LSTM’s Liverpool Vaccine Group and partners have won the COVID-19 Research and Innovation category at the North West Coast Research and Innovations Awards 2022.
The group, entitled LSTM PLUS (LSTM and Partners across Liverpool Unite to Support respiratory infection research) consists of LSTM’s Liverpool Vaccine Research Group, LSTM’s Well Travelled Clinic, Primary Care sites across Merseyside, Cheshire and Wirral, Liverpool/St Helens/Cheshire and Wirral and Chester NHS Trusts and NIHR LCRN.
Together LSTM PLUS worked tirelessly recruiting the highest participant number in the UK to Oxford/AZ’s novel COVID-19 vaccine trial. Within 9-months the vaccine received MHRA approval -directly affecting UK patient care and within a year 4-billion people globally were vaccinated helping towards bringing us out of the pandemic.
Dr Andrea Collins is Head of LSTM’s Vaccine Research Group. She said: “LSTM PLUS represents partnership and collaboration at its very best and demonstrates what we can achieve when we all work together. I am extremely proud of the hard work and dedication across the whole team, and I am delighted that all of the hard work has been recognised with this award. We continue to build on these strong partnerships and seek new opportunities to work with others whenever possible, benefitting all research and innovation throughout the region and beyond.”
The team were also finalists in the Research Collaboration of the Year Award for their work in respiratory infection research including bugs such as pneumococcus, TB, pseudomonas aeruginosa, and respiratory syncytial virus and diseases such as bronchiectasis, COPD, asthma, TB, pneumonia, bronchiolitis and croup.
The awards are a collaboration between the Innovation Agency, (the Academic Health Science Network for the North West Coast), the NIHR Clinical Research Network North West Coast; and Applied Research Collaboration North West Coast.
The aim is to celebrate success for the excellent work being undertaken across the region in clinical research and innovation in health and the winners across all the categories were announced at an event at Edge Hill University on 23rd June.