Nexxus Scotland

Yorkhill Hospital trio win top life sciences award

08 February 2008

Three health experts from Yorkhill Hospital in Glasgow have won the prestigious Scottish Health Innovations Limited (SHIL) award for best innovation originating from NHS Scotland.  The award was presented at the Scottish Enterprise Annual Life Sciences Dinner in Edinburgh on 7 February 2008 attended by over 700 members of the life sciences community.

Susan Stenhouse, Consultant Clinical Scientist and Head of the West of Scotland Regional Molecular Genetics Service; Victoria Murday, Consultant Clinical Geneticist; and Daniel Ellis, Senior Genetic Technologist, beat off stiff competition to land the prize at a ceremony last night at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre.

The trio won the award for their work in developing technology to analyse large groups of genes for mutations. They have developed a faster method of identifying which genes might be carrying mutations that are causing a genetic disorder by quickly ruling out healthy genes.

Susan said: "Winning the SHIL award for best innovation from NHS Scotland is thrilling. We are honoured to have been recognised for our work that can make a huge difference to the diagnoses of genetic diseases. We're very grateful to everyone who has assisted with this project."

Presently scientists have to sift through large numbers of genes to find the ones causing a disorder which takes a lot of time and money and often means a complete analysis is not possible.

Ruling out healthy genes allows for closer inspection of a smaller group of potentially mutated ones that might be the cause of the problem. Unlike current techniques, the new method requires DNA from only two affected family members and conditions such as long QT syndrome, cardiomyopathy, hereditary colorectal cancer and dominant retinitis pigmentosa would all be more amenable to testing using this method.

The trio were up against Prof Peter Sharp, professor of medical physics at Aberdeen University and Head of Medical Physics for NHS Grampian, and Dr John Olson, consultant ophthalmic physician at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, for their work in developing software that assesses eye disease in diabetic patients; and Dr Ellie Dow, consultant in biochemical medicine and director of research and development for NHS Tayside, and Dr Patrick Deegan, who is now a consultant in metabolic medicine at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge, for their work in developing a new method for colorectal cancer screening.

For further information contact Helen Corner, Marketing Executive, Scottish Health Innovations Ltd T : 0141 248 7334, E : helen.corner@shil.co.uk

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