The best skills of the doctor and the scientist are being utilised to create a new breed of specialist, writes Dick Ahlstrom.
THE SKILLS OF the doctor and of the scientist are being combined in an emerging new specialist, the clinician researcher. Joining the two specialities in a single individual should help to bring new treatments to the patient and get them out of the lab and into the clinic faster.
Ireland has a body, Molecular Medicine Ireland (MMI), that promotes the training and placement of clinician scientists. Launched earlier this month by the Minister for Education and Science Mary Hanafin, it merges expertise available from five of the country's top third level institutions, explains its chief executive, Dr Ruth Barrington.
The body itself isn't wholly new, it grew out of the Dublin Molecular Medicine Centre (DMMC). "It is a natural evolution of the DMMC, which was set up in 2002," says Dr Barrington.
That body originally joined activities at Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin using funding provided by the Higher Education Authority's Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions.
The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland became a participant in 2005 and now two more have joined, University College Cork and NUI Galway, under the new MMI banner. "Gradually the message has spread and now we have Galway and Cork involved," says Dr Barrington.
"The kinds of things we can do better together are around the area of education and training," she adds. "It exists as a means where the group can bid for funds to do things collaboratively," she suggests.
A key role for MMI is the co-ordination of the health and biomedical research activities undertaken by its members. The old DMMC won funding worth €23 million from the Health Research Board and the Wellcome Trust to develop this over the next five years, she says.
"There is to be a new clinical research centre built at St James's Hospital, which matches existing centres at Beaumont, the Mater and St Vincent's [hospitals]\."
Linking these together will assist in the undertaking of clinical trials for new discoveries being made in Irish labs. Enterprise Ireland recently provided funding to run four clinical trials on new medical devices, but these had to be undertaken in the Netherlands because there weren't suitable facilities to do it here, Dr Barrington says.
The goal is to have these trials taking place here, where the discoveries are being made.
"We don't have that yet. What we hope is that we will be able to facilitate a joined-up, networked facility where people with ideas or biomarkers or devices or compounds can get these tested in humans," Dr Barrington says.
The MMI's mission is to speed up the progression of ideas out of the lab and into clinical treatments for the patient.
"Being active in clinical research is a quality indicator for the services you provide," she argues. "If you have people actively engaged in research you are at the cutting edge and can stay ahead."
It is also about our reputation abroad says MMI chairman, Dr Mike Kamarck. Having such a body here "sends a strong message that this country is a good place in which to do research", he said at the launch.
The MMI launch included the announcement of a new clinician researcher fellowship programme and the award of the first 19 fellows awarded under the scheme. The fellows are qualified doctors who undertake a PhD programme in a relevant scientific field.
An NUI Galway fellow, Dr Aoife Lowery will search for novel biomarkers that can help give an earlier diagnosis of breast cancer.
Dr Sanjay Chotirmall at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland will investigate the role of oestrogen in cystic fibrosis.