Dunhill funding allows for additional students

Dunhill Medical Trust awarded funding of £200,000 in response to a proposal, led by Professor Alasdair MacLullich, which brings together four collaborating research groups with substantial commitments to ageing-related research. These are the ACRC Academy, the Ageing and Health Research Group, Acute Care Edinburgh, and the UK Dementia Research Institute at the University of Edinburgh. 

The funding will allow five students to embark upon 48-month PhD projects investigating a range of links among acute illness, delirium and cognitive decline in older age, opening the way to the future development of treatments. 

The new studentships are open for application by following this link. They are: 

• Understanding the association between prescribing, delirium and long-term cognitive decline: a health data study 

• Dissecting the genetic risk factors of delirium and identification of therapeutic targets 

• Sleep and delirium - towards a multicomponent intervention to improve sleep on acute medicine of elderly wards 

• Experience and outcomes of persistent delirium for individuals and family carers post discharge from acute hospital care 

• To understand and articulate the nature of the population who experience persistent delirium while in hospital with a particular focus on describing their level of baseline pre-morbid and admission functioning 

Professor Ian Underwood, Director of the ACRC Academy said “With this funding, the ACRC and partners will be able to explore an important, previously neglected, research theme. 

“This cohort of students will benefit from a coordinated, interdisciplinary approach fostered by the training programme and the collaborative links across the research groups.” 

The five students will join the University in autumn 2022. 

Initial discussions, leading to the funding, took place when members of the Dunhill Medical Trust attended the ACRC launch event in November 2021.