A new £50 million MRC centre led by the University of Manchester will investigate how environmental exposures contribute to chronic inflammatory conditions, aiming to uncover new prevention and treatment strategies
The University of Manchester is launching a new £50 million research centre to investigate how environmental exposures contribute to the development of chronic diseases. Backed by the Medical Research Council, the centre will bring together experts to explore how factors such as pollution and lifestyle influence conditions like arthritis, asthma, and inflammatory bowel disease.
Exploring the link between the environment and chronic diseases
Research studies have revealed the critical role that environmental exposure plays in our risk of developing chronic diseases, with 30,000 deaths attributed to air pollution alone in the UK each year.
To address this growing concern, a new research centre based at the Universities of Manchester and Oxford will support world-leading immunologists in understanding the totality of environmental factors to which we are exposed over our lifetimes, known as “the exposome”, and how these factors can alter our immune systems to cause chronic diseases.
Up to £50 million is to be invested in a Medical Research Council Centre of Research Excellence (MRC CoRE) in Exposome Immunology over the next 14 years.
These environmental exposures, including microbes and toxins, primarily interact with our bodies at what we call ‘mucosal barrier sites,’ such as the lungs and intestines. Here, they are met by our immune cells, and can alter how the immune system functions, leading to chronic inflammation in certain tissues and causing diseases such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD), and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
Embracing AI technology
The centre will utilise AI technology to analyse large datasets, such as the UK Biobank, patient cohorts, and long-term studies in hospital clinics, and identify common pathways by which environmental factors disrupt the immune system. Findings will be tested through laboratory studies and by exposing healthy volunteers to pollutants and common viral infections, leading to more accurate diagnoses, better prevention, and more effective treatment options.
Professor Judi Allen, from The University of Manchester, is Director of the MRC CoRE in Exposome Immunology.
She said: “Globally, we’re facing a crisis in chronic inflammatory diseases, such as asthma and inflammatory bowel disease. For decades, we’ve been studying how our genes make us susceptible to disease. While very valuable, genetics has only got us so far. We need to understand how our environment interacts with our genes to make our immune system malfunction.”
“We will benefit from advances in new technologies to identify which of the many complex factors may be important in driving disease, but what’s different about our new Centre is that we are going to define how these environmental factors alter the immune system and how that impacts inflammation. Changing environments, often made worse by socioeconomic disparities and rising pollution, appear to be increasing the rates of these diseases, making it even more imperative to find the causes.”
“We hope to later expand our research to include more environmental factors, such as mould and microplastics, which are growing concerns. An ultimate goal of this research would be to discover the underlying causes of these chronic diseases so we can develop better prevention and treatments.”
Professor Fiona Powrie, co-director of the MRC CoRE in Exposome Immunology, from the University of Oxford, said: “This is an exciting opportunity to bring together complementary expertise in the University of Manchester and the University of Oxford to build a multidisciplinary team to tackle this challenge. Our Centre will train a new generation of scientists working across biology and environmental science, future proofing our efforts to combat the health effects of a changing environment.”
Professor Patrick Chinnery, MRC Executive Chair, said: “This new MRC Centre of Research Excellence will transform our understanding of how lifelong environmental exposures shape immune health and cause chronic inflammatory diseases. With chronic inflammatory diseases posing such a large and growing disease burden, the new centre is well placed pave the way for more effective and targeted treatments.
“Alongside exceptional scientific leadership linking two world-leading centres, and strong partnerships with patients and digital health innovators, the scientists’ commitment to the next generation of researchers will embed UK leadership in this field, with long-term potential to deliver a transformative, global impact for health.”
