Norwich will be the home of a new state-of-the-art health unit into the study of gastrointestinal infections, thanks to a £1.8m funding boost for the University of East Anglia (UEA) and a further £1m for the Quadram Institute Bioscience (QIB).

The award is part of an £80m nationwide research funding programme from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) to protect the public from health threats. This includes research into long-term threats – such as antimicrobial resistance and climate change – and acute or emerging threats, such as pandemics and chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear incidents.

This new unit is a partnership between UEA, the UK Health Security Agency, The Quadram Institute and Newcastle University, with UEA as the lead institution. The total sum awarded is £5.5m.

The unit will carry out research aimed at reducing the burden of gastrointestinal infections (tummy bugs) on public health by working to improve diagnosis of and prevention of such infections. A key responsibility of the unit will be to strengthen the UK’s readiness for a future pandemic that could be due to a gastrointestinal infection.

£77m of the funding will go towards 13 NIHR Health Protection Research Units (HPRUs) across the country, which will be partnerships between UK universities and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and form a key research element of the national health security infrastructure.

By delivering high-quality collaborative research, the HPRUs support UKHSA in its objective to protect the health of the public, enabling it to prepare for and respond to major or emerging health protection incidents, as well as building an evidence base for health protection policy and practice.

The aims of the HPRUs are to:

• create an environment where world class health protection research, focused on the needs of the public, can thrive.
• focus on priority areas which will have the greatest impact on public health protection.
• provide high quality research evidence to inform decision-making by public health professionals, policy makers, those involved in operational delivery and service users.
• enable translation of advances in health protection research into benefits for patients, service users and the public.
• increase capacity and capability to conduct high quality, multi-disciplinary health protection research and facilitate knowledge exchange and expertise across universities and UKHSA.
• provide a flexible staff capacity in the event of a major health protection incident and retain a level of responsive research capacity to address emerging health protection research requirements.
• contribute to addressing health inequalities through an increasing focus on underserved communities including relevant interventions, improving health outcomes in the health and care sector and for broader economic gain.

The HPRUs have been funded since 2014, and have previously supported the health response to major domestic and global emergencies including the Salisbury Novichok poisonings, West Africa Ebola outbreak, COVID-19, and the 2022 and 2024 mpox outbreaks.

Professor Paul Hunter, director designate of the new unit said “Gastrointestinal infections cause an estimated 17 million cases in the UK each year. Most commonly they cause diarrhoea and vomiting but can be much more serious and can even be life threatening.

“The estimated cost to the British economy of food-borne gastrointestinal infections is estimated at about £9 billion pounds annually. Our research will help protect people against these infections and so improve public health and the British economy.”

Prof Martin Warren, Interim Director of QIB, said: “In line with QIB’s mission to deliver healthier lives through innovation in gut health, microbiology and food, we are delighted to be part of this NIHR grant, which will drive innovative research to combat gut infections.

“Through strengthened diagnostics, outbreak detection, prevention strategies, and pandemic preparedness, this project demonstrates how the research happening across the Norwich Research Park aims to protect public health and foster future leaders in health protection.”

Researchers from QIB working in the HPRU, led by Prof. Arjan Narbad and Prof. Alison Mather, will monitor the changes in structure and function of the gut microbiome during infection processes and application of advanced metagenomics sequencing for rapid diagnosis of gut pathogens. This will contribute to improvement in the speed of diagnosis of gastrointestinal infection and also inform clinicians to prescribe the correct antibiotic to make treatment more effective.

Metagenomic sequencing will also be used to investigate the presence of neglected or previously unrecognised gastrointestinal pathogens, which will not only contribute to improved diagnostics for gastrointestinal infections but also shed insight into the public health significance of potential pathogens in foods.

Newcastle brings some of the UK’s leading gastrointestinal focused epidemiologists and epidemic modellers to the partnership. Dr Marie McIntyre from Newcastle University will lead the ‘Improving the evidence base for prevention of gastrointestinal infections’ theme within the HPRU, though Newcastle researchers will also work across other unit themes.

Dr McIntyre said: “We are delighted to have been part of this award, and excited to strengthen the food-focused partnerships that we already have with UEA and the Norwich Biosciences Institutes researchers including at the Quadram Institute, as well as begin the new partnership with the UK Health Security Agency.

“With our long history of food-related research at Newcastle, focus on systems-perspectives to food and strong biological modelling skill sets we are focused on providing policy-appropriate ‘living’ evidence collation and synthesis, and risk assessment tools and mechanisms to help keep the UK’s food supplies safe.”

Minister for Public Health and Prevention Andrew Gwynne said: “This vital research funding will help ensure that the government’s readiness to respond to these health threats is fit for the future.

“From pandemic preparedness and antimicrobial resistance to air pollution and climate change, these research units will look at long-term and emerging health threats – bolstering the nation’s health security research infrastructure.

“One of the three core shifts in our 10-Year Health Plan is from treatment to prevention, and protecting public health is essential to this.”