Britain’s University of Bradford is set to launch a programme that will fund skin microbiome research projects.
The UK government-funded Skin Microbiome in Healthy Ageing (SMiHA) project, part of the university’s Centre for Skin Sciences, will oversee the fund.
The funding programme will have an open brief, a competitive bidding process and is designed to leverage larger funded projects in the future.
The organisers hope the new programme will attract ‘matched funding’ from the industry.
The fund will also be used to facilitate researcher exchanges.
For example, businesses can host an academic with skin microbiome expertise to help with a business-related project.
Professor Julie Thornton (pictured), academic director of the Centre for Skin Sciences, said: “As the only network focused on skin, SMiHA aims to discover more about the role of the microbiota that live on our body and how this community of microorganisms contribute to health and wellbeing, especially in older people.
“Areas of innovation that were raised as priority included women's health and to understand the impact of the menopause in skin, as well as in intimate health; acne and wound care strategies, working with the microbiome as opposed to conventional anti-microbial approaches, and the need to develop laboratory models to explore innovative approaches to managing skin health via targeting the microbiome.”
The University of Bradford works with an extensive portfolio of companies in skin research - including Aveda/Estée Lauder, BASF and Johnson & Johnson - and its research outputs formed part of the recent Research Excellence Framework 2021 published last month.
