EDUCATION
Leading – Laura Woods,
director of Academic
Enterprise at Teesside
University.
Science – professor Vikki Rand,
professor of Bioscience at
Teesside University.
“We want to play our part in helping companies
in the Tees Valley and further afield get through
this crisis and emerge as strong as possible,
positioned for competitive performance.”
National Horizons Centre support to the
NHS
Within days of the World Health
Organisation (WHO) declaring a global
pandemic, Teesside University’s £22.3m
National Horizons Centre supplied tens of
thousands of pounds of specialist kit and
equipment to North Tees and Hartlepool
Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to help them
scale-up testing for Covid-19.
The NHC, which officially opened in
October 2019, is a national centre of
excellence for bioscience that brings
together research, teaching and enterprise
and was established to directly address the
potential of the bio-economy.
In addition, the university has offered lab
and bench space, as well as specialists within
the NHC to help run the tests and supplied
consumables that are in short supply, such as
gloves and pipettes to other NHS trusts.
It also provided County Durham and
Darlington Foundation NHS Trust with
specialist PCR machines to run the current
tests and offered other equipment, such
as the Illumina MiSeq system, for highthroughput
sequencing of the virus.
Beyond its immediate response, the NHC
is part of a study working with clinicians from
local NHS trusts to understand the clinical
course of Covid-19 cases in the region.
This study has collected clinical data
from coronavirus patients which staff at the
NHC are analysing to identify risk factors
associated with patient survival that could
guide future treatment strategies.
In parallel, staff are developing biological
studies to investigate several aspects of
Covid-19 and underlying conditions such as
respiratory disease.
Professor Vikki Rand, professor of
Bioscience at Teesside University, said:
“For scientists like myself this is the
greatest professional challenge we have
faced in our lifetime.
“It is our responsibility to rise to that
challenge – this is empowering. We not
only need to embrace the emerging
research opportunities but also to help
inspire future scientists.”
Engineers help manufacture PPE
Teesside University engineers have been
Vital equipment – Dr Michael
Short has been involved with
a team which has been busy
liaising with local companies
and national groups related to
PPE production and distribution.
involved in helping to provide vital support
both home and abroad during the Covid-19
pandemic.
Dr Michael Short, from the university’s
School of Computing, Engineering &
Digital Technologies, has been involved
with a team which has been busy liaising
with local companies and national groups
related to PPE production and distribution.
The team’s collaboration led to the
creation and design of face mask filters
and visors which have been donated
to keyworkers across the region in
healthcare, retail and the police. One local
delivery included visors to the Unicorn
Centre in Middlesbrough, which provides
For more information on Teesside University’s services
to business visit tees.ac.uk/business
horse riding for disabled children and
adults.
Claire Pitt, Unicorn Centre manager,
said: ‘We are a small registered charity
and it has been very difficult financially
for us during lockdown. As the Covid-19
restrictions begin to ease, we have been
looking to prepare for starting up some
of our activities again, but as we have
no budget for PPE this donation of face
shields will help us to take those first steps.
We’re utterly grateful.’
Further afield, Dr Short has also
been providing technical support for an
overseas initiative launched in response
to Covid-19 to design ventilator
prototypes which could help to provide
life support for patients in Nigeria.
The not-for-profit Ikuku Ndu
challenge aimed to encourage teams
of industrialists, doctors, academics
and students in Nigeria to create
prototype designs using locally
sourced materials.
Dr Short, a reader in Engineering
and academic lead for the university’s
Centre for Sustainable Engineering, was
part of an advisory panel comprising
international medical, technical and crisis
response experts.
As a result of the challenge, three
designs – all judged as meeting WHO’s
ventilator specification requirements –
were shortlisted. Two of those designs
have progressed to the prototype
manufacture stage, with the future aim
of patent application support and wider
rollout across Nigeria.
The voice of business in the Tees region | 69