Advances in healthcare mean that people are living longer,
and as we age, people are often prescribed an increasing number of medicines to
prevent and manage disease. This increase in the number of medicines can lead
to an increased risk of medication-related side effects. It is therefore
important to develop robust approaches to identify medicines that are no longer
needed or may contribute to drug-related harms and that can be safely stopped or
removed from prescription.
The research funded under this award will utilise the large
amount of information already collected as part of routine healthcare, such as
GP and hospital visits. New methods from pharmacoepidemiology will be used to
analyse these datasets and improve our understanding of over-the-counter
prescribing practices. As the focus of healthcare shifts towards more
personalised medicine and patient-centred approaches, research in this area
will inform the decisions of patients and healthcare professionals and support
optimal treatment. Ultimately, this will help people age better with the right
medicines for them.
Furthermore, as part of the project known as DIAMOND
(Developing Innovative Analytical Methods for research ON Deprescribing), a tool
will be developed to identify patients who are most at risk of side effects
from antidepressant medicines. Given that people can react very differently to
these medicines, this tool will help support the monitoring and review of
antidepressants to promote the best outcomes for patients with mental health
problems.
Commenting on the announcement, Dr Moriarty said: "The
support from this award will enable me to build a team that will pave the way
for high quality OTC prescribing research and clinical practice. The evidence
we hope to generate through innovative, data-driven approaches will improve the
quality of healthcare to benefit public health. We are incorporating open
science into this project by sharing our methods and tools for other
researchers to use in future studies and maximise our impact."
The grant award will run for 8 years, starting next year. In
addition to supporting research endeavours and access to datasets, it will also
facilitate the recruitment, training and development of new researchers.
Professor Fergal O'Brien, RCSI Vice-Chancellor for Research
and Innovation, said: "I congratulate Dr Moriarty on this prestigious
funding and thank Wellcome's support for giving RCSI our first Career
Development Award. This is an important milestone that demonstrates our
commitment to advancing cutting-edge research and encouraging talented
scientists."
"I look forward
to seeing how this project will apply big data to a field where it has exciting
potential not only to improve medical practice, but also to positively impact
patients' lives."
Wellcome Career Development Awards are highly competitive
grants that support the career progression of mid-career researchers in
biomedical sciences, health and related fields. This award further enriches the
RCSI research environment, demonstrating the university's continued commitment
to excellence in scientific discovery and complementing previous successes in
other Wellcome grant programmes. RCSI will collaborate on this project with
researchers from University College Cork, University College London, Queen's
University Belfast, University of British Columbia and Complutense University
of Madrid. Dr Sophie Hawkesworth, Senior Research Manager for Discovery
Research at Wellcome, said: "I am delighted that Wellcome is supporting
this exciting award in such an important area of research. Our Discovery
Research programmes are designed to enable a wide range of research questions
that have the potential to transform our understanding of health and
disease. This award is a great example
of the research we aim to support that will bring new knowledge and new research
tools to a really important and understudied area. I will follow the progress
of the project with interest."