Pears Cumbria School of Medicine Research Hub
Co-directors
Professor Sophie Day & Professor Jonathan Weber
Brief description
What we do
The PCSM Research Hub promotes, supports and funds health research at the University of Cumbria and the Pears Cumbria School of Medicine (PCSM), in partnership with Imperial College London and the NHS in Cumbria, particularly North Cumbria Integrated Care Trust (NCIC), University Hospitals Morecombe Bay Trust (UHMB) and primary care.
Over the next three years, 2025-2028 we shall support NMAHP and health-related MRes degrees, predoctoral fellowships and PhD studentships at the University of Cumbria, as well as pump-priming funding for up to eight collaborative research projects with Principal Investigators drawn from both the University of Cumbria and from our NHS partners.
Our expertise
Prof Sophie Day (BA, MA, PhD) is an anthropologist of health with expertise in personalised medicine, infectious disease (e.g. HIV and other sexually transmitted infections), public involvement in translational research and social understandings of health. She is a former Head of Department of Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London and co-founder of the Imperial NIHR BRC-funded Patient Experience Research Centre (PERC) in the School of Public Health, Imperial College London .
Prof Jonathan Weber (CBE, BA, BChir, PhD, FRCP, FRCPath, FMedSci) is a consultant physician and infectious diseases clinician scientist and former Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial. His own research on HIV/AIDS and HTLV-I spans retrovirology, antiretroviral drug development, HIV vaccine development, national and international clinical trials leadership. He is also a non-Executive Director at North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust (NCIC)
Our recent projects
Sophie Day: 1) ‘People Like You’: Contemporary Figures of Personalization (Wellcome Trust 2018 – 2022); 2) Household Life in Ladakh, North India 1981-2021.
Jonathan Weber: “PrEPVAcc” A randomised, blinded, adaptive, placebo-controlled clinical trial of two novel HIV vaccine regimes combined with Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis” in 4 African countries – (EDCTP £20m; 2017-2025).
Our recent publications
- Day S. (2021) Rendering Houses in Ladakh. Milton: Taylor & Francis Group. (ISBN 9781350100114)
- Day S, Lury C, Ward H eds. (with co-authored Introduction) (Day, S., Lury, C. and Ward, H. (2023) ‘Introduction. Political arithmetic: old and new’, Distinktion (Aarhus), 24(2), pp. 157–166. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/1600910X.2023.2243658.
- Day S, Lury C, Ward, H. (2023) Personalization: a new political arithmetic? Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory (online first). https://doi.org/10.1080/1600910X.2022.2098352.
- Day S, Gleason K, Lury C, et al. (2022) ‘In the picture’: perspectives on living and working with cancer. Medical Humanities, doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2022-012392.
- Horvath A, Rogers L, Pollakis G, Baranov O, Pieroth N, Joseph S, Chachage M, Heitzer A, Maganga L, Msafiri F, Joachim A, Viegas E, Eller LA, Kibuuka H, Rerks-Ngarm S, Pitisuttithum P, Nitayapan S, Dhitavat J, Premsri N, Fidler S, Shattock RJ, Robb ML, Weber J, McCormack S, Munseri PJ, Lyamuya E, Nilsson C, Kroidl A, Hoelscher M, Wagner R, Geldmacher C and Held K. (2023) ‘Systematic comparison of HIV-1 Envelope-specific IgG responses induced by different vaccination regimens: Can we steer IgG recognition towards regions of viral vulnerability?’, Frontiers in immunology, 13, pp. 1075606–1075606. https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2022.1075606.
- day@cumbria.ac.uk; s.day@imperial.ac.uk
- Gombe B, Streatfield C, Leal L, Opio S, Joseph S, Weber J, Hare J, Kaleebu P and Serwanga J. Ben (2022) ‘Optimization and validation of an ELISA assay for the determination of antibody responses to CN54gp140 and AIDSVAX BE for use in the Phase IIb PrEPVacc vaccine trial’, PloS one, 17(11). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0275927.
- Granger LA, Hettner I, Debeljak F, Kaleebu P, Schechter M, Tambussi G, Weber J, Miro JM, Phillips R, Babiker A, Cooper DA, Fisher M, Ramjee G, Fidler S, Frater J, Fox J, Doores KJ. (2021) Broadly neutralizing antibody responses in the longitudinal primary HIV-1 infection SPARTAC cohort. AIDS. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1097/qad.0000000000002988. PMID: 34127581
- Pelchen-Matthews A, Borges ÁH, Reekie J, Rasmussen LD, Wiese L, Weber J, Pradier C, Degen O, Paredes R, Tau L, Flamholc L, Gottfredsson M, Kowalska J, Jablonowska E, Mozer-Lisewska I, Radoi R, Vasylyev M, Kuznetsova A, Begovac J, Svedhem V, Clark A, Cozzi-Lepri A, (2021) EuroSIDA study. Prevalence and Outcomes for Heavily Treatment-Experienced (HTE) Individuals Living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus in a European Cohort. JAIDS Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes 87(2): p806-817. https://doi.org/10.1097/QAI.0000000000002635.
- Levy Y, Lacabaratz C, Ellefsen-Lavoie K , Stohr W , Lelièvre JD, Bart PA , Launay O, Weber J, Salzberger B, Wiedemann A, Surenaud M, Koelle DM, Wolf H, Wagner R, Rieux V, MontefioriI DC, Yates NL, Tomaras GD, Gottardo R, Mayer B, Ding S, Thie´baut R, McCormack S, Chêne G, Pantaleo G. (2020) Optimal priming of poxvirus vector (NYVAC)-based HIV vaccine regimens for T cell responses requires three DNA injections. Results of the randomized multicentre EV03/ANRS VAC20 Phase I/II Trial. PLoS Pathogens 2020; 16(6):24 pages. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1008522.
Visit our webpage : https://cumbriamed.ac.uk/
Contacts
PSCM Research Hub manager at pcsmresearchhub@cumbria.ac.uk (to be established Q1 2025)