Other collaborations include the Wellcome Centre for Clinical Tropical Medicine, and with the University of California, Riverside.
Wellcome Centre for Clinical Tropical Medicine
With a grant from the Newham Development Agency, Professor Griffiths established a randomised trial and cross sectional analysis examining the hypothesis that vitamin D favourably modified the immune response against tuberculosis. This work was the first randomised assessment of the therapeutic capacity of vitamin D, despite its use prior to the introduction of antibiotics.
It also led to a series of important publications supporting the hypothesis, elaborating the mechanisms of action, and for the first time highlighting the role of neutrophils in the anti-mycobacterial immune response. [Martineau AR, American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine 2007], [Martineau AR, Journal of Clinical Investigation 2007], [Martineau AR, Journal of Immunology 2007], [Martineau AR, The Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 2007]