Yale signed an agreement with a British consortium led by University College London Thursday to conduct joint research, improve patient care and speed up the clinical application of laboratory discoveries, on both sides of the Atlantic.
Representatives from Yale University, Yale-New Haven Hospital, and UCL met in the elegant Yale Corporation room at 150 Wall St. to put ballpoint pen ink to documents cementing the relationship. Pictured, from left: left to right, Dr. David Fish, managing director UCL Partners; Malcolm Grant, President and Provost of UCL; Yale President Richard C. Levin; Marna P. Borgstrom, president and chief executive officer, Yale-New Haven Hospital; former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Tony Blair, who is teaching at Yale for a second year, joined the ceremony, which British and American doctors hope will leave both countries with better and innovative ways to treat patients.
Both groups of hospitals also want to find faster and more efficient ways to translate scientific advances into clinical protocols, and cull data from treatment outcomes to inform further research.
The major differences between how health care is delivered in England and in the U.S. should have no impact on research into heart disease, cardiac care, genetics, women’s health needs, dentistry, pediatrics and a wide range of other health issues, said Marna Borgstrom.
Yale President Richard C. Levin said that Yale, Yale-New Haven, Yale-New Haven’s Children Hospital, and UCL’s network of hospitals, are among the top-rated in the world, ensuring that the brightest scientists in both countries will have an opportunity to work on important research.
Both sets of institutions face many of the same problems. from obesity to control of hospital-acquired infections doctors said.
Levin said UCL and related institutions have far longer data bases of medical histories, which could prove invaluable to American scientists.
In the first concrete U.S/U.K. project, already underway, a Yale-UCL team of scientists is using a $4.5 million grant from the U.S.National Institutes of Health to search for genes that cause congenital heart defects.
Additional projects at less advanced stages include research into the genetics of high blood pressure and heart disease, along with initiatives in drug discovery, and improvements in imaging.
Levin said Yale’s relationship with UCL will be unique. “We have hundreds of other partners in education and research,” including with labs in China, Ghana and South Africa, he said. “Our clinical cooperation with UCL is greater.”
Malcolm Grant, president and provost of of UCL, said Yale’s and UCL’s research approaches and areas of expertise should yield an especially productive relationship.
And David J. Leffell, deputy dean for clinical affairs at the Yale School of Medicine, said the agreement signed Thursday should make exchanging scientists and the countries much simpler.
Leffell said a “Tele-stroke” line, similar to the one established between Yale and hospitals in Connecticut, might also be a good way to link Yale-New Haven with UCL.
In the same vein, Richard D’Aquila, executive vice president of Yale-New Haven Hospital, said, “We’re going to collaborate on patient safety, to build systems that work.”
Dr. David Fish, managing director of UCL partners, said Yale-New Haven and UCL spent a year developing a relationship to address common problems. Perhaps British and American researchers working together will be able to come up with alternatives that neither group would have realized on its own, he said.
“We need to improve patient outcomes, and reach out into the community,” Fish said, just as Yale-New Haven Hospital does.
In a light moment, Yale and its British guests quibbled about an English company’s rankings of medical schools, which put Yale in third and UCL fourth.
“Perhaps we’ll ask for a recount,” one of the UCL executives said with a laugh.