European Partnerships
Forging global connections between healthcare, research and industry.
Our research works across a rich network of partnerships. Amongst these are three significant European Innovative Medicine Initiative (IMI) grants, led by clinical researchers in Newcastle.
The goals of these projects are to improve health outcomes by facilitating connections between healthcare needs, knowledge and expertise, and innovation.
Our participation has given us extended links to research, business and pharmaceutical partners in our key research areas, across Europe and the world. This in turn means that our expertise can be brought to partnerships beyond Newcastle and the North East.
Read below for a short summary on each of these partnership projects:
LITMUS 
LITMUS (Liver Investigation: Testing Marker Utility in Steatohepatitis) is a European consortium (with 53 partners) coordinated by Professor Quentin Anstee, Consultant Hepatologist at Newcastle Hospitals and deputy lead for Newcastle BRC’s Liver Disease theme.
The goal of LITMUS is to develop, validate and qualify better biomarkers for testing Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).
NAFLD affects 20 – 30 % of the population worldwide. It is caused by a build-up of fat in the liver cells, which leads to inflammation, scarring of the liver and ultimately cirrhosis. It is strongly linked to obesity and type 2 diabetes.
Visit the LITMUS website for full details and projects.
MOBILISE-D
MOBILISE-D is a consortium of over 150 professionals from 34 organisations.
The Project Academic Lead is Lynn Rochester, Professor of Human Movement Science at Newcastle University.
The goal of MOBILISE-D is to produce validated and accepted digital mobility outcomes to monitor daily life gait of people with different mobility problems, with the goal to improve follow-up and personalised care.
Mobility problems are often related to low physical activity, different gait disturbances, and frailty, which each affect large groups of European citizens over substantial periods of time.
Visit the MOBILISE-D website for full details and projects.
IDEA-FAST
IDEA-FAST is a European consortium, made up of 46 members from 14 different European countries. It is led by Professor Fai Ng, Consultant Rheumatologist at Newcastle Hospitals and Newcastle BRC’s deputy lead for the Musculoskeletal Disease Theme.
The goal of IDEA-FAST is to provide more objective, sensitive, reliable and ecological measures of the severity and impact of symptoms related to fatigue and sleep disturbances brought about by chronic disease, in real-world settings.
Fatigue and sleep disturbances are common and disabling symptoms that affect patients with neurodegenerative and inflammatory diseases. They impact on daily activities and are the major causes of patients’ poor quality of life and increased healthcare cost.
Visit the IDEA-FAST website for full details and projects.