Working to close the growing health gap

The answer lies in the sleek, glass-fronted Wolfson Institute which has opened on the banks of the Tees at Stockton.

Part of the impressive and ever-expanding Stockton campus of Durham University, the new £10m centre is set to play an increasing role in cutting-edge research.

A preview hosted by Durham University last week showcased some of the star attractions which are coming the North-East's way as part of a major push to regenerate a once derelict part of the region.

While environmental issues such as dealing with decontaminated post-industrial land will also be studied within the Wolfson Institute, the emphasis is very much on health.

Professor David Hunter, a well-known and sometimes outspoken commentator on the health scene, heads the newly-formed Centre for Clinical Management Development at the Wolfson.

An important object of the centre is to try to identify which Government policies have a realistic chance of reducing the health gap between the generally affluent South and the relatively deprived North.

"We are interested in how you go about tackling the growing health gap. It is widening in the UK at a faster rate than in many other countries," says Prof Hunter.

"We are not so good in putting in policy which narrows that health gap. We want to identify what works. How we can best use the resources we have got?"

One of the first major research projects tackled by the centre is the so-called "tribalism" which exists in the health service, which Prof Hunter believes could be a serious obstacle to the Government's plan to modernise working practices within the NHS.

"I am interested in the modernisation agenda of the NHS. If it is going to work it has got to change the culture of those working in the health service. It not just the extra money that is coming in, but the way it is used," says Prof Hunter.

The Northern and Yorkshire regional office of the NHS Executive is investing £5.3m in Prof Hunter's new research over the next three years.

Researchers will study health care professionals working within hospitals and primary care at five sites, three in the North-East and two in Yorkshire.

"We will be working with them to try to understand the cultures in these organisations, how doctors, nurses and managers perceive their role in the system and how they might work more collaboratively," says Prof Hunter.

Persuading health staff to work differently, to work more collaboratively is the key to whether modernisation is possible, the professor believes.

Another first for the Stockton campus is the new Centre for Infectious Disease.

Dr Gary Sharples, lecturer in infectious disease, says the first major research project is to investigate how new infectious diseases arise by studying the genetic interaction between viruses that infect bacteria.

It is believed that the mechanism which allows viruses to swap around their genes while infecting bacteria could lead to the evolution of new and potentially dangerous diseases.

"Like humans, bacteria get viruses which affect them. Those viruses can carry genes from one bacteria to another and they can convert something that is benign into something potentially pathogenic," says Dr Sharples.

Other projects will include studies of the evolution of bacteria causing stomach ulcers and meningitis.

As the department grows, the plan is to study the molecular mechanisms of disease in a wide variety of micro- organism.

It is hoped that researchers in infectious disease at the Wolfson Institute will forge links with local hospitals and public health laboratories.

One of the most impressively-named new research organisations at the new centre is the Cognitive Neuroscience Research Unit.

Staffed by members of the Department of Psychology, the CNRU team will be trying to shed light on the ways that we see, interpret and understand the outside world.

The work includes laboratory studies of how we use visual information to guide our movements and also how we store and retrieve memories.

In trying to understand these psychological processes, the researchers test not only healthy people but also people whose brains have been damaged as a result of strokes or other brain diseases.

The results help researchers understand the normal brain and what can go wrong with it as a result of damage.

One way of investigating the brain's role is through using a brain scanner to see how different brain areas take part in particular mental activities.

Professor David Milner, who heads the cognitive unit, said one of the most interesting areas is "spatial neglect", often the after-effects of stroke where brain damage has interfered with normal colour vision.

"We are also looking at the way children use memory during their school work and to recall autobiographical details," he adds.

A number of Teesside schools are helping the research team with their work