Our new interdisciplinary research strand ‘Integrating Health Research: Mechanisms to Populations’ is doing just this – encouraging and facilitating collaborations between bio-scientists and population scientists at the University of Bristol and beyond.
We aim to bring together ground-breaking research into disease mechanisms being carried out in the fundamental biosciences with the state-of-the-art methodologies in the population health sciences. The ultimate objective is to enhance the understanding of disease processes and speed up new therapies into the clinic.
When results from different approaches point towards the same conclusion this strengthens confidence in the findings. An example of this is a project where epidemiologists and basic scientists worked together to investigate kidney cancer.
Watch our short animation to find out more about this research:
The Mechanisms to Populations research strand held a successful Connecting and Collaborating event in November 2021. This provided a place in which researchers could discuss their projects and ways they could work together and learn from each other.
Watch a clip from the event hear how research can benefit from this interdisciplinary approach and how the strand can support researchers working in these fields:
The event is one example of ways that the strand is seeking to connect researchers. We can discuss research projects and find the best way of taking it forward in with an interdisciplinary approach. If you have a project you would like to discus, please don’t hesitate to get in contact.
The Mechanisms to Populations research stand can:
- Alert you to relevant upcoming funding opportunities
- Support your research proposal; offering advice, guidance, connections and letters of support
- Provide you with researcher time and expertise for pilot projects
- Offer training in statistical epidemiologically techniques
- Provide online resources to facilitate community building
If you work in these fields of science, you might be interested in an infographic we have created to explain the landscape of researchers working at Bristol and help connect you with researchers in different areas using different approaches. To access the information in the infographic, hover over the model organisms and disease areas to find researchers working in this space. For more information on their work and their contact details please see our Experts Spreadsheet (Office document, 31kB).
From February the strand will be running fortnightly drop-in sessions on Tuesday mornings or Thursday afternoons. Come along and talk to the strand lead, Ruth Mitchell, if you’d like help to initiate, support or explore ways to take an interdisciplinary collaboration forward.
Find out more about the Mechanisms to Polulations drop-in sessions.