Queen Mary University of London: New online training platform builds global expertise in trauma research
Researchers from Queen Mary University of London are helping to develop trauma frontline professionals as part of an international collaboration with Thailand’s Thai Siriraj Medical School and Mahidol University.
Traumatic injury is the biggest killer of people under the age of 40 and the greatest cause of permanent disability. Worldwide, trauma kills six million people every year. In the UK, 46 people lose their lives from serious injury every day.
The project, funded by Queen Mary’s Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) Large Grants Scheme, aims to help strengthen clinical and research capability in Trauma Sciences in Thailand.
With international travel restricted due to the Covid-19 pandemic, researchers from Queen Mary’s Centre for Trauma Sciences (C4TS) developed an online training platform covering different aspects of preclinical and clinical trauma research that could be shared across medical institutions in Thailand.
The online training platform comprises of four animated videos that cover:
Planning preclinical animal studies in trauma research
Gaining informed consent in trauma research
How to establish a biobank to store biospecimens when conducting trauma research
How to create and maintain a database for a research study.
The videos have also been translated into Thai and researchers are also now working to develop Spanish, Portuguese and French translations by early 2022 so these important training tools can be shared with medical institutions worldwide.
Jordi. L Tremoleda, Senior Lecturer in Trauma, Animal Science and Welfare at the Blizard Institute at Queen Mary, said: “Training and education are at the core of what we do and it is great to share the expertise at C4TS in such a dynamic way to support other countries to develop their own expertise in trauma research.”
The project was run as part of Queen Mary’s Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) Large Grants Scheme to provide funding for research projects aimed at strengthening existing, or creating new, research collaborations in Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) and pump-prime research addressing development challenges in countries on the OECD DAC list.
C4TS is a world-leading translational research institute led by Queen Mary University of London and Barts Health NHS Trust. It aims to discover and translate improvements in trauma patient care from bench to bedside and couples its world-class research with international education programmes to improve care and outcomes of trauma patients worldwide.