Queen Square Clinical Research Facility opens

The facility will support translational research and early intervention studies in Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Prion disease and stroke. 

The facility will operate 24 hours a day accommodating healthy volunteers and patients. It has three inpatient rooms and an infusion suite with three recliner chairs and has been designed to provide close monitoring in a comfortable environment. It also houses a consulting room and a laboratory for processing and storage of research samples. The facility is located on the ground floor of the Albany Wing at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, giving immediate access to the Intensive Care Unit and a 24 hour emergency response team who can arrive within two minutes of an emergency. 

Edwina Saunders, Senior Research Nurse, said: "Immediate access ensures that patient safety is at the core of running successful clinical trials with safe drug administration and highly efficient monitoring and management of emerging clinical abnormalities and/or adverse reactions".

It brings together the expertise of UCLH's and UCL's leading clinicians and scientists across a broad range of neurological and neurodegenerative diseases with renowned international collaborators and industry partners.

Dr Vincenzo Libri, Head of the Leonard Wolfson Experimental Neurology Centre, said: "We have exciting years ahead of us. Our mission is to provide world class clinical and governance expertise and infrastructure to expedite translational research and the early evaluation of novel treatments for neurodegenerative diseases."

The £20m Leonard Wolfson Experimental Neurology Centre is a partnership between the UCL Institute of Neurology and the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery dedicated to carrying out first-in-human studies. The centre was funded by an award from the Wolfson Foundation to UCL, the largest single award ever made by the Foundation and one of the largest philanthropic donations in UCL's history.