About Rare Diseases TRC & Cambridge Rare Disease Network
In a major national initiative, it’s our mission to harness the strength of the NHS as a whole and to make maximum use of the NIHR’s comprehensive resources to support research programmes in a wide range of such rare diseases – and in work ranging from patient identification and cohort building to ‘deep pheno-typing’. We’re doing that by bringing together diverse centres of excellence with the facilities and expertise to lead programmes of research into rare diseases. Broadly speaking, the RD-TRC’s aim is to translate the outcomes of that research into the development of new, more effective therapies and real-life patient benefits. More specifically, our high-level aims are to:
– Harness and further develop the existing NHS research infrastructure to support patient-centred research into rare diseases.
– Facilitate tangible, rapid and efficient collaboration between NIHR-funded research infrastructure, clinical researchers, NHS organisations, other research funders and life science companies.
– Increase the volume of in depth pheno-typing and link this to data on genomic abnormalities to provide greater understanding of the mechanisms underlying rare diseases.
– Promote and enhance the nation’s reputation as a world-class centre for translational research.