The Radcliffe Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford is internationally acclaimed for its impactful research within the medical community, led by Professor Kieth Channon - who plays a key role in coordinating these advancements. The department covers a wide range of medical areas, including cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes and metabolism, immunology and haematology. 

 

Although it may seem that these fields are wholly different, an important part of leading the department is bridging various areas of medicine together to work towards a common goal of making crucial developments in research for a multitude of diseases. A particular challenge when it comes to running a department of such a scale, according to Professor Channon, is that ‘the department largely relies on external funding’. Of course, a portion of funding comes from the University of Oxford and the government (such as the MRC); however, charitable funders such as British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research Uk also play a crucial role in providing a budget large enough to accommodate the costly yet revolutionary research. 

 

During his years as head of the department, a particular development has not only been ‘building much greater cohesion and integration between scientists in different disciplines,’ but also ‘in different technologies.’  A key example of such success is how scientists could use blood cells derived from the bone marrow; which is important not only to haematology (study and treatment of blood disease) but also to our comprehension of many other medical disorders such as obesity and diabetes. This collaboration between sectors is paramount to the flourishing of the department, and Professor Channon’s role involves a challenging amount of coordination.

 

In the future, some key scientific questions Professor Channon hopes to see further progress in answering, are on how cell and gene therapy could be used to treat a wider array of diseases. The use of gene technology to correct gene abnormalities in the area affected by the disease has a lot of potential, perhaps to even treat cancer. In addition, he suggested that looking at the effects ageing has on your body’s cell division could also be utilised in order to further our understanding of how mutations in cells can lead to the rapid development of a tumour, which can aid us in not only increasing our understanding of a certain disease but also finding new ways to effectively treat it. The Radcliffe Department of Medicine plays a role globally in furthering scientific research in order to answer a multitude of similarly pivotal questions; and will continue to do so in the future.