Electronic “shop window” points the way to UK experimental medicine expertise

A new definitive information resource on UK experimental medicine research is launched today. The UKCRC Experimental Medicine Resources website provides, for the first time, a central information repository on the UK’s capability and expertise in experimental medicine and early phase clinical trials.

The new resource will act as an optimum entry point for investigators from both industry and academia seeking information about experimental medicine facilities in the UK. (Experimental medicine is the translation phase of taking new discoveries from the laboratory and testing them in small numbers of people and where discoveries are made through the careful study of people.)

The new database contains up-to-date information on available expertise, resources, techniques and technologies in experimental medicine and will play a vital role in helping to drive potential new medicines and diagnostics from the laboratory bench to the hospital clinic and the discovery of new treatments and tests.

Detailed information on over 40 major UK experimental medicine facilities can be accessed through the website. Users of the site can search for facilities by location, health or disease research topic, or skills and equipment available. For example, investigators interested in conducting respiratory research could quickly find those facilities across the UK equipped to carry out detailed lung function analysis and obtain samples from carefully characterised patients. Likewise, a biotechnology company working in a particular therapeutic area such as oncology would be able to easily identify UK centres with the experience and imaging technologies needed to carry out early phase cancer trials. The website also includes the latest news, events and information on experimental medicine in the UK.