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Discovering new strategies to manage both the healthy and disease states is crucial for the wellbeing of mankind worldwide.
Our research is directed at improving and maintaining health through bioinformatics, biophysics, cell biology, disease modelling, microbiology, molecular-genetics, physiology, structural biology and systems biology.
The aim of our biomedical sciences research is to extend life, to ease pain, combat disease and enhance the healthy state. To achieve this aim, our studies are directed at understanding how both the healthy human body functions and how it fails as a consequence of the many ailments which can assail it.
At Reading, we have already contributed significant knowledge to this field, and are continuing to extend understanding on multiple aspects of human health. By exploiting a range of scientific approaches, encompassing a variety of disciplines and multiple biological models, we are tackling modern-day health problems from numerous directions.
Research within the division is central to the University's interdisciplinary research strengths in Health and Food, and is thus key in driving these major themes.
We are engaged in exploring many common health problems of relevance to the modern world. Such health issues include ageing, cancer, diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, neurological diseases, stress and the effect of environmental pollutants, with emphasis on areas such as heart physiology, haemostasis and thrombosis.
We are also investigating innovative therapies for muscular dystrophy, factors controlling fertility, and current and emerging transmissible diseases including foot and mouth disease, haemorrhagic fever, intestinal infections and MRSA.
Our aim is to learn all that we can about the mechanisms governing such diseases and to apply the knowledge that we generate to enable prevention, alleviation and/or cure.
This group of researchers is expanding understanding of the processes involved in microbial infectious disease. Research encompasses studies on the structure and function of viruses, as well as the development of new and innovative vaccines for foot-and-mouth-disease and haemorrhagic fever.
We also consider various aspects of bacterial pathogen function including host-pathogen interactions, resistance to host innate immunity and the mechanisms of bacterial virulence factors. Part of our current research is directed at identifying microbial agents that can control insect pests and plant diseases.
The Molecular and Cellular Medicine Research Group are working towards understanding the causes of disease at the cellular level, in order to develop new therapeutic approaches.
Our wide-ranging research, some of which is in collaboration with Biomedical Engineering, a division within the School, has a strong focus on cardiovascular disease (blood clotting, atherosclerosis, cardiomyocyte function) which is performed through the Institute for Cardiovascular and Metabolic Research (ICMR), an interdisciplinary research centre associated with the School.
Other prominent areas of research include ageing, brain function, cancer, endocrinology, muscular dystrophies, obesity, nutrition, ovarian function and fertility, and skeletal muscle development.
