Paul Brennan Research Group

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Research in a Nutshell

Paul’s research is focused on improving outcomes for people living with a brain tumour diagnosis. Understanding the cellular processes that lead to initiation and development of the most common primary brain tumour, glioma, could identify novel therapies that change our approach to treatment. Paul’s work in this area focuses in particular on the events associated with transformation of low grade gliomas into higher grade tumours. Through various collaborations both within and out with the University of Edinburgh, Paul also contributes to investigation of many other aspects of glioma cell biology. His current clinical research includes development of a novel focal chemotherapy agent, assessing the feasibility of non-invasive brain tumour diagnosis using cell free tumour DNA or infrared spectroscopy, defining the causes of delayed diagnosis in adult brain tumours and auditing the characteristics of glioma long term survivors in the UK.

Other clinical research includes a role in development of the GCS Aid (www.glasgowcomascale.org) and the a GCS, Pupils and Age Prognostic Index. As co-founder of the British Neurosurgical Trainee Research collaborative (bntrc.org.uk) Paul co-led the national CSDH audit and has been involved in a number of other projects.

Paul welcomes discussion about new collaborative research or from potential research students.

Research Programme

Collaborations

• Steve Pollard – MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine, University of Edinburgh
• Geoff Faulkner – Mater Institute, Brisbane
• Moira Whyte, Sarah Walmsley, Patricia Coelho, Kev Dhaliwal - MRC/UoE Centre for Inflammation Research, University of Edinburgh
• Margaret Frame, Neil Carragher, Jun Li, Noor Gammoh, Sasha Kagansky -  IGMM, University of Edinburgh
• Nick Leslie -  Institute of Biological Chemistry, Biophysics & Bioengineering, Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh
• Dirk Seiger, Lloyd Hamilton -  Centre for Neurodegeneration, University of Edinburgh
• Matt Baker – Pure and Applied Chemistry, University of Strathclyde
• Mark Hughes, Imran Liaquat, Aimun Jamjoom, Robin Grant, Jothy Kandasamy – Department for Clinical Neurosciences, NHS Lothian, Edinburgh
• Siddharthan Chandran, Rustam Al-Shahi Salman, Cyril Pernet  - Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, University of Edinburgh
• Michael Jenkinson, Andrew Brodbelt, Walton Centre for Neurology and Neurosurgery/University of Liverpool
• Yoav Ben-Shlomo, William Hollingworth, Willie Hamiton, Robin Grant, David Maxwell, David Weller, Kathreena Kurian – Adult Diagnostic Pathway Collaboration
• Sir Graham Teasdale/ Florence Reith, Andrew Maas – University of Glasgow/University of Antwerp
• British Neurosurgical Research Collaboration

Partners and Funders 

• Cancer Research UK
• Brain Tumour Charity
• Chief Scientist Office
• Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)