The University of Manchester
The University of Manchester (UNIMAN) is the UK’s largest single-site university, ranked 8th in Europe in the 2018 Academic Ranking of World Universities. The University has over 6,500 research/academic staff, with 25 Nobel Prize winners among current and previous staff and students and income in excess of £1 billion. The University has extensive EU funding with currently 245 H2020 projects including 17 Marie Curie ITNs. It has a current student population of over 38,500 (including over 3,500 research postgraduates) and the largest ever capital investment programme in UK higher education, with more than £750m invested since 2004 in buildings, research infrastructure and core technologies, integrating clinical, life sciences, engineering and physical sciences. Together with its partner, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT), UNIMAN also forms the largest clinical academic campus in the UK, and has unrivalled influence over the local health ecosystem through Health Innovation Manchester, which is responsible for transforming the health of the region with the first devolved health and social care budget in the UK. Developmental Biology is one of the key strengths of the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, with Deputy Dean Professor Peter Clayton, a DohART-Net member. Within the Faculty is the Maternal, Fetal and Child Health Research Group which is the largest in Europe (80+ staff) with £12M in research grants and a highly dynamic translational research department, fully integrated within the UK’s largest maternity unit and with an established collaboration with the co-located NHS funded IVF unit (with embedded clinical research team led by Professor Brison), providing ART services to the North West of England. Our internationally recognised group in Endocrinology and Growth has close links to Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, the largest in Europe, and the specialist NIHR Children’s Clinical Research Facility, and the first Centre for Women’s Mental Health in Europe focusses on vulnerable women and their children with over £6m in grant funding.
Short biography principal investigator
Daniel Brison, is an honorary Professor of Clinical Embryology in the Centre for Women’s Health, UNIMAN, and a Consultant Clinical Embryologist and Scientific Director of the Department of Reproductive Medicine, Manchester U n i ve r si t y NHS Foundation Trust (MFT). He has 30 years of research experience in early embryonic development in humans and animal models, human ART, analysis of treatment outcomes, and embryonic stem cell biology. He is a member of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority’s Scientific and Clinical Advances Advisory Committee, an expert advisor to MHRA on clinical IVF, and an examiner in Embryology for the Royal College of Pathologists. He will be the main supervisor of ESR4 and ESR5 and co-supervisor for ESR13. UNIMAN will host secondments and provide training for, ESR10 & ESR13.
Key persons involved
Steve Roberts
Steve Roberts is a Senior Lecturer in Biostatistics in Manchester University and also leads the Biostatistics Unit at MFT with over 40 methodological and applied publications on ART and other aspects of reproductive health and child growth.
Peter Clayton
Peter Clayton is Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Biology Medicine and Health, Professor of Paediatric Endocrinology at the University of Manchester and Honorary Consultant at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, MFT, with extensive extensive experience of clinical studies in normal and disordered growth over the past ~30 years.
Adam Stevens
Adam Stevens is a systems biologist who has pioneered the use of transcriptomics to understand growth patterns across childhood and in early embryonic development.
Peter Ruane
Peter Ruane is a developmental cell biologist with expertise in human embryo development and cellular models of early embryo implantation.
Key Research Facility and Equipment
Largest NHS provider of ART in the UK. NIHR local comprehensive research network support for clinical research. NIHR/Wellcome Manchester Clinical Research Facility for specialist child growth measurements. Manchester MRC Health e Research Centre (HERC). Acess to HFEA register of UK live births 1991-2009. The total available research space is over 500m2.
Current involvement in Research and Training Programmes
European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology grant: Transcriptomics and metabolism of human embryo growth (Stevens, Brison, with Sturmey [University of Hull]); Diabetes UK grant: Impact of hyperglycaemia on embryo implantation (Brison); MRC grant: Establishing a National ART cohort (Roberts, Brison); MRC toxicology training programme studentship (Povey, Brison); NIHR grant. EFREEZE: a multicentre clinical trial into embryo freezing in IVF (Brison); NIHR fellowship: Safety of oocyte vitrification (Roberts, Brison); EU FP7 HEALS (Health and Environment-wide Associations based on Large population Surveys) project – started in October 2013 (Povey); UNIMAN clinical training fellowships in antenatal and postnatal growth awarded to Dr Reena Perchard (Clayton) and reproductive medicine to Dr Susan Tracey (Brison).