University of Liverpool

<p><strong>Overview</strong></p>
<p>For advancement of learning and ennoblement of life - This has been our mission since the University was founded in 1881. To this day, these values focus our efforts as we strive to achieve our ambitions and tackle the grand challenges of the age.</p>
<p><strong>Research</strong></p>
<p>Research is the key to solving our world’s greatest challenges. It can make a positive difference – to individuals, industries, economies and entire countries. It can change the world.</p>
<p>We are committed to driving research excellence and innovation on a global scale. With 81% of our research ranked ‘world-leading’ and ‘internationally excellent’ in the latest Research Excellence Framework (REF), we are addressing some of the world’s toughest challenges.</p>
<p>We have gained recognition for international research excellence in personalised health, advanced materials, and infectious disease. Our strength lies in bringing together academics from across all our faculties to produce research that is globally relevant, as evident in our digital research, an emerging area of strength.</p>
<p><strong>Industry Partnerships</strong></p>
<p>The University of Liverpool is in a strong position to develop innovative solutions and approaches to tackle many of today’s complex social, economic and environmental challenges, for business, industry and even world economies.</p>
<p>Exchanging knowledge and expertise are an integral part of the University and accelerate the utilisation of our research achievements, which are at the forefront of scientific development worldwide.</p>
<p>Importantly, our research is enhanced through partnerships we have with a wide-range of private, public, and third-sector organisations. These partnerships are a key way of translating our groundbreaking research to real situations, while helping organisations to accelerate innovation and economic growth.</p>
<p>By facilitating access to our expertise, facilities and networks, we offer the means to transform ideas into creative solutions, improved performance, new technologies, strategies, applications, products or skills.</p>


<h1 id="background">Background</h1>
<p>When managing patients with advanced cancer, it is often difficult to distinguish a patient who is deteriorating and dying from a patient whose deterioration is reversible. There is significant clinical uncertainty. Failing to recognise the dying phase negatively impacts the patient’s care. Approximately half a million people die in the UK every year, over half die in hospital. Early recognition that a person may be dying enables an individual care plan to be developed, appropriate discussions with the patient and families to take place, treatment decisions to be made and the needs of the family to be considered. It underpins all the priorities for improving people’s experience of care in the last days and hours of life. There are no objective tests recognising when people are dying and no prognostic tools that predict within the last 2 weeks of life. A test for the dying process would change clinical practice for the better.</p>
<h1 id="technology-overview">Technology Overview</h1>
<p>University of Liverpool researchers have identified a panel of biomarkers by GC-MS (volatile organic compounds) and LC-MS that can be used to identify the different stages of dying in the last four weeks of a patient’s life. </p>
<p>This panel of biomarkers could form the basis of a point of care predictive test to help develop a personalised treatment plan for patients ensuring that the last weeks of life are comfortable, their symptoms are appropriately managed and any futile interventions are avoided. </p>
<h3 id="stage-of-development">Stage of development</h3>
<p>Early stage project: </p>
<ul>
<li>A panel of biomarkers has been identified that predict the phases of dying in the last four weeks of life measured by GC-MS and LC-MS in urine and blood samples. </li>
<li>Further development is ongoing to convert the testing into an assay format that can be routinely carried out cost-effectively in a clinical setting.</li>
</ul>
<h1 id="applications">Applications</h1>
<p>Improving the outcomes and quality of care, alongside enabling choice and better experience for patients/families at the end of life is a national priority. A test that recognises the dying process will impact; emergency admissions to hospital; decrease futile interventions and investigations; facilitate more people to be cared for and die in the community, where the costs are significantly reduced.</p>
<h1 id="opportunity">Opportunity</h1>
<p>Seeking partners to develop this technology for diagnostic use. </p>
<p>A patent is currently being prepared.</p>
