FEATURE
TODAY’S RESEARCH, TOMORROW’S TREATMENT
Professor Michael Patton, Medical Director at Health Services Laboratories (HSL),
explains why it is important to bridge the gap between university science and commercial pharmaceutical development and invest in today’s research to benefit future progression.
Recently, one of my colleagues commented that, in over 30 years of working as a physician in the NHS, he had never
seen such investment and optimism in moving to the next generation of diagnostic medicine. It reflected my experience since retiring from my NHS consultant post and becoming Medical Director for Health Services Laboratories (HSL), as I have been privileged to take part in an exciting journey to bring molecular pathology into mainstream clinical practice.
As an innovative partnership between the NHS and the independent sector – UCLH, the Royal Free Hospital and The Doctors Laboratory – HSL has maintained the culture of the NHS but, importantly, has the ability to deliver efficiencies to the health economy through careful workforce planning, cutting-edge technology, and significant investment in infrastructure and IT. The first step in providing medical or surgical treatment is to make the correct diagnosis and this, in most cases, depends on some aspect of pathology - either a blood test or a cancer biopsy. Our aim is to provide the very best diagnostic support to continually improve patient outcomes.
The HSL team benefit from the most up-to-date equipment. Often,
12 | Tomorrow’s Laboratories
skilled staff are frustrated by not having the tools to do the best job possible and many staff have been excited to see this investment in equipment and the benefits derived from it. For example, we will have two floors of gene sequencers and molecular equipment in our new lab. Our pathologists are working, uniquely, for an organisation that only provides pathology and understands the needs of the pathologist. Decisions for laboratory planning are prioritised and dealt with promptly. This is very different from working in a large teaching hospital where the priorities are the queues in casualty or bed space in intensive care.
Innovation is vital for the future of pathology and we benefit from the guidance of a Research and Innovation Board to support and encourage translational research with our partners in University College London and its teaching hospitals. There are currently over 100 projects in place ranging from clinical trials to the development of new diagnostics. Our role is to act as a bridge between the basic science that is performed in the university labs and commercial development with pharmaceutical companies. We can be very effective in this role as we have a large volume of patient samples going through the lab overseen by top pathologists and we have excellent links with commercial diagnostics companies.
Geographically, we are in a unique position. It is recognised that
what makes a bioscience cluster successful is the co-location of three collaborators - the best universities, the top teaching hospitals and the commercial bioscience companies. Our new laboratory is positioned just across the road from the new Crick Institute, the largest bioscience research lab in Europe and we are closely linked with University College London and two of its major teaching hospitals. We are also close to the Wellcome Foundation, the Medical Research Council and Google’s headquarters. This cluster is at the epicentre of what has been named MedCity – the bioscience links with Oxford, Cambridge, UCL and Imperial.
We understand that today’s research will be tomorrow’s treatment and HSL aims to be at the forefront for new diagnostics. The new building takes pathology out of its traditional home in the basement of the hospital to a 15-storey laboratory at the epicentre of MedCity. It takes us into a new era for pathology.
HSL is a clinically-led provider of pathology and diagnostic services. Its purpose is to deliver medically-led diagnostics, innovation, value and long- term investment to healthcare. It is a progressive partnership between The Doctors Laboratory, Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust (the Royal Free London) and University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH).
www.hslpathology.com
www.tomorrowslaboratories.com
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