Kent Health News and Events

The University of Kent’s School of Biosciences is to play a major role in a global project to develop new drugs to combat parasites.

The four-year, EU-funded project will involve Kent conducting joint research with four other academic institutions, two governmental institutes and two leading SMEs from Europe, Africa and Latin America to tackle the problem of neglected parasitic diseases (NPDs), which form a major obstacle to the development of communities across the world.

These diseases are classified as ‘neglected’ as investment in finding cures for these illnesses is extremely low, despite their devastating impact on human and veterinary health.

Led by VU University Amsterdam, the project titled PDE4NPD (PhosphoDiEsterase inhibitors to target Neglected Parasitic Diseases) will focus specifically on Chagas’ disease, human African trypanosomiasis, leishmaniasis and schistosomiasis.

Over the last 30 years, only nine new drugs targeting these NPDs have come to market. Some of these treatments cause severe side effects, while others are very expensive or are threatened by drug resistance issues. A cause of this drug development standstill is a lack of financial incentive and low return on investment for the pharmaceutical industry.

Kent will contribute expertise in the areas of structural biology and biochemistry. Bioscience’s Professor David Brown said: ‘I have had a long standing involvement in the development of PDE inhibitors and I am excited to expand the network of interacting groups within the consortium, bringing together all the skills and expertise required to develop and deliver PDE focused agents for intervention in Neglected Parasitic Diseases.’

As well as the University of Kent and VU University Amsterdam, the project consortium consists of the universities of Glasgow and Antwerp, The Spanish National Research Council, Fundacao Oswaldo Cruz (Brazil), Theodor Bilharz Research Institute (Egypt), European Screening Port (Germany), IOTA Pharmaceuticals (UK) and Top Institute Pharma (Netherlands). The project will combine various drug discovery approaches into one platform dedicated to developing drugs against parasite PDEs.

People with osteoarthritis are invited to take part in a University of Kent study on the effect of diet on the condition.

The research ^[1] project, conducted by the University’s School of Sport and Exercise Sciences ^[2], will investigate the effect of diet on joint function and other osteoarthritis symptoms. It is hoped the results of the research will help provide new ways for people with osteoarthritis to manage their symptoms more naturally.

Participants in the research, which runs until the end of April, must be over 18 and have been diagnosed with osteoarthritis. The research will be conducted through a series of questionnaires over a four-month period; participants can complete these at their home.

Dr Glen Davison, Lecturer in Nutrition and Physiology, said: ‘Research projects such as this rely on willing participants to establish exactly what the issues are for osteoarthritis sufferers. We hope our research will help many of them manage their symptoms more naturally when the project concludes.’

A second, optional, strand of the research will involve participants visiting the University’s clinic, located at its Medway campus ^[3], or at another clinic based in London, to provide a small blood and urine sample. Volunteers for both strands will receive a gift as compensation for their time.

To register your interest in one or both strands of the research, or for more information, contact: J.R.Dyer@Kent.ac.uk ^[4] or 01634 888457.

Research by the University of Kent has shown that autistic children who participate in drama and performance-based activities may demonstrate improved levels of communication and interpersonal interaction.

In a research project entitled Imagining Autism, children with autism engaged in a series of interactive sensory environments such as ‘outer space’, ‘under the sea’ and ‘the arctic’. Each environment was designed for them to encounter a range of stimuli and respond to triggers created through lighting, sound, physical action and puppetry.

Using trained performers in each of the environments, the work aimed to promote communication, socialisation, playful interaction, and creative engagement, encouraging the children involved to find new ways of connecting with the world around them.

The research found changes in children’s behaviour, including changes in several areas identified as deficits in autism, such as social interaction and emotion recognition. The severity of autistic symptoms displayed by the children, which were rated by their parents and teaching staff were also found to decrease significantly.

All of the children who took part in the research showed at least some improvements on at least one of the measures used to monitor change during the research, with over three quarters of them showing changes to more than one.

Furthermore, just under one third of children who took part in the project showed significant changes on a measure of social interaction. Substantial changes in children’s behaviour at home were also reported by some families.

The research was conducted in special needs schools across Kent, including one residential school run by the National Autistic Society (NAS). The practical methods used in the project are currently being trialled at all NAS schools across the UK and are also being developed into training programmes for teachers, care workers, families, arts practitioners, and health professionals.

Principal Investigator, Professor Nicola Shaughnessy, of the University’s School of Arts, said: ‘Imagining Autism has been an extremely exciting collaboration producing a number of really interesting outcomes and new discussions between arts and science research. We are delighted that the extremely positive responses to the work from all involved with the project have been endorsed by statistical results.

‘The methods we used in the research have been recognised as having potential for development in the diagnosis of autism, revealing areas of ability, as well as difficulty. The work has also offered insights into the imagination of children with autism and the importance of play-based approaches which can often be overlooked post-diagnosis.’

Unlike previous drama-based interventions, the study employed a variety of assessment techniques, undertaken by psychologists of the University’s Tizard Centre and School of Psychology. These included both formal, psychological research tools, such as the Autism Diagnostic Observation Scale, alongside feedback from teachers and families whose children took part in the project.

Dr Julie Beadle-Brown of the University’s Tizard Centre said: ‘This was a pilot study to explore whether drama based interventions can make an impact on children with autism. We are pleased with the results and believe that this study has provided strong enough evidence to justify further research into the impact of the intervention on children with a range of different needs, as well as research to help us understand how and why the intervention appears to work.’

The methods used were developed by Professor Nicola Shaughnessy (School of Arts) and co-investigator, Dr Melissa Trimingham (School of Arts) – a drama and puppetry specialist who also designed the environments used in the project. The evaluation of the intervention was led by Dr Julie Beadle-Brown (Tizard Centre) and Dr David Wilkinson (School of Psychology).

Professor Glynis Murphy, Co-Director of the Tizard Centre at the University of Kent, is one of 28 social scientists to have recently been conferred the award of Academician by the Academy of Social Sciences (AcSS).

AcSS is the national Academy of academics, learned societies and practitioners in the social sciences. It has over 900 individual Academicians, who are distinguished scholars and practitioners from academia and the public and private sectors. They are awarded this status after a peer group has reviewed the standing and impact of their work.Professor Murphy was recognised for her work on intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Professor Murphy joined the Tizard Centre, one of the UK’s leading academic groups working in disability and community care, in 1993. After a brief period at Lancaster University (2003-2006) she returned to the Tizard Centre and was appointed Co-Director in 2011.

Her principal research interests are in the field of challenging behaviour and learning disabilities. Her current and recently completed studies include: the effectiveness of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for people with learning disabilities who have committed sex offences; screening for people with learning disabilities in prison; the effectiveness of social care for ex-offenders with learning disabilities; and (with Dr Peter Langdon) the effectiveness of CBT for people with Asperger syndrome and social anxiety.

She has held over £1million in grant funding from Bethlem Royal Hospital in London, Department of Health, Mental Health Foundation, Nuffield Foundation, British Institute of Learning Disabilities, Wellcome Trust, Bailey Thomas Fund, National Institute for Health Research and the School for Social Care Research (SSCR).

She is co-editor of the Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disability, a fellow of the British Psychological Society, and was President of the International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual Disability between 2008 and 2012. Professor Murphy won the British Psychological Society’s MB Shapiro award in December 2013 for her contribution to clinical psychology. She is also one of the Associate Directors for SSCR.

In 2013, she was appointed as Chair of the NICE Guideline Development Group for Challenging Behaviour in People with Learning Disabilities. These are the first Guidelines on learning disabilities that NICE has begun.

Professor Murphy was also one of several representatives from the University and Tizard Centre who were presented with a Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education by the Queen during a ceremony at Buckingham Palace on 27 February 2014.

The Prize was for the Tizard Centre’s contribution to improving the lives of people with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) and their families.

The Tizard Centre is part of the University’s School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research.

Representatives of the University and its Tizard Centre were presented with a Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education by the Queen during a ceremony at Buckingham Palace on 27 February. The Prize, the University’s second in six years, was for the work of the Tizard Centre and its contribution to improving the lives of people with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) and their families.

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The University of Kent is taking a leading role in a ground-breaking project to support the UK’s aging population through the use of responsive and interactive avatars.

Kent’s Centre for Child Protection is heading a consortium of partners developing a project, known as Responsive InTeractive Advocate (RITA), which has won a share of £2.4m in funding from the UK’s innovation agency, the Technology Strategy Board (TSB).

The RITA project is one of six born of a national Technology Strategy Board initiative aimed at developing new cost-effective ways of helping elderly people to continue to live comfortably and independently in their own homes if they want to.

Kent is working with the University of Portsmouth’s School of Creative Technologies and two companies – Affective State and We Are Snook – in the consortium, with each partner responsible for a different element of the project.

Dr Jane Reeves, Co-Director of the Centre for Child Protection, said: ‘There is a major debate about how we provide care for vulnerable people across all age-groups and this project is seeking to meet one of our biggest challenges, which is ensuring older adults can remain independent for as long as possible.

‘Although this project is at an early stage, with a number of technical, moral and ethical issues to be addressed, the development of RITA in the form of a humanised avatar could revolutionise how an individual’s personal, social emotional and intellectual needs are met in the future.

‘RITA would exist as a digital champion, an advocate in the form of an avatar, providing a friendly interface between the individual, family, friends, professions and services.’

The avatar might appear as a figure on a television screen or a tablet computer or could even be a holographic display. It could monitor heart rate and blood pressure, remind people to take medication and would know if they had fallen over or were in pain and alert the doctor or the emergency services. It would be able to analyse their speech, movement and facial expression to detect their mood and respond accordingly. The system would not require computer literacy and would be no more challenging to operate than switching on a television.

Kent’s Centre for Child Protection has an international reputation as a centre of excellence and innovation in training, research and practice for the full range of professionals involved in child protection. It sees this project as an opportunity to become involved in developing an innovation for the future that could provide significant benefit across the life course.

Dr Reeves added: ‘Of course, these developments have enormous ethical and legal implications but we will explore these fully as the project develops.’

The University of Portsmouth will focus on developing the interactive avatar, while Winchester-based company Affective State will work on sensing and forecasting emotional well-being and Glasgow-based We Are Snook focus on the user experience design.

The funding competition, called the Long Term Care Revolution, is funded through the Small Business Research Initiative scheme, which connects public sector challenges with innovative ideas from industry. The RITA project has been awarded £500K.

Iain Gray, Chief Executive of the Technology Strategy Board said: ‘This is an expanding market and we need to radically rethink our approach to long-term care provision, providing options that will enable people to live with more dignity and autonomy.

‘We focus innovation activity on areas where we think it can make the biggest difference.  Late life care is often regarded as an economic liability but it can actually be an engine for economic growth.’

A belief in anti-vaccine conspiracy theories may have significant and detrimental consequences for children’s health, new research from the University of Kent has shown.

Researchers Daniel Jolley and Dr Karen Douglas, of the University’s School of Psychology, surveyed 89 parents about their views on anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and then asked them to indicate their intention to have a fictional child vaccinated.  It was found that stronger belief in anti-vaccine conspiracy theories was associated with lower intention to vaccinate.

In a second study, 188 participants were exposed to information concerning anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. It was found that reading this material reduced their intention to have a fictional child vaccinated, relative to participants who were given refuting information or those in a control condition.

Daniel Jolley said: ‘This research is timely in the face of declining vaccination rates and recent outbreaks of vaccinated-against diseases in the UK, such as measles. Our studies demonstrate that anti-vaccine conspiracy theories may present a barrier to vaccine uptake, which may potentially have significant and detrimental consequences for children’s health.’

Dr Douglas added: ‘It is easy to treat belief in conspiracy theories lightly, but our studies show that wariness about conspiracy theories may be warranted. Ongoing investigations are needed to further identify the social consequences of conspiracism and to identify potential ways to combat the effects of an ever-increasing culture of conspiracism.’

The research, titled ‘The effects of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories on vaccination intentions’, was carried out by Daniel Jolley, Postgraduate Researcher, and Dr Karen Douglas, Reader in Psychology, at the University of Kent. It is published in the open-access, online journal PLOS ONE and is available here: http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0089177.