Our research addresses questions that arise from patient care, so is therefore directly translatable to both prevent and better manage skin disease using the principles of P4 medicine; predict, prevent; personalise and participate.

Key research areas include:

• psoriasis;
• photodermatoses;
• inflammatory hair disease;
• skin ageing;
• skin cancer;
• wound healing;
• the brain-skin connection.

To discover new ways to prevent and treat skin conditions, we need to have a clear understanding of underlying biological mechanisms, as well the impact on quality of life for the patient, and the feasibility of offering personalised and targeted strategies to patients.

Interdisciplinary research

Our infrastructure and research expertise provides us with a unique ability to translate from genomics and cell function to proof-of-principle clinical trials.

The dynamic multidisciplinary research team benefits from true integration of basic science and translational research and collaborative work between clinicians and scientists.

Our 32 clinicians work in local hospitals across Greater Manchester, which is home to a population of three million. This provides scientists with access to relevant patient cohorts as well as human tissue.

Key successes

Dermatology is a prestigious standalone Theme in the recently awarded £28.5m NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre.

We host a high profile long-term biologics register for psoriasis (BADBIR) as well as the Global Psoriasis Atlas, and our research on biologics therapies is internationally leading.

We have been integral in the development, trialling, NICE approval and NHS implementation of all biologic therapies for psoriasis.

Precision medicine in the form of an MRC Stratified Medicine Consortium for psoriasis (PSORT) is another key priority area.

Industry investment

Our focus on experimental and stratified medicine in inflammatory skin disease and the role of environment on skin health has attracted significant industry investment.

These partnerships are exemplified by the five year programmatic renewal on skin ageing with Walgreen Boots Alliance.

Our work has generated three spin-out companies; Curapel, SkinBiotix and CGskin.

Citations

Recent RAND bibliometric analysis commissioned by NIHR demonstrated that our Centre for Dermatology ranks first in the UK for dermatology citation impact, and fourth in the world for number of dermatology citations.